Meet the expert presenters who brought innovative and industry-leading content to the 2020 Digital Print for Packaging US program.
These experts are speaking on topics such as branding for the future, AI in digital print for packaging, mazimizing productivity, workflow solutions, color management, sustainability, innovation, e-commerce, food safety considerations, and much more.
Coming soon!
Rick brings over 20+ years of experience in offset, flexo and digital printing production, along with functional background in sales enablement, outbound marketing execution, product development and demand generation for Kodak solutions that help commercial, publications and packaging printers participate more profitably with their customers.
Today, Rick leads Kodak’s efforts worldwide to employ inkjet digital printing to introduce innovative solutions that enable packaging designers and converters to deliver on a wide range of brand strategies including consumer engagement, package functionality, sustainability, and improved time to market, that only digital print can deliver. This is accomplished by leveraging Kodak’s leading research and development competencies in digital imaging, material science and deposition technologies that are the building blocks for delivering the most productive inkjet printing solutions in the market today.
Rick has held previous leadership positions with Kodak Polychrome Graphics and International Paper and has been active within industry organizations, such as Printing Industries of America, National Printing Equipment and Supplies (NPES), Book Manufacturers Institute (BMI) and Primir.
Rick holds a BA in Economics from Rutgers University and MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University and resides with his wife Susan and four children in Ridgefield, CT.
Tom Molamphy is the Sales & Technology Manager for Industrial Inkjet Inks at Siegwerk. He holds bachelors and masters degrees in manufacturing engineering and has over 30 years of experience in engineering, management, sales and business development in the electronic materials and UV curable materials and equipment markets - including pioneering work in the early stage adoption of UV-LED curing in several markets, most notably inkjet printing.
Debbie Thorp has worked in digital printing for over 25 years and is Business Development Director at Global Inkjet Systems (GIS). Earlier in her career, Debbie worked at specialist digital printing consultancy companies such as IT Strategies, and was Head of Group Marketing at inkjet printhead manufacturer Xaar. Before joining GIS, she was VP EMEA Operations at iTi – an inkjet integrator.
Coming Soon!
Valerie Hawks
Head of Production and Sustainability @ Interact Boulder, Boulder, CO
Valerie Hawks is the spirited Head of Production and Sustainability at Interact Boulder, a branding and packaging design agency shepherding tomorrow's brands with creative consequence. Valerie's 13 years of print production experience, knowledge, and enthusiasm guides clients from bright eyed startups to courageous industry vets. She's passionate in areas of the circular packaging economy that allow brands to maximize the sustainability of their packaging while minimizing their carbon footprint.
Rob has over 25 years’ experience in the digital printing industry, beginning in R&D before moving into project and business management. For the past two years he has been CEO at Tonejet and before that spent over 20 years at TTP, one of Europe’s leading independent technology companies, developing print technology for a wide range of US and European OEMs. Rob has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from King’s College, London.
Karen Goeller is an experienced and visionary web strategist and tech leader who specializes in finding innovative technical and process solutions for human challenges. Prior to joining Packlane shortly after its founding, she guided the development of key internet technologies and applications in telecommunications, academia, and small business. Karen brings broad and deep experience in understanding industry trends and predicting how they can drive business growth. As Packlane’s Product Manager, she’s now at the forefront of revolutionizing and democratizing the custom packaging market.
Marc Crouch is a rare blend of designer, software engineer, and creative entrepreneur who has been heavily involved in web-based technologies since the late 1990s. He launched his first online business in 1999 at the age of just 19 and has launched and built several technology companies since then.
Since 2015 he has become obsessed with the challenge of automating design, an obsession that has led him deep into the world of neural networks and artificial intelligence as well as robotic process automation. He launched Firedrop in November 2015 to tackle this singular challenge and the company now works with some of the world's largest organizations to help drive efficiency in their design pipelines.
His 20+ years of experience at the heart of the tech scene give him a broad perspective and vision of where technology fits into the world. He is passionate about applying software to solve difficult problems and make our lives easier, and frequently finds himself innovating unconventional solutions to challenging problems by drawing on his experience with multiple technologies and trends over the years.
Born and raised in London, UK, Marc is proud of the UK's heritage in design and innovation. He lives in the UK with his wife and enough Amazon Alexa devices to drive him mad.
Coming soon!
Lloyd brings to Domino over 30 years of experience. His career includes roles as sales development manager, national & regional sales manager, and regional market director. Companies fortunate to have had Lloyd on their team over the past 20+ years include EFI, HP, and Bobst in which he was responsible for sales of digital and traditional corrugated printing machinery. Prior to that, Lloyd spent 12 years at Diagraph, providing coding, marking & labeling solutions to brand owners for their products and packaging.
Lloyd’s career in corrugated began with Bobst, where he spent 15 years selling corrugated and folded carton machinery throughout the USA. Over the past 6+ years he has been providing both single-pass and multi-pass digital solutions to the corrugated industry with HP, and most recently EFI.
Lloyd is very involved with AICC where he serves as an Ambassador… introducing new, incoming members to existing AICC members and helping them get acclimated and feel welcomed within the association.
Lloyd’s LinkedIn profile sums up his business focus. “I help corrugated and packaging companies with their transition from traditional flexo printing and litho-lam technologies into single-pass digital printing.”
Carl Joachim is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of ePac, an all-digital manufacturer of flexible packaging. Carl has over 25 years of executive marketing management experience with Xerox, Ocè, and Ricoh, developing markets for production digital printing technologies used by data centers, commercial printers, and in-plant print centers across the US. In 2013 he turned his focus to the packaging industry, and in 2016 he, along with two business partners, created ePac as the first all-digital flexible packaging company in North America.
Ed Zumbiel, a recovering attorney and self-described malcontent, has despised analog printing for almost as long as he has been alive. After working in and around his family's packaging firm for nearly forty years (beginning as a Heidelberg letterpress operator), Ed finally achieved packaging nirvana when he installed North America's first high speed continuous inkjet production line for folding cartons.
Ed now serves as President of Zumbiel Digital, Zumbiel Packaging’s SBU tasked with developing and implementing digitally printed paperboard packaging solutions. Ed's experience in the field of high volume digital packaging provides him with a unique perspective in terms of what large and small brands and clients really want from a digital packaging supplier. And now that Zumbiel leads the digital folding carton industry, Ed despises analog printing more than ever.
Alexis is a Project Manager at KURZ - a worldwide leader in thin film technology - where he coordinates all aspects of sustainability for the packaging and print industry and has a strong drive to bring sustainable packaging to a higher level. Alexis combines powerful customer focus with a clear understanding of technological challenges.
Before starting at KURZ, Alexis worked three years at L'Oréal in the Finishing & Printing Expertise where he helps developing people knowledge and improving efficiency, quality and time-to-market by implementing solutions with suppliers.
Alexis is a qualified mechanical engineer and holds a Master Degree from the engineering school ICAM, in Lille, France. When not dealing with wicked problems related to sustainable business, Alexis goes running or road cycling. His true passion is alpinism that has taken him to the summit of the most beautiful mountains in the Alps.
Brian Fellows has been in the packaging industry for over 25 years. Currently, Brian is the VP of Sales / Director of Digital for Golden West Packaging Group LLC. GWPG offers Digital, Flexo, Litho, Litho-Lam, and Single Face Lam printing capabilities on both corrugated and folding carton. Primarily, GWPG services the West Coast, but operates much farther afield for high graphic packaging and displays.
Over the past 25+ years Tom has proven himself where it counts – in the trenches. Tom is currently the owner of FORCEpkg. Prior to his latest business endeavor, he managed multiple titles, including principal/co-owner of WFM, head of new business development, account service representative, chief operations officer, art director, designer. Tom has worked with a variety of consumer products companies helping them develop effective branding solutions. These companies include Adelphia Seafood, Dorman, eatKeenwa, Fresh Solutions Network (Side Delights), Klamath Basin Fresh Organics, Koch’s Turkey, Stoner (Invisible Glass & Stoner Car Care), and Tom Sturgis. In addition, Tom’s award-winning package/brand design firms have served national and international clients including The Hershey Company (Breath Savers, Brookside, Cadbury, 5th Avenue, Jolly Rancher, Kit Kat, Krave, Kisses, Miniatures, Ice Breakers, PayDay, Reese's, Scharffen Berger, Twizzlers, York and more), Pfizer (Advil, Caltrate, Centrum, ChapStick, Dimetapp, Emergen-C, Nexium 24HR, Preparation H, Robitussin, ThermaCare), Ronzoni, San Giorgio, W.L. Gore (Gore-Tex), and Zippo.
Tom has written articles for Brand Packaging and FLEXO Magazine.
Sean Smyth has spent over 25 years in the industry in senior technology positions for a variety of print businesses across the supply chain, in hands on and consultancy roles. He helps companies make money through the appropriate use of technology.
Sean has a deep knowledge of the global print market, and a key member of the team providing quantitative market data and forecasts for the printing, paper and packaging industry. He authors off-the-shelf market studies and provides strategic consultancy services to a range of clients across the value chain.
Sean has a strong background in appropriate application of technology to print, implementing digital print systems, MIS and workflows to take time and cost out of the print supply chain. In 1994 he became Technical Director of Rexam, where the first colour digital presses in the UK were installed and he has extensive experience of digital printing. He has written many books and market studies on the future, print technology and digital print, including Smithers' flagship title "The Print & Production Manual" and the "Future of Global Print Markets".
James Gill is Account Director for FUJIFILM Dimatix with over 25 years of global digital inkjet development in North America, Europe, Israel and Southeast Asia.
Also advisory capacity:
Technical Advisory Board/Assoc Professor - Philadelphia University MS Surface Imaging
Associate Chairman - Executive Board of the SGIA soon to be expanded to Print Unlimited.
Editorial Advisory Board for several industry groups including 'Digital Graphics' magazine
Current key projects include in-line industrial single pass, digital upgrading of textile mills in India and Brazil, and the successful commercialization of a number of 3D rapid prototype OEM start-ups in the US.
FUJIFILM Dimatix is a worldwide market leader in the design, development, and manufacturing of precision piezoelectric printheads and micro pumps.
James lives with his family in the quiet lakes region of New Hampshire while maintaining a busy global travel schedule.
Trevor Schroeder is the Product Marketing & Business Development manager for HP PageWide Industrial Corrugated Preprint solutions. Trevor holds immense passion for packaging printing technologies having completed a Packaging minor while earning his B.S. in Graphic Communication from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California. He went on to complete his M.S. in Print Media from Rochester Institute of Technology where he studied the adoption of digital print technologies in the label printing industry. Throughout his career, Trevor has held a sharp focus on customer needs and has previously served as a technical advisor to flexographic printers in both narrow-web label and wide-web flexible packaging markets.
At HP, Trevor’s focus has been to accelerate the adoption of digital printing in the corrugated industry. He has worked with key customers to drive efficiencies and reduce overall corrugated manufacturing costs with the introduction of inkjet printing. As a Product Marketing manager, he is responsible for current and future product development and he brings his energy and enthusiasm to this rapidly changing market.
Jay Sperry is a color and print quality management leader and practitioner with 20-years-experience in packaging & specialty printing – from flexographic print operations to academic research patents to global product & business development.
Jay now represents Digimarc as a passionate advocate for transforming yesterdays printed barcodes to a future where packaging graphics are the digital link for a product in its lifecycle.
Jay discovered printing and graphic arts in high school in his hometown of Wilmington, NC where he now resides with his two young children. Jay completed graphic communication degrees at Appalachian State and Clemson University and is active in trade associations and industry committees.
Tyler Thompson is the Director of Technologies at Tilia Labs. Having completed a B.S in Graphic Communications from Clemson University and a M.S. in Computer Science from University of Denver, Tyler is a thought-leader in AI and emerging software technology.
Chris is currently the Commercial Lead and Product Development Manager for Georgia-Pacific Digital Print Solutions. He has over 30 years’ experience in gravure, flexo and offset pre-press, print tooling and print for packaging. Chris has been instrumental in the development of product offerings, paper testing and design and pre-press standards for digital inkjet print for packaging. He has been on the ground floor with GP and their implementation of the first HP T400 and now the first and only HP T1100 in North America. Chris leads a team of Creative, Design and Print professionals to bring solutions to the consumer packaging market.
Will Dowden is Technical Sales Manager for Digital Printing with Colorants Solutions USA, LLC (Clariant’s Pigments business unit). He is primarily responsible for delivering solutions to digital ink and toner manufacturers in North America from Clariant’s wide range of pigments and dyes.
Will has over 30 years’ experience in the printing industry. He joined Clariant in 2000 after holding R&D and technical management positions at multiple firms including Electrocal, Dunmore and Kurz Transfer Products.
Will Dowden holds a BS degree in chemistry from the Central Connecticut State University.
