Industry packaging veteran joins the association’s technology and research team and serves on the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Industry Advisory Board

Fairfax, Va. – PRINTING United Alliance today announced the appointment of longstanding industry veteran Bill Pope to Vice President, Technical Services. In this latest move by the Alliance to invest and grow essential programing and services for members and the industry at large, Pope joins the association’s technology and research team. In this capacity, he will work closely with the newly-merged team at Idealliance, oversee the Alliance’s heavily utilized consulting services and awards programs, as well as lead Alliance educational initiatives, including the Continuous Improvement Conference and Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA).

Pope’s 30+ year career in printing and packaging has been focused on print processes and graphic reproduction excellence. His passion lies with process improvement and optimization, new technologies, and all things color. He has worked with large, international package printing/converting organizations, and has also been instrumental on the educational and association side of the industry. Pope frequently presents at industry conferences and events and has authored numerous technical papers and articles for various journals and publications.

An alumnus of RIT’s printing program, Pope also serves in an advisory role to the Department of Graphic Media Science and Technology at RIT as the Director of Industry Relations and Academic Programs and assists as an adjunct faculty member. He helps lead RIT’s Industry Advisory Board which is comprised of leaders from various industry segments and who work to identify core competienies and develop the most relevant curriculum for students. Pope also works to establish close ties with industry partners in support of the academic programs.

“I am excited for the opportunity to join PRINTING United Alliance at such a pivotal time to help make a significant impact on the industry,” said Pope. “My personal mission is to use my collective knowledge and experiences from various roles to leverage the widespread resources and services from the Alliance to identify training and research efforts to help advance the industry.

“The industry needs strong and effective training programs and resources to help educate all those in the value chain, from brand owners to printers as well as the vendors and suppliers who support them. The printing industry has an identity problem that we have to solve. We need to figure out a way to attract young people to this exciting and thriving industry and educate them the best we can. And while it represents a great challenge, it also represents a great opportunity, one that I’m confident we will address and solve with the good work we are set to do at PRINTING United Alliance. I look forward to working with our various teams, our members, and our industry partners and couldn’t be happier to be here at this exciting time!”

Pope can be reached by email at: [email protected].