Pittsburgh, PA -- The Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA), held its 61st Annual Technical Conference at the beautiful and historic Hotel Monteleone, located on the world famous Royal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 15-18, 2009. The event recognized academic excellence, offered attendees top-notch keynote and general sessions on the latest technological advances within the industry, highlighted emerging technologies, paid homage to industry veterans, and announced its new board members.

The conference began with a series of inspiring keynote presentations, featuring Robert C. Tapella, the nation's 25th Public Printer, and chief executive officer of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), one of the nation's oldest and most venerable agencies with revenue in excess of $1 billion. Additional keynotes included Gary Despoto, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Clarence Penge, Heidelberg USA, and Dr. Carol Werlé, Dalim Software GmbH.

Twenty-eight specially selected papers were presented and arranged into tracks based on content such as paper, ink, color, digital, and offset. Important topics in today’s economic times like anti-counterfeiting features, color management, ink optimization strategies, Internet applications, and measurement were featured. The full papers for all of these will be published in the conference proceedings book, an important resource and part of TAGA’s enduring legacy. Tutorials were presented on automation using JDF, inspection systems, and printed electronics. One of the highlights of the conference was a series of presentations about Printing Industries of America’s InterTech Award-winning technologies, in a session led by Dr. John Anderson of Eastman Kodak Company.

Throughout the conference, award-winning student publications were on display courtesy of TAGA’s 2009 Student Competitions. Seven schools, including California Polytechnic State University, Clemson University, Grenoble Institute of Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology, Ryerson University, University of Wisconsin-Stout, and Western Michigan University submitted entries in for the Helmut Kipphan Student Publication Award competition. In a very close contest, the 2009 winner was Rochester Institute of Technology. The Harvey Levinson Undergraduate Student Paper Award went to Saleh Abdel Motaal (et al) of Ryerson University for the paper entitled “Repeatability of Ink Transfer and Color Management in Lithography”, and the Dusty Rhodes Graduate Student Paper Award went to John Jay Jacobs (et al) of Clemson University for the paper, “Electroluminescent Circuit Printing.”

Printing Industries of America’s Ben Franklin Society presented its Robert F. Reed Technology Medal to Creo co-founder, president, and CTO Dan Gelbart, in honor of his many outstanding contributions to the printing industry. Gelbart, who is retired from the industry, attended the conference and delivered a heartfelt and inspirational talk to the assembled group.

The Michael H. Bruno TAGA Award for outstanding contributions to the graphic arts industry was accepted by Dr. Patrice J. Mangin, the director general of the Integrated Pulp and Paper Centre (CIPP), a new $90 million research center he built and launched in 2007. His illustrious career includes many achievements that have shaped the modern printing industry. Mangin was president of TAGA from 1993-1994 and organized the first TAGA conference outside North America (in Paris, France, 1995).

During the conference, the results of the annual board election were announced. TAGA’s incoming president is Björn Kruse. The Lundberg professor in digital image and media technology at Linköping University took the reins of the organization at the annual awards dinner and banquet. The association honored its outgoing president, Dr. Tony Stanton of Carnegie Mellon University. Paul Cousineau, director of innovation and continuous improvement of Dow Jones, a news corporation company, was elected as executive vice president and Paula Gurnee, director of color services at Ink Systems Inc. as Secretary/Treasurer. New Board Members include Ghilad Dziesietnik, chief technology office at EFI, Bill Esler, editor in chief of Graphic Arts Monthly, Dr. Martin Habekost, assistant professor at Ryerson University, Gene Langlais, CEO of Capricorn Research, Alexandra Pekarovicova, associate professor Western Michigan University, and John Seymour, Principal engineer at QuadTech. The board elevated the existing position of education committee chair to officer level, appointing Eric Neumann for a year term.

TAGA’s Annual Technical Conference is the only international conference for the graphic arts that features technical papers on research straight from the laboratory, studies from the pressroom, and software and systems engineering papers. The conference was attended by practitioners, research professionals, and academics from more than fifteen countries around the world. This year’s event was sponsored by Dow Jones and Company, Eastman Kodak Company, Heidelberg USA, INX International Ink Company, manroland Inc., Mimeo.com, Ontario Beach Systems, Printing Industries of America, and Raymond J. Prince.