I wonder if there is apprenticeships anymore? When I started out in the printing world, I served a three year apprenticeship in the composition department of Donnelly Printing Company. That is where I learn the trade of setting type and composition. Over the years, I served three more apprenticeships and 4 advanced crafts. I was a pioneer in the “cold type” composition which we now know as electronic printing. In the late 60s we started using computers to set the type for commercial printing. We now had to learn programming to be a printer. Not only was the composition department changing but also the presses and the binary lines were all becoming computerized. I was so excited with learning all this new technology. I was involved in installing the first “earth station” at Donnelly where we were able to transmit digital files by satellite to the west cost and back. Now we take all this technology for granted not thinking how it ever started. We have the internet which transmits file all over the world almost instantly and newspapers and magazine can now be read “online”. I lived a good and exciting life with some many changes. It appears my life is still going through major changes. I just like to tell my kids how it used to be and most times they just roll their eyes because they dont realized someone needed to make those changes.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 14:10:49 +0000