It’s great to talk with you today, Dave. To start it off, tell us how you got your start with Walsworth.

I’m about to celebrate my 20th anniversary. I was working in sales management at Cenveo and got a call from an ex-associate of mine who happened to work at Walsworth. She had moved from Port City to Walsworth.

Her name was Annmarie Scottson. She introduced me to Joe Cupp and said, this place really has the feel of the old Port City. We’re looking for a sales manager, and I think you would be a good fit.

I did my research, got invited to interview and I was fortunate enough to get the job. It was a pretty cool opportunity that came out of nowhere. But as soon as I got here, I knew I wanted this job. And I think it’s been 20 years of a great marriage.

What were some of the things that appealed to you about Walsworth?

What really drew me was the people. I know that’s kind of a cliche but spending time with Joe Cupp… he took me out to his home and introduced me to his dog. I think Droopy was his name and Droopy liked me. I think that put me over the top. (laughs) I’m a dog person.

The whole interview process of meeting Mark Hatfield, Jim Mead, Jeff Vogel and then of course, Don Senior, told me this was a place I wanted to work. And 20 years later, all these folks are still my friends.

Before you came to Walsworth, you already had a background in print and sales. What were some of your career stops before you got here?

I got started back in late 1992 as a customer service assistant for what was then called Arcata Graphics. I knew nothing about print. I had a business management background, with a concentration in purchasing. In college, I had done an internship at a large hospital in Pittsburgh and had worked for the purchasing department. That’s what my dad did – he was a purchasing manager at Westinghouse.

As a customer service assistant, I was checking in copy for books and getting them ready to print. I spent about a year and a half there and then got an offer to go to Port City Press to be a customer service representative. So I did that, dealing with customers directly for about two years and was promoted into sales for Port City. They moved me from Baltimore to Chicago, which was a real eye-opener.

And you stayed with Port City as a sales rep for a while?

Yeah, I sold for them for about 11 years. I was very successful at my job. Then I got an offer to be a vice president of sales at Cenveo. I was there for a few years until the opportunity came here at Walsworth.

When you’re evaluating sales reps, do you look for certain characteristics? Is there a profile that makes an ideal salesperson?

I think the big key is relatability. Can somebody as a buyer relate to this person that they’re going to entrust their project with? Also, of course for us, it’s a given that you understand print.

So we have to show that we understand your job and we can take your vision and make it a reality, give you a tangible product at the end of the day. Human nature is that you buy from people that you like and trust, so a salesperson has to be relatable, there has to be trust, but you also need to have a bulldog mentality. You’ve got a lot of places where you’re going to get no, and if you just take no from the get-go, you’re not going to be successful.

Over the 20 years you’ve been here, you’ve seen a lot of growth and expansion. What do you think has allowed that and made the company as successful as it has been?

The big thing is our ability to embrace change. We’ve gone from essentially a sheet-fed printer when I started here 20 years ago, and we’ve evolved into a world-class sheet-fed printer who also has web and digital offerings.

Our ability to expand through buying the right companies, bring those companies in and grow with the times has been the key to our success. And you know we’ve got the right people in place. We’re not making knee-jerk reactions or putting the company at risk. We’re doing things the right way.

Looking toward the future, what do you see as keys to continued growth for Walsworth?

I think the key will be continuing to evolve with time. That means embracing AI, delving more into the digital world, delving more into life of title. As we continue to learn more about that world and evolve, we’ll remain successful. But we also have to remember at our core, we’re still a print manufacturing company. Print is our DNA. We do a good job of remembering that.

Can you tell us about your life outside of work? You grew up back east?

Sure. I was born in Baltimore, Maryland. When I was probably 2, we moved about an hour north to a town called Fairfield, which is 8 miles from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. So when I was growing up the old joke was, what’s your Gettysburg address?

But growing up there was cool. It was a great little town full of tourists, especially in the summer. They literally filmed the movie Gettysburg in my backyard. I was working at a country club during filming, and one day Martin Sheen just walked in.

It was an idyllic town, very reminiscent of Brookfield and Marceline actually.

And your family?

I’m engaged, have been engaged for some time. My fiancée Susan and I met seven years ago, on Twitter of all places. We connected through our love of Las Vegas. There’s a big Vegas community on Twitter, and we just happened to follow each other. Then one day we started talking and got to know each other. She moved from California to be with me here in Missouri.

She has two older children. Jason is her older son. He’s 30 and just had his first kid (Susan’s first grandchild). He’s in Sacramento. Her youngest son, Alex, is married and lives in southern California. And I have two children. My son, Kyan, is about to turn 21 and lives in Brookfield. And my daughter, Kierstyn, is about to be a senior here in Brookfield. So a big, blended family with great kids. We’re very blessed.

What about hobbies outside of work?

We love sports; we’re a sports family and especially love hockey. I’m a big Pittsburgh Penguins fan. Any live music we’ll check out, and we love to travel. We’re into experiences these days.

We love to travel to Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula. We almost call it a second home down there. We also travel to Las Vegas a lot. Anywhere that’s warm, sunny and has a nice cocktail.

Fun question time. Do you have a favorite vacation destination or favorite trip you guys have taken?

Mexico is such a draw, but that’s strictly vacation. That’s a get-away from reality for a week at a time. But I think our love of Vegas – the gambling, which we really barely dabble in, the food, the culture, the sports, the weather. We’re such big fans, we’ll end up moving there sooner rather than later. It’s gonna be our home. That’s our favorite.

When you go to Vegas, do you have a go-to spot where you like to stay?

On the Strip, we’ll stay at The Cosmopolitan or downtown we’ll stay at Circa. It just depends on our mood and where the good offers are.

Do you have a favorite movie or TV show?

There’s a couple. We’re big fans of The Godfather. But for an escape from reality, we’re big John Wick fans. Don’t mess with a guy’s dog. (laughs)

Do you have a favorite meal or type of food?

Being from Baltimore, it’s got to be seafood. A good, well-made Maryland crab cake or maybe some stuffed shrimp. If that was going to be my last meal, let’s go out with a bang. And I know I’m a snob, but it’s got to be a Maryland crab cake.

I was going to ask, you’ll probably say it’s hard to get good seafood here in the Midwest, right?

It is, but you know hopefully you can find some good stuff at Costco and cook it yourself. But sometimes going out, you take a leap of faith. (laughs)

What’s a fun or interesting thing about you that most people don’t know?

Well, I mentioned that I’m from Baltimore. My dad’s best friend when I was growing up was Johnny Unitas, the Hall of Fame quarterback for the Colts. They had been neighbors back in the day and after John’s football career was over, he had several businesses. I mentioned earlier, my dad worked for Westinghouse and a lot of John’s businesses had dealings with Westinghouse.

John would come around a couple times a summer and play golf with my dad, or for cookouts at our house. I would be sitting in the lawn chair and I’d have a football under the chair. I was 8, 9, 10 years old. John would look at me and finally say, “Dave, you want to catch?”

So I’m in the front yard playing catch with Johnny Unitas. I would tell my friends and they wouldn’t believe me. I’m like, well come over and see. They would come over and just sit there with their jaws on their lap.

If you had a personalized coffee mug, what would it say?

Viva Las Vegas (laughs)

Do you have a favorite memory or an accomplishment from your career that you’re most proud of?

Hopefully I’ll still be here for many more years to come, but when I leave I don’t think anybody is going to remember that Dave Sutch and his team made budget in 2026 or pick some other year. But I think what we’re going to remember is how we did business.

We did business the right way. We made good friends along the way and we went about it in the manner that everyone would be proud to be associated with. We truly grew the business from a sheet-fed company to a world-class multi-dimensional printer and we had fun along the way. That’s what I’m going to remember and I hope my teams remember that.