'Orlando Sentinel' to Close Lake County Plant

By: Jim Rosenberg Orlando Sentinel Communications President and CEO Kathleen M. Waltz has announced the June 25 closing of the company's production plant in Lake County, Fla. The subsidiary of the Chicago-based Tribune Co. prints at its Orlando headquarters and at its Regional Production Center/Lake, in Sorrento.

Owing to Sentinel and print customers' changing "printing priorities" and "dramatically" higher transportation costs, said Waltz, the "entire production strategy" had been examined "for more than a year." Commercial customers' "best decision was to have products printed closer to home," Waltz said in the announcement. "Unfortunately, after significant financial losses for many months, we knew we had to consider closing the plant."

"We explored every possible option before making this decision," Circulation and Operations Vice President Robert W. Eickhoff said. Praising the plant's 62 employees as "some of the best in the business," Eickhoff said the company hopes that many will find jobs at the downtown plant or in bureaus. Area commercial printers, he added, are interested in talking with those affected by the closing.

Upon opening in 1991, the 60,000-square-foot RPC/Lake originally was intended to print the Sentinel's local-news sections. As that work was moved to the Orlando pressroom, the remote plant took on printing ad circulars and inserts, other commercial printing, and weekly television programming guides for the Sentinel and other newspapers. Sentinel said it will work with clients whose contracts expire after June 25 to transition them to new vendors.

In 1996, the Chicago Tribune moved printing of its television listings booklet from a commercial printer to the Florida plant. In Chicago, ads are brought together with listings files sent from another Tribune subsidiary, and the resulting content is paginated, imposed for platemaking and printing, then transmitted to RPC/Lake, from which the printed copies are trucked to Chicago. Another TV booklet customer is the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, a Tribune sister paper in Fort Lauderdale.

For his paper's TV booklet, "We are currently performing a vendor search, which will be completed soon," said Chicago Tribune Vice President and Operations Director Tony Hunter. The Tribune will add more four-color towers to its 10 Goss Metro presses, but the project will last two years and, as a former RPC/Lake manager pointed out, doublewide presses are not ordinarily used to print products of the size of TV booklets.

Alternative uses for the Lake County facility are under consideration, but the property's sale may be an option, the company said. Executives would not disclose any estimated values for the Lake County plant and equipment.

Corporate Communications Vice President and Planning Director F. Ashley Allen said there is a "possibility of housing other [Sentinel] operations" at the remote plant, but none of the equipment there will be moved to Sentinel's Orlando plant. The company also is exploring the possible sale of the plant and equipment as a turnkey printing operation, according to Eickhoff.

RPC/Lake operates singlewide eqipment: two lines of Goss Community presses, a 4/4 Didde MLC web-to-sheet press, and, since 1996, a one-around 45,000-copy-per-hour Goss Universal (the first in North America). It earlier had model one- and two-around equipment from defunct DEV Industries. The plant runs three Western Lithotech platemakers and in post-press has four Muller Martini saddle stitchers, Gammerler trimmers and stackers, Dynaric strappers and a Challenge 34-inch programmable cutter.

"We've had quite a few calls on the equipment" since Wednesday's announcement of the plant closing, said Eickhoff, adding that the equipment will first be offered to other Tribune sites.

At the time the Universal was installed (E&P, June 15, 1996), RPC/Lake was at or over capacity. Its schedule included the Sentinel's Sunday magazine and "we-prints" -- small ROP sections each usually devoted to a single advertiser.

Managed since last fall by former Consumer Distribution Manager Debbie Irwin, the plant has been a stepping stone for well-known executives.

Production director at The Virginian-Pilot (Landmark Communications' Norfolk daily and the state's biggest newspaper), former photo editor, and 20-year Sentinel veteran Warren Skipper headed the project team that created RPC/Lake, where he served as production manager until moving to the Sun-Sentinel two years later.

Publisher, President and CEO of The Morning Call, (Tribune's Allentown, Pa., daily) and former accountant Susan Hunt took over management of the Lake County plant after Skipper. Hired as assistant controller in 1986, Hunt was put in charge of all plant operations in Sorrento, then became Orlando Sentinel production manager before she, too, moved to Fort Lauderdale, as the paper's general manager.

As Sentinel business development and planning manager, Rhonda Matthews also was involved in the Lake County plant. The former manager of advertising operations and, later, zoned publications, rose to Orlando Sentinel vice president and general manager before being named publisher, president and CEO at, Tribune's Daily News in Newport News, Va.

Current RPC/Lake General Manager Debbie Irwin, on Eickhoff's staff for 11 years, will manage the plant's closing and all transition issues after June 25. Thereafter, Irwin will look at other opportunities -- "not only here ... but also whatever openings there might be within Tribune Publishing," said Eickhoff, adding, "She's an outstanding manager."