The Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY) was founded in 1958. That year, Mr. O'Brian had the unique opportunity to spend nine inspirational days with the great humanitarian, Dr. Albert Schweitzer at his clinic in Africa. There, Dr. Schweitzer impressed upon him that "the most important thing in education is to teach young people to think for themselves." That thought became the cornerstone for the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership, which Mr. O'Brian founded two weeks after his return to Los Angeles.

Since then, HOBY has carried out its mission "to seek out, recognize and develop leadership potential commencing with high school sophomores, and to encourage and prepare the next generation of civic and corporate leadership for America's future."

George Ramirez has worked with the organization since 1997. He is responsible for maintaining inventory of collateral materials like annual reports, brochures and leaflets.

HOBY appears to have a very noble purpose. Tell us about that purpose and how you are funded.

HOBY implements its purpose in three ways: by providing interactive opportunities for critical thinking; by promoting democracy and America's incentive system; and by encouraging social responsibility among individuals and participating corporations. There is no cost to the students, parents or high schools involved in HOBY's leadership program foundations for sophomores.

Generous gifts from our constituents, combined with the active support of more than 5,200 volunteers, provide the backbone of support necessary to deliver HOBY's programs. This is the base of support which will sustain the organization for many years to come.

Is there a cost to attending a HOBY Program?

More than 20,000 high school 10th graders from as many high schools in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Israel, Hong Kong and 35 other countries are selected by their school each year to attend one of HOBY’s programs—HOBY Leadership Seminars, the World Leadership Congress, or a Community Leadership Education Workshop. Along with the privilege of attending a HOBY program at no cost to the students, their parents, or schools, these HOBY Ambassadors—a title given to the students upon selection—take on the responsibility of becoming effective, ethical leaders in their schools, homes, workplace and communities.

HOBY programs provide face-to-face interaction between the HOBY Ambassadors and distinguished leaders in business, education, science, government, media, and other professions. We believe that learning is greatly accelerated when these distinguished leaders personally address the 15- to 16-year-old Ambassadors’ questions rather than give a formal speech.

What is your background?

I have a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of San Diego. I’ve been working for HOBY since 1997. I am responsible for maintaining inventory including the updating, copy writing and editing of our materials. I also maintain the photo archives, which involves organizing and cataloging them in photo journals. I am also responsible for creating and sending out press releases and supporting our field with collateral materials for their fund raising needs and efforts.

Describe the structure of print procurement at HOBY.

We need to submit a purchase order for budget approval prior to proceeding with any print jobs. There are several people who order print. Although I handle most of the publications for the organization, our Development and Program departments have print jobs done every year. The Development department handles the printing of the invitations and programs for special events and fund raising letters for direct mailing. The Program department handles student applications, informational flyers and mailing envelopes for the student nomination process each fall.

How important is communication with print vendor?

One of the most important things we’ve learned is to make sure that both the vendor and we are always on the same page. Communication should be clear regarding every little detail about the print job.

We have a great relationship with our vendors simply because they’ve done many print jobs for us and they’ve done great work every time. They have reasonable rates and have a good turnaround time. They’re also easy to deal with. We use 3 or 4 vendors. These are vendors that we’ve used long before I arrived. To keep the relationship, they give us good rates and do great work.

Being a nonprofit organization, would you leave a printer over price alone?

Yes, we’ve stopped using a printer simply because they were too costly. We found a printer that would print our stationery for much less.

In our monthly Print Buyer survey, we ask buyers about their spending trends. What can you predict for Hoby for the future and will the internet help you reduce expenses?

I imagine we will probably maintain the same trends for now. But I think eventually, we would like to provide our field with collateral materials that can be downloaded from our Web site (www.hoby.org). For the Program department, the goal is to have the student nomination process become a purely electronic one. We would have the students register online, rather than wait for 20,000 registration forms to come in the mail and manually input all the information.

Do you have any ability to print in-house?

Because we are nonprofit, our internal capabilities to print and design are limited. I usually submit a Word document showing a rough layout of what we want done.