Tuesday 13 July 2010 Section: Commercial printing

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With more than 300 individual members worldwide and 15 active student chapters at leading institutions, TAGA serves the CTO, CIO, and R&D management personnel of printers, publishers, and premedia companies, as well as engineers and scientists employed by graphic arts systems and equipment providers, ink manufacturers, and paper manufacturers.

With the industry's best permanent set of technical papers and abstracts, TAGA focuses on graphic arts systems, software, and computer technology developments, as well as the more traditional areas of press, ink, and paper engineering applications. The association also provides guidance and support to its fifteen active student chapters around the world.

Board Elections are held each year to coincide with the organization's Annual Technical Conference, held recently in San Diego, California. As a result, the association is proud to welcome several new officers who assume their duties this month:

- Vice President, Technical Papers: Alexandra Pekarovicova from Western Michigan University
I have been annually attending the TAGA conference for more than ten years, and I found it to be a great research resource. The annual conference is a great opportunity for learning, networking, and finding new friends and collaborators. As an author or coauthor, I have published every year at the TAGA conference. It will be a great honor for me to serve on the board and in the Technical Papers selection committee to use my knowledge and skills and to give back to TAGA.

- Vice President, Membership and Publicity: John Sweeney from FineEye Color Solutions
TAGA is, first and foremost, a global membership of like-minded individuals, dedicated to advancing the science and technology of the printing and graphic arts industries. I am honored to serve on the TAGA board of directors and look forward to building the TAGA membership and promoting TAGA.

- Vice President, Education: Martin Habekost from Ryerson University
I am impressed with the level of the presentation and the quality of research taking part in this industry. I am particularly impressed by student publications being shown. The students are the future of our industry. The production of the student publication brings out the many different talents that are present in the student chapters, and students finally understand what their professors have been talking about all along. Having an active student chapter wakes in them the desire to explore the Graphic Arts more through research projects and go beyond just getting an education so they can succeed in the job market.

In addition, several new and returning board members have been elected to terms expiring in 2013:

- Don Duncan, Wikoff Color Corp., Inc.
- Chuck Gehman, Mimeo.com
- David Niles, Sappi Fine Paper North America
- Wandee Poolpol, Eckart America Corporation

Several prominent industry leaders were appointed to fill vacancies within the Board. Each of the appointees stood in the TAGA election and each was nominated by the board based on receiving the highest number of votes.

- Hal Stratton, manroland, Inc.
- Liam O’Hara, Clemson University
- Yung-Cheng Hsieh, the National Taiwan University of the Arts

"It is with great pleasure that I welcome this outstanding new class of TAGA officers and board members. This group represents a great diversity of roles and views from the industry and academia and will help guide the organization to great success in the upcoming years," said Bjorn Kruse, President, TAGA.

The TAGA board will continue to play an essential role in helping the organization meet its overarching objective of providing a worldwide forum for sharing and disseminating theoretical, functional, and practical information on current and emerging technologies for graphic arts print production and related processes.

Contact information for the board members can be found here. For questions or comments, contact Jessica Meyers at jmeyers@printing.org or (800) 910-4283 ext. 706.

About TAGA
TAGA focuses not only on graphic arts systems, software, and computer technology developments, but on the more traditional areas of press, ink, and paper engineering applications as well. In addition, the association provides guidance and support to its fifteen student chapters around the world. For information on membership, the conference, and benefits, please visit www.taga.org or contact Jessica Meyers at jmeyers@printing.org.