PRINTING 6 | ART GUIDE 15 | EARTH DAY 22 | PICKLEBALL 24
Vol. 2 No. 3
MAY 5, 2023
• DIG DEEPER •
| COMMUNITY | ACCOUNTABILITY | CURIOSITY | CONNECTION |
I
By Ben Cason
The process and people behind the printing press are often overlooked. Coloradoans value the paper in our hands, but are often unaware of how it gets there. The Pueblo Chieftain newspaper and printing press has been a staple in Pueblo, and the work that has been done over the years to print the paper—and many other news outlets— has been colossal. Todd Albo has been working for the Pueblo Chieftain in some capacity since he was 12 years old. He started as a paper boy, and has been a part of the printing process for 37 years. “In high school, I took graphic arts and got into the whole printing aspect,” Albo said “From there, I wanted to be a pressman. When I came down for an interview, there weren’t jobs as a pressman available, so I started in composing [the department] and moved up.” James Deren, who also is on the press
n 1868, Michael Beshoar established the Pueblo Chieftain. In the older newspaper shops, they used to do commercial work while also printing Pueblo’s daily newspaper. Over the next century they shifted to focusing more on the Pueblo Chieftain and less on commercial printing. In 1997, publisher Bob Rawlings took a step toward getting the Chieftain back into the commercial printing industry. The Chieftain purchased a new state-of-the-art printing press and constructed a 12,000-foot building extension to house it in Pueblo. Between the press itself, the building, extra equipment and transportation from Germany, the investment cost $8.5 million. Then the largest single expenditure in the paper’s history. It replaced the older press which had been in use since the early 1900’s. When the press was installed 26 years ago, then Rawlings said, “We’re planning on going into new ventures, and I’m looking around for all kinds of new ways to utilize this press more effectively. Maybe one day, we’ll have it going 24 team hours a day instead of three hours.” By 2023, his vision continues to be realized. The Chieftain’s commercial press runs 5 daily papers, 46 weekly papers and 10 monthly papers. This includes the Pueblo Star Journal, which is printed in the heart of Pueblo. “Print-wise, we average 22 publications a day,” prepress and mailroom manager Todd Albo said. “On any given week, we run 76 jobs on the press in basically six days. We run the press almost non-stop, 24 hours a day, to get it done. That’s a change from the past, we used to basically have two jobs a day. Now, if we do two jobs a day that would be a waste The Pueblo Chieftain commericial press can print up to 30,000 papers an hour. Photo by Ben Cason. of time.”
at the Chieftain, said June will mark 40 years with the Chieftain. He started out in the mailroom and moved to the press room after seven years. “There are only four of us left that know what changes the building has gone through,” Albo said. “The core of the people are newer and used to our current equipment. They didn’t see what we did back then compared to today.” The journalism industry has seen tremendous change, from newsroom to printing press. PRINTING continued on page 6
Photo by Ben Cason
Printing powerhouse
Pueblo commerical press serves over 80 different media outlets throughout Colorado