Goss Reorganizes With New Leaders

By: Mark Fitzgerald Having emerged from its second bankruptcy in as many years, Goss International Corp. last week named two new corporate leaders who are familiar industry faces.

The new Goss CEO is Robert A. Brown, most recently CEO and president of Heidelberg Web Systems. The Westmont, Ill.-based press maker's new chairman is Edward R. Padilla, who once headed MAN Roland Inc.'s web-press division and, as a longtime newspaper publisher, founded the Goss Metro Users Group.

Brown's most urgent task will be to repair relations with customers, some of whom were alienated by troublesome installations and service. "I think the recent past has had some damaging effect on the image, and certainly that whole [customer-service] element in the North American market is going to be improved," Brown said. "You're not going to fix the image without demonstrating some progress on customer service."

At the same time, Brown said he believes Goss' problems are not unique: "I've been in the industry long enough to know that at some level, everyone has their customer-service problems. Goss' recent past has sort of magnified theirs -- and it has to be addressed."

In moving to Goss from Heidelberg, which he left almost exactly a year ago, Brown is going from a German-based manufacturer whose operations include an American plant to a born-in-the-USA company that, as of last summer, no longer makes a thing in the United States. "Having a North American presence from a manufacturing viewpoint is a plus, I won't kid you on that," Brown said. "But, at this juncture, we have what we have." Other newspaper printing-press makers, he noted, have succeeded manufacturing abroad.