GKM Managers and Supervisors
Tim Cassidy
Sales Manager
Business Forms Basic Certificate
In many ways, I started in the printing business over 30 years ago. After 4 years of managing an electronic store and assisting in weekly newspaper advertising layouts, I gathered enough courage, applied and was hired at a local Bay Area newspaper. My “territory” wasn’t the greatest, but I was on fire and the ink was running in my veins.
All it took was a summer vacation in the foothills to change my life. I applied for and accepted a job with the Auburn Journal, my goal was to establish and develop advertising /marketing relations with the Automotive Dealerships. At the time there were about 10 dealers in the area, and only one was advertising. By listening and assessing their needs, then proposing a few campaigns, guess what…the paper was able to re-kindle their business relationship and both parties benefited.
Working in the industry for some of the most exciting and rewarding years, I saw the newspaper advertising switching to Direct Mail and the decline in circulation moving to electronic news, it was time for me to change gears. I was fortunate to have built relationships along the way by attending numerous advertising, marketing and printing courses. In 2005, I started working for a commercial printer in Northern California. I was thriving on new printing techniques, what else was out in the printing world? I heard through the grapevine that GKM had a printing opportunity and was seeking a sales manager with my credentials. Knowing GKM’s reputation, capabilities and high standards for customer relations and business development, I jumped at the opportunity of a lifetime and was fortunately hired.
I am excited with the many new opportunities GKM has to offer its customers. My commitment to each customer is that I’ll be working smarter and harder to continue ensuring our services meet your high standards, and to further build on your trust with our winning business relationship.
Cynthia Nored
Office Manager
Business Forms Basic Certificate, Mailpiece Control Program
My career in the printing industry began 14 years ago, in February of 1995 as the receptionist at GKM. Over the next few years I learned the ins and outs of how business forms are manufactured and was soon promoted to the customer service department where I managed several of our accounts. After many years of continuously maintaining good customer relations and working close with the production department I was promoted to Office Manager in May of 2003. In addition to handling my responsibilities as Office Manager, I was also able to be involved in getting our new Mail Center division into full production. Today I serve as the Office Manager and oversee the Mail Center making sure our day-to-day operations and deadlines are met with the highest quality.
The most important part of my job is to make sure our clients receive exceptional customer care and are satisfied with the level of service, products, and quality they receive from GKM. We know that it is our responsibility to go above and beyond, because as a customer you have chosen to do business with GKM.
Kim Lombardi, CDC
Art Director/Prepress Supervisor
I started with GKM the same day the GKM art department was born. I was the first artist hired by this plant, and they'll probably drag me out feet first before I'm done. Having been here from the beginning, along with everyone else with any length of time in the business, we've seen a tremendous amount of change over the years. I'll date myself by admitting that when I started setting type you could have 16 fonts on line at one time! I've gone from paste-up and ruby to more fonts and file formats than I can count. Our evolution has been and will continue to be fun, challenging and often frustrating, but it's never boring and most often rewarding.
The art department and prepress, like all departments of GKM, is a cohesive and supportive team. I am fortunate to lead a group of people who have worked together for many years, developing strong relationships both professionally and personally along the way. Their knowledge and dedication enable me to focus on the coordination of workflow for the seemingly endless combination of client specifications and requests, file types and final print parameters. Did I mention that I'm never bored?
An early mentor taught me that printed materials are tools. They are used to gather and convey information, to catch and hold your attention, to draw you in, to move you forward. And that sums up what we do every day.
Shawn Matekel
Production Manager
With more than 25 years of experience with GKM I have worked my way up to production manager with a hands on, competitive and personable style. With my first opportunity to move from stock handler to collator operator in 1984, the challenge was on. My competitive personality led me to challenge my co-operator to raise his game as well as the press operators. I now use my aggressive and competitive nature to test and lead the production staff to meet time sensitive production goals while maintaining quality and safety and reducing waste as part of the competition with ourselves. When you challenge yourself it makes you better and I am proud of our entire production team, we are winners and our competition knows it. The competition is also learning that they need to go green as well so we have taken an aggressive and competitive approach here as well. No more solvent based inks, no more solvent based glues, no more alcohol in fountain solutions. With the introduction of ultra violet and soy based inks along with non-alcohol fountain solution this is a challenge we have met head on despite some very complicated learning curves. Our production team knew we needed to be insistent and optimistic in our approach to have any success.
Are we Green? Yes we are and our competition knows it!
I like to set the pace. To meet the challenge. What's next?
Todd Sowers
Production Supervisor
Business Forms Basic Certificate
I have been with GKM Corporation for 25 years. I started in the original print shop located in Auburn in 1984 at an entry level position. We soon grew out of our small shop and into GKM Corporation located in Colfax. It was at this time, that I was promoted to a pressman. I was crossed trained to operate all the presses and continued for many years. As time went on, the need for a new collator operator and purchasing agent arose. I was excited to take this opportunity to learn a new skill and continue to move up within the company. It didn’t take long before I began fixing the machines as well as running them. This along with my successful completion of a course in business forms basics has lead to my current position as production supervisor.
The company has taken on many changes over the years. One of our biggest challenges in the production department has been our commitment to going green. We have changed our inks from petrochemical to soy based. We have also changed our solvents to a new environmentally friendly solution. This along with our process improvement program (PIP) has lead us into the future. It is our constant commitment to search for new and improved ways to increase production, as well take care of our environment. This is what puts us a cut above the competition.
Another continuing commitment is to provide the best quality products in the Industry. We are always looking for new and improved ways to serve our customers as well as our staff. Although our company has grown quite a bit throughout the years, it still maintains it's commitment to everybody involved. Whether you are a customer or an employee, you can rest assured that your voice will be heard.
Terry Olson
Purchasing Manager
I have worked for GKM for nearly thirty years, my career in the Printing Industry started in the stockroom as swing shift stock handler. I eventually worked my way up to running the snap and continuous collator. A few years later I moved to the Rotary Presses and would eventually move to the Hamada Sheet press. I did not know along the way but the Sheet division of GKM would become my passion for the next ten plus years. I was then promoted to the Sheet and Bindery Supervisor. After more than a decade of these duties I was given the responsibility of Purchasing Manager. This has enabled me to use my years of experience in the industry to work closely with our vendors. This keeps our prices as low as possible so that we are able to pass this along to our customers. We partner only with top notch vendors that supply us with quality products at the best market prices. Our customers can be confident that the products that we supply are of the highest quality and the best possible price.
John Walker
Quality Control Specialist
Business Forms Basic Certificate
I started with GKM Corporation in 1987 as a stock handler right after the company moved from Auburn to its Colfax location. I held this position for almost 2 years. I was trained on and ran the rotary press for about 9 months.
In the early 90’s, our entire sheet division moved from Union City to Colfax. I had the opportunity to be one of the first employees of GKM to be a part of the sheet division in the Colfax plant. At this time Carolyn Dunn was the sheet shop manager. She told me something that has stayed with me over the years at GKM, "When you are on the press having a trying day remember, if you can get one job done in that whole day and the quality is superb then you’ve achieved your goal." Now I'm not saying that we only get one job done every day, but quality has been and still is one of GKM’s top priorities.
The sheet division moved and stayed in Meadow Vista for over 10 years where I continued to run the sheet press. I was promoted to lead press operator which also included ordering materials for the plant and overseeing the department when the production manager was out of the office. I continued to stress to my peers that producing the highest quality work on a daily basis was our main goal.
Around 2001/2002 the plant consolidated all of the departments to its new facility in Colfax. In 2007 I was promoted to the digital department supervisor. During this time, it was my main priority to produce excellent quality work. Currently, I am a part of the production team serving as Quality Control Specialist. GKM works hard every day to satisfy customer’s demands for quality. We have a positive and dynamic production team constantly looking for new ways to streamline our systems where the customer always gets top quality products for their money.