December in Rapid City, South Dakota, doesn’t seem like an ideal destination, especially for those of us who live in warmer climes. But a number of us braved the cold temperatures for an opportunity to spend a day with Kodak and Fenske Media.

It is always a pleasure to visit printing companies that are innovative and growing, and Fenske Media fits the bill. The 90,000-square-foot Fenske facility is located atop a hill with a fabulous view. You can even catch a glimpse of George Washington at Mount Rushmore from a telescope in the lobby.

According to Dave Fenske, the company signed the contracts to build this relatively new facility and acquire new equipment the day before 9/11. Despite the unfortunate timing, the company built an impressive operation and today employs 50 people who rotate through a 4 day (and night) production work week of 9-hour shifts; about 20% of them are IT-oriented.

According to Dave Fenske, the company has migrated from a traditional printer to a variable data printer to today’s model, a variable communications printer. His father, Paul Fenske, founded the company as Printing Incorporated in 1957, a letterpress operation, with a $4,000 investment. After moving into offset printing in the 1970s, the company continued to evolve, adding CTP, toner-based digital printing, and most recently, a Kodak Prosper 5000 XL production inkjet press. Dave remembers, “During the Carter years, we produced a real estate book for Rapid City. There were 300 real estate agents in town and we produced the book every Thursday. Indices listed properties by ascending and descending price and by street, and had to be compiled on a mainframe computer. It took 12 hours for us to get a printout on greenbar that we could keyline and take a picture of for the index. That began our data journey.”

Fenske actually got into variable data in the early 1980s. A small Midwestern bank set up a credit card operation in South Dakota. The bank had about one million credit card holders, and its customer acquisition process was primarily through a “take one” application that sat on top of cigarette machines, retail check-out counters, etc. Fenske proposed placing a unique identifier on the applications so when they were submitted, a source could be determined. Dave explains, “That allowed us to profile the neighborhood so future efforts could be better targeted and improved relationships with customers could be developed. Applications were printed on a 40” sheet, cut into segments, and identifiers applied using an inkjet head that was used in canning companies. We had to go all the way to Chicago to find a programmer, and the application we used was DOS 286 based on a floppy disk, hooked up to a Stahl folder running a glue line. That was our first eye-opening experience with how we could combine information with print to make a profitable business opportunity for us.”

Today’s model is what the company refers to as Planet Fenco, 360-degree solutions centered around data driven communications solutions. In addition to its Kodak Prosper, Fenske has a Kodak Versamark VL2200, a Kodak NexPress, an 8-color Heidelberg Speedmaster offset press, along with a robust selection of finishing and mailing equipment, and an on-site post office. Ninety-eight percent of the company’s work comes from outside the State of South Dakota.

Dave also gave his father credit for being a visionary, saying, “Dad knew that information was the currency of the future and he really drove our transformation.”

Tom Fenske discussed why it is important to have on-site IT resources. He said, “Our customers’ data is a huge resource for them; it is their whole business. We protect that resource with all the safeguards and controls we have in place. Also, if you are waiting for an outside resource to do a handoff of data or creative, it can be quite nerve-wracking. Most direct mail projects go from start to completion within 48 hours. We can control the project and ensure the deadline by having everything under one roof.”

Hiring IT resources required a different mental model at Fenske, though. Tom continues, “When we hired our first programmer, we had been in print production mode—paper, ink, fold, deliver. Here is a guy that sits at a computer all day with no visible output. We would ask, ‘Are we close?’ The answer would be, ‘Yeah, we are getting there.’ As people go into this, they have to have a plan and know that all of the bases are covered so they can execute. You have to have programmers, and designers that can accommodate the variable data requirements. Once you get the data in hand, you need to put everything together, print, finish and get the mail piece into people’s homes.”

The Fenskes seem to have less trouble hiring computer savvy employees than they do hiring traditional printing skills. Tom commented, “We have tried to hire people over the last 60 days with traditional skills in the bindery operation and could not even get an application.”

One new employee joined the company in December. He had been a programmer for Rockwell and has a Masters in Marketing. Tom says, “Programmers like this understand exactly what we are doing. They see Step 7 before I even talk about Step 3.”

Another programmer came to the company from Poland. Tom explains, “He took a one-way plane ride from Warsaw to New York City and started a tour of the U.S. by bus. He got a summer job in South Dakota and ended up getting married here. Meanwhile he was still programming for a company in Poland from midnight to 8 AM. After deciding he wanted to settle in Rapid City, he sat in our parking lot using our public WiFi and went through our web site. He created three landing pages in his car, printed them out and came to apply for a job. There are some truly fantastic young people out there.”

When asked what he sees as the major challenges for moving the business forward, Tom said, “If you look at the marketplace, adoption of cross-media communications by enterprises has been slow. There is concern about the ability to test a program’s effectiveness and get the right results. People are nervous that upper management will judge them if they try to do things differently, and with the economy, they are afraid to change. Uncertain minds always say no. The challenge is education as well as building relationships. It takes a while to build trust, and sales cycles are long. It can be six months to a couple of years to get the first order.”

Fenske Media is a terrific example of a company that has evolved ahead of the curve. Its operation is impressive and incorporates the latest technology. But even more importantly, the Fenske brothers understand the market and their customer needs. They are developing creative, innovative solutions that bring true value to their customers. They are still putting a great deal of ink and toner on paper, especially with the addition of the Prosper 5000 XL press. But they are blending that with a variety of other output options (including social media), with each campaign designed to specifically drive results customers are looking for. This is the future of our industry.

A big thank-you to Fenske Media for opening their doors to us, and to Kodak for hosting the event.