Cary Sherburne:  Hi, I'm Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com and I'm here with Vic Stalam, who is Senior Vice President of Marketing of Sales at X-Rite Pantone.  It’s nice to see you.

Vic Stalam:  Hi Cary.  How are you?

Cary Sherburne:  Good and you’ve been here a couple of months now and just wanted—I'm sure our audience would love to—you know you’ve been around the industry for a long time and our audience would love to know why you are excited about coming here and what drew you to this position.

Vic Stalam:  First thing Cary is I'm really excited to be at X-Rite and there are a quite a few reasons and one of the first ones is that I've been a customer of X-Rite and Pantone for about 10 years now and I happen to know their products really well and from a technology perspective they obviously have the best products, so that was one thing that appealed to me as a customer.  The second thing is from a brand perspective Pantone and X-Rite are known around the world and obviously with that comes a huge market share, so that was very attractive and when you look at the portfolio of products in the markets they sell it was just incredible, so those were the three things that really attracted me to X-Rite and that’s why I'm here and excited.

Cary Sherburne:  That’s great and the acquisition of Pantone by X-Rite happened about four years ago.  Right?

Vic Stalam:  Correct.

Cary Sherburne:  And so is one of your challenges or tasks or opportunities maybe to align the companies a little more closely because I think the market perception is they’re still pretty separate?

Vic Stalam:  Yeah and I think that probably is our single biggest opportunity in terms of for the two companies in terms of leveraging the Pantone brand and X-Rite.  You know Pantone obviously especially with brand owners, with designers resonates very well around the world.  X-Rite on the other hand is very strong in instruments, color software solutions and what we’re trying to do is bring the two together.  It’s really the art and the science of color coming together in terms of a solution, so that’s the journey we’re on, so we definitely you know.  For those of you who will get a chance to come to drupa and visit us you will see that journey in terms of us being able to show you how the art and science comes together.

Cary Sherburne:  And so maybe some more integration of the products and services, maybe some streamlining of the portfolios, that kind of thing.

Vic Stalam:  Absolutely.  One of the exciting things for X-Rite and Pantone this year is for the first time in the history of the company the portfolio products we’re going to be announcing at drupa is just incredible in every one of the segments whether it’s imaging, whether it’s print or whether it’s in commercial.  You know in terms of retail we have a portfolio of products, so what we’re trying to do is obviously take Pantone and embed that into each one of our solutions.  So from a holistic perspective our customers get the opportunity to look at the whole portfolio, not just Pantone or not just X-Rite, but together what we bring.

Cary Sherburne:  Together, that’s great and every year Pantone specifies the color of the year.  This year it’s tangerine tango.  Did I get that right?

Vic Stalam:  Absolutely.

Cary Sherburne:  And that’s right behind us.

Vic Stalam:  Absolutely.

Cary Sherburne:   So people can see what that is.

Vic Stalam:  In fact, one of the nice things about Pantone is we just not only provide standards, but we also help some of our key customers in terms of predicting future colors, in terms of what plays well with their consumers and this year tangerine tango happens to be the color, absolutely.  We’re excited about it.

Cary Sherburne:  Yeah, you painted the whole wall that color.  That’s’ great.  The other thing that I think maybe a lot of our viewers might not realize is the different industries that you serve and the auto industry and the textile industry.  You’re in Home Depot and Lowes.  Maybe you could just briefly talk a little bit about that.

Vic Stalam:  Absolutely, beyond imaging and print some of the market segments that we serve is for example the retail space.  This is where any of you when you walk into a Home Depot or a Lowes it’s really X-Rite and Pantone technology which helps any one of us walking in into the paint shop within Lowes and basically Home Depot.  It’s our technology which enables the person who is mixing the paints to match what the customer walks in with.

Cary Sherburne:  So I could come in and say I want this color on my shirt and you can do it.

Vic Stalam:  Absolutely and you should try that Cary next time when you go into a Lowes and ask the person at the paint counter.

Cary Sherburne:  I will.

Vic Stalam:  In addition to retail we’re also very strong in automotive and primarily if you can think of plastics, if you can think of all the stuff which goes into a car, all the things with color.  We play a very important role in those.  That area at X-Rite and Pantone are strongest textiles you know.  Around the world we’re known for being the standard and providing the color solutions you know to be able—and the last one is in terms of the food industry as well.  We’re looking at obviously food is a big opportunity for us to grow.

Cary Sherburne:  That’s great.  That’s exciting and it looks like you’re going to have a lot of fun here.

Vic Stalam:  Absolutely.  I'm looking forward to it.  Thank you for your time.

Cary Sherburne:  Thank you.