More Than a Member
“One of the most interesting things about Jean is her incredibly diverse background. She’s worked in so many areas of the flexographic supply chain,” explains FTA President Mark Cisternino. “That contributed significantly to her ability to help FTA over the years, on a number of different projects.”
Jean’s involvement with FTA stretches back to the mid-2000s, when she lent her discerning eye and knowledge of package printing quality as a judge for the Excellence in Flexography Awards. One of her fellow judges was FTA’s Director of Education Joe Tuccitto, then the manager of training and technologies at Anderson & Vreeland.
“There’s only a handful of people I have dealt with in an ongoing capacity in my role at FTA, and Jean is one of them,” he notes. “It says a lot about how active she is as a member. She has always been there for us. Whenever we have needed her to do something for us, she does it.”
FORUM—FTA’s annual technical conference, with a presenter roster made up of dozens of industry experts—served as a perfect use of Jean’s leadership skills. She co-chaired FORUM 2009 in Orlando, FL and chaired FORUM 2010 in Las Vegas, NV. “As FORUM co-chair or chair, you need to be very good at managing people, and getting everyone to meet their commitments. Jean is not one to palm off responsibilities on other people. She took the assignment very seriously and FORUM was better off for it,” Cisternino recalls.
Under Jean’s guidance, she introduced the idea of “virtual briefings,” where the speakers and chairs from each FORUM session convened on a conference call to stage a practice run, ensuring the content is up to par and ironing out any wrinkles. Tuccitto looks back at those virtual briefings as paving the way for the full range of preparatory measures taken ahead of FTA’s conferences today, as well as foreshadowing the fully virtual environment of the last 18 months.
As any FORUM attendee from the last decade can attest, Jean has been a persistent participant since her stints as conference co-chair and chair. Along with multiple presentations of different flexographic technologies, she continues to put her people management skills to use as a repeat chair of the Flexo Quality Consortium (FQC) session.
Dr. Ingram has chaired that session alongside Jean as well as worked in proximity to her. “At FORUM, we’re all business. It’s nice to look over during the seriousness of things, and see Jean with a sparkle and a bright smile on her face,” he recalls.
In 2017, Jean received the FTA President’s Award, and also joined the FTA Board of Directors and Foundation of FTA (FFTA) Board of Trustees. A year later, she became the FFTA Board chair-elect. At FORUM & INFOFLEX 2019, Jean attended an interest meeting for what would formally become Women of Flexo, an FTA committee made up of industry members who work to support and promote women in the flexographic industry. She now serves on its Mentorship Leadership Team. And after completing her two-year term as chair-elect, Jean ascended to FFTA Board Chair in 2020.
“Whenever I need advice, whenever I need council, Jean is available,” Cisternino says. “She is a very reliable leader.”
Focused, Quintessential, Commanding
“We are her association of choice,” Tuccitto concludes. With a body of work as an FTA volunteer that is so expansive and consistent, it’s hard to argue with that statement.
But there is another three-letter acronym that may be even closer to Jean’s heart: F-Q-C. Formed in 1990, the FQC’s premise, summarized in a 2009 revision to its charter, is based on the idea that “while flexography is technically mature, the interactions of input variables to the system, such as ink formulation, plate composition and anilox configuration, were not understood and certainly not optimized.” The results of its very first experiment were presented at FORUM 1992 and in September of that year, it was adopted as an FFTA Standing Technical Steering Committee.
Jean joined the FQC Executive Committee—the governing body responsible for the bureaucratic side of projects—in the mid-2000s before becoming co-chair alongside its chair, Paul Lodewyck. When he retired, circa 2011, Jean took over as Executive Committee chair and has held the seat since.
SmileyColor & Associates’ Steve Smiley, the 2017 FTA Hall of Fame inductee, part of the FQC Executive Committee and a familiar face in the technical, numbers-oriented sphere the FQC occupies, points to Jean’s ability to focus complex material into something that is easier to distill: “She has been able to take everything I’ve touched and make it organized, clear, more concise. She doesn’t let me go off talking in a-b-c-d-e-f-g’s and pushes me to explain things. In that way, she’s always been a thorn in my side! But it’s been great for the industry.”
“I drift a lot, and on the drifting side of things, I have had great success at finding new avenues to question,” admits Dr. Ingram. “That can be a distraction, and I have often benefitted by being asked the difficult questions by Jean. So often, it helps to refocus an initiative, particularly in the world we live in. That has impacted me professionally and in the research projects I’ve undertaken with FQC and FTA.”
Those who volunteer as FQC project participants or leaders are asked to give not only their spare time and energy, but also presses and other equipment, lab time, consumables and various company resources. Cisternino says that securing these commitments and maintaining a steady pace of progress in “very demanding times” has made Jean “a real driving force.”
Serving as the liaison between FTA and FQC, Tuccitto has seen a resilience in Jean’s drive for well over a decade.
“Jean has been the go-to person when it comes to people moving their projects forward. She combs through the charters to ensure all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed, and that there’s an expected outcome to everything. She brings that information back to the Committee every meeting, leading the leaders through the projects. She stays on top of everything.”
He adds: “She bleeds flexo and she loves the industry.”
Through FQC, Jean also embraces her roots as a teacher. It is easy to draw a line from instructing the next generation of flexographers at Western Michigan University to supporting their involvement in industry events and spearheading new opportunities to gain exposure. Tuccitto likens it to a passion project, explaining that she “takes pride in getting young people involved in flexography.”
Under the common theme of research, Jean has been instrumental in showcasing students who receive an FFTA scholarship by enabling them to present as part of FORUM’s FQC session. That includes recipients of the FFTA Rossini North America Flexographic Research Scholarship and Gary Hilliard FQC Scholarship, the latter of which, first awarded in 2017, Jean led the creation. It provided another monetary resource for students, while paying respect to the late Gary Hilliard, with whom Jean was close and who shared her volunteer spirit.
In the same vein, the winners of the annual Phoenix Challenge College Competition also have a standing presentation spot in the FQC session. “Jean is a very big proponent of the Phoenix Challenge. She has made it her mission to integrate it into our conferences to give visibility to students and show the industry what they’re capable of,” Cisternino says.
Continuous Improvement
“I think her interest in having students involved hearkens back to her teaching career and the feeling she gets from paying it forward,” Eric says, bringing full circle Jean’s immense dedication to bettering the people, companies, organizations and entire professions with which she interacts.
“On a personal level, for her, she likes to stay engaged. When you’ve invested so much of your time, you want to stay current and up to date,” Rosinski adds. “But even more than that, Jean loves to volunteer, and when she sets her mind to doing something, she does it. When she sees an opportunity to help, she goes after it. If she can lend a hand, then she’s happy to do that.”
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