Larry Boettcher is the new Director of Estimating at Walsworth – Marceline and the newest member of the Leadership Team. In his role, he analyzes the facilities, equipment, paper and capacity to identify the most efficient production methods and calculate the associated costs.
I joined the company back in May of 2007. Gene Shuffler, our now Vice President of Corporate Services, called asking if I would be interested in coming here to talk about an estimating role.
Yes. I’ve known Gene for 30 years now. When I got out of college and started my first full-time job in estimating for a printing company, Gene was the purchasing manager.
I’ll go all the way back to the beginning. This would have been in 1987 and my twin brother and I wanted to do something different.
In our family, my dad rebuilt car engines; my older brothers worked as linemen. Our neighbor across the street was an electrician, and they had a nice house, nice things. So we thought, well that looks like a good paying job
We talked to him, and he said, If you want to get paid good money, you need to go learn everything you can about printing. Look into rewiring printing presses.
Lo and behold, our high school in Kansas City, Kansas, had a graphic arts program. So as juniors, my brother and I took the course to learn about printing. That was my first entry into printing in 1987. Then we went on to take the three-hour Vo-Tech class, where we actually did production work for the district.
I went on to Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas and got my bachelor’s degree in printing management in 1993. The year before graduating, the job market was really poor. So I decided to go to grad school. I thought it would give me a leg up, and I knew I could always go back to a university and teach.
So here’s a little piece of trivia: It’s April 1993, and I’m getting ready to graduate. I got a phone call from Jim Payden, who at the time was the pre-press supervisor in Brookfield. He asked me if I would be interested in coming to Walsworth. Walsworth had called the university to ask who in the school’s printing program would be best suited to work in desktop publishing, and my name was mentioned.
Since I was already working on my master’s degree, I turned him down. I still have the notes from when we talked.
I graduated with my master’s degree in printing management in 1994 and moved to Owensville, Missouri, to start my first real full-time job as an estimator with a company called Custom Printing Company. I was a one- and two-color book and catalog estimator. So the stuff that Ripon does with our coldset presses, that’s what I started out my career doing.
Yep, he was a purchasing manager. So I’ve known Gene for a long time.
Then in 1998, the company was bought by Von Hoffmann Press, who was in the educational textbook business. They wanted to expand. I was promoted in 1999 and moved to the headquarters in St. Louis where I managed the Estimating, Purchasing and Billing Departments.
I left there in 2003 and I moved to the Boston area to manage the Estimating and Billing for Bradford & Bigelow, which at the time was a one- and two-color book and catalog printer.
In 2006, I decided to move back to Missouri for family reasons, so I moved back to St. Louis to manage the Estimating Department for Jerome Group, a direct mail company.
I was there about a year when Gene first called and then six months later, he called me in for an interview. Two weeks later, I started working here.
Well, ultimately, our main job is to develop the cost plan, which is what it’s going to cost us to produce a project.
We look at all our facilities – the equipment, the paper, the capacity – and see where it fits best to determine what it will cost us to produce the item. To do this, my team needs to have a good understanding of all of the equipment we have.
We have an approval process with various amounts where the estimators have the authority to send quotes out. They get to a certain amount where they are reviewed by their supervisor or manager at the facilities. The next level above that will be me, and then the final level, when it gets to be a large job or a large project, it goes to the executive team to review. We talk about these projects in more detail before sending out the estimate.
As we’ve grown, we’ve had to make sure the entire estimating team understands all the presses and the capabilities; everything they need to do their jobs accurately. We’re bringing everybody together to become “One Walsworth.” This includes implementing the estimating software across the company, so we have a consistent way we develop estimates.
Becoming One Walsworth in estimating allows us to grow. Now we have the ability to have everybody on the same system; we can start cross-training and work more efficiently as a team.
It’s the same thing we’re doing in the plants moving the workload around. It’s going to give us consistency and the ability to level load.
In some ways, it helped springboard us into becoming One Walsworth.
Now when a major event happens, with the addition of Salesforce and the tools we’re using, we don’t need someone in each facility to create a quote for the piece that would be produced in a specific plant. We can easily get the information and quote the entire project within one quote. For instance, a project that is a long run printed four-color and case bound, we can use the St. Joseph web equipment with the Marceline case binding equipment.
Also, we used to have a lot of in-person meetings in this facility. And that was great when we were just Walsworth in Marceline, Missouri. As we grew, it became harder to have those types of meetings. Now at least with Teams, you can see each other, read the room and pick up on cues. If somebody is confused on an item, it’s easier to identify and provide clarity.
Yes, I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. Born and raised. Went to Turner High School, just down from the Santa Fe Railroad rail yard.
Larry and his twin brother Terry
My mom had five boys, but only my twin brother Terry and I are left. I don’t have a spouse or children.
My brother, my nephew Thomas and I spend quite a bit of time together. We travel to see heavy metal music concerts. We were just on a trip last weekend, a three-day tour. We were in Joliet, Illinois, on Friday night, then St. Louis on Saturday night and again on Sunday night.
Yeah, I listen to it all the time and go to quite a few concerts. I listen to all these different bands my nephew finds out about. We listen to mainstream American bands, but we also listen to a lot of European bands. That’s what this past weekend was all about. We went to three different cities, and we saw seven different bands from either Sweden or Germany.
Yeah, there’s Shinedown and Five Finger Death Punch. The third one would probably be Disturbed. There’s a ton of others
Anything related to Star Wars.
I’m not an avid reader. But it was probably estimating principles, or some college textbook. Most of the stuff I read is industry related. So yeah, probably an industry magazine.
It used to be Las Vegas, but I got bored of going out there. And it’s not as inexpensive as it used to be years ago when I started going.
I used to be able to fly out there, spend a couple of days, eat more food than I needed and spend about $300. Now it costs closer to $1,000.
My brother and I also own a time-share type place at Lost Valley Lake Resort just outside of Owensville, Missouri. We’ll stay for a week and just hang out.
Toss up between tacos and pizza.
People from Marceline would probably get a kick out of this. When I was a little boy, I have photos of my twin brother, my older brother and I on the train here in Marceline. This was back in 1973. And now here I am working in Marceline, Missouri.
Larry was awarded the prestigious International President’s Award for outstanding service to Lions Clubs International.
Yes, I joined in December of 1994, so later this year I will have been a member for 30 years. The main purpose of the Lions is to help the community, but it’s also to be the “Knights of the Blind.” A lot of what we do is about eyesight.
When I moved here, I moved my membership to the Marceline club and have been in the Marceline Lions Club for about 17 years. We’ve bought eyeglasses for kids in school; we’ve helped elderly folks with eyeglasses. We have a scholarship we give out every year.
I’ve gone through leadership positions in the three different cities I’ve lived in. I was district governor for the northwest portion of Missouri, overseeing 62 clubs that I had to visit and meet with members. It was a three-year leadership transition, and I traveled all over northwest Missouri. Drove over 10,000 miles.
That changed me as a person. I’m a true introvert. When I walk into a roomful of people I don’t know, I’ll go and stand in the corner by myself. I had to force myself to approach people because I was visiting clubs where nobody knew who I was.
Larry has been a member of the Lion’s Club in Marceline for 17 years.
Yeah, it goes back to when I was a boy. Like a lot of families, we didn’t have much. And I can remember one Christmas, there was a knock at the door and there were three or four gentlemen in their yellow Lions vests, and they gave us a box of food, and they gave us presents. And without that, we would not have had anything for Christmas. So when I was asked right out of college if I wanted to join The Lions, I said absolutely.
For me, it’s all been good. I love everything about being here – the small town, the family atmosphere. I feel like I’m part of a family here. My closest family member is two hours away, so for me this is my family. Every day is a good memory for me, even the not-so-good days.
