Retired NAA Tech Exec Bill Rinehart Dies at 79

By: Jim Rosenberg Longtime Newspaper Association of America production and technology chief William D. Rinehart died Sunday. He was 79. Retired from the NAA in 1989 as its senior vice president for technology, Bill Rinehart had lived in Spring Hill, Fla., since 1992. His wife, Hilda, died last May.

Born in Ohio and educated in Florida as a mechanical engineer, Rinehart served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He worked as a chief engineer for press maker Wood Newspaper Machinery Co. and for Hearst Newspapers before joining, in 1960, the New York-based American Newspaper Publishers Association (ANPA), the NAA's predecessor. Rinehart continued serving the newspaper industry at the Research Institute, in Easton, Pa., until that group joined the ANPA in 1983, when the trade association moved to a new home in Reston, Va. ANPA's Production and Research, headed by Rinehart, occupied its own wing of the headquarters.

Rinehart's years as technology chief saw the industry convert from hot lead for letterpress to computerized "cold type" for offset lithography. During the same period, flexo was emerging as a viable alternative printing process, the first electronic pagination systems were implemented, and computer-to-plate output went through it early trials. While much-anticipated digital photography was just a few years away, electronic still-video cameras had arrived. Rinehart, who came from the press side of operations, encouraged his staff not only to keep up with, but also to advance technological change in the industry.

Environmental issues were addressed by the NAA under Rinehart, who also created the association's telecommunications department.

In charge of the industry's annual technology trade show and conference, Rinehart saw ANPA/TEC (now Nexpo) balloon from a few hundred people at a small show in a hotel to thousands swarming large convention halls. Though Internet-related businesses would later swell the number of exhibitors, the June event probably reached its high point in Rinehart's last years as technology chief, when attendees numbered 13,000 and floor space exceeded 350,000 square feet.

Bill Rinehart also left the industry a living legacy. One of his four children, Richard, serves as printing and packaging director at The Indianapolis Star.