Newspaper Maintenance Conference
About Us
History
The Newspaper Maintenance Conference began as the forum for machinists, electricians, and their managers to meet and discuss Goss press reliability concerns. The conference started in 1984 as the “Western Metro Mechanical Conference” with 7 newspapers attending from the Western states, growing to 17 in 1985, and increasing from there. Since then, the group has expanded to not only include “press maintenance” employees and managers and their particular issues, but now includes attendees across all Goss press platforms. In 2003, over 100 individuals from 27 organizations attend the conference in Seattle, hosted by the Seattle Times and Goss International. In 2004, we changed our name to Newspaper Maintenance conference to more accurately reflect the fact that the organization's attendance is US-wide rather that "Western". We are also going to include peer to peer support of platemaking and post-press equipment in addition to Goss double width presses.
We differentiate ourselves from “Metro Users Group”, in that our focus is 100% related to maintenance issues rather than operational and management concerns.
Conference Format
Annual conferences are held in a difference city each year, hosted by the local newspaper. The conference is typically held in the April/May timeframe with an opening evening reception and registration on Sunday, followed by sessions on Monday through Wednesday. The conference typically includes a combination of breakout topics and informational sessions. There is also a tour of newspaper facility.
Some of the informational topics covered during the conference might include: Press parts, folder operation/maintenance, creative mechanical solutions, data acquisition, creative electrical solutions, runnability, press controls, predictive maintenance, print quality, blankets/ink, RTP operating/maintenance, Drives, CMMS systems, unit troubleshooting, and open topic Colorliner, metro/liner, HO, etc. Our conference does not have a vendor display area, and we do not schedule any commercial presentation time.
Governing Committee
The organization is governed by a steering committee made up from several newspapers. This committee is responsible for overall direction of the organization, communications, rules, conference location, format and timing, and vendor coordination. The committee currently includes: Joe Boessenecker/San Jose Mercury; John Beers/Dow Jones, John Moore/Santa Rosa Press Democrat; Dana Reed and Eric Rosebrock/Seattle Times, Bob Mingie/Arizona Republic, Mike Chavez/San Diego Union Tribune; Mark Rogers/San Francisco Chronicle, and Roger Williams/Contra Costa News.
Costs
The newspaper attendee conference fee of $199 goes to pay for breakfasts, lunches, snacks, transportation, training sessions, and other costs. We periodically ask a limited selection of vendor sponsors to host or co-host one of the receptions or dinners planned during the event.
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