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In January 1968, Tom O'Sullivan of the Richfield Oil
Company, Bud Bacon of Nationwide Papers, and the late Smith Paddock of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power decided to ask several inplant managers from different printing groups to get together periodically to discuss
the latest changes in technology. Inplants were growing at a fast pace, much faster than the printing industry as a whole. Rapidly changing needs for equipment and the knowledge required to use it made sharing thoughts and
ideas a highly desirable objective. A wellbalanced group of companies, representing different industries, was selected to participate. The group's first meeting was held in February 1968, at the old Richfield building in
downtown Los Angeles, California. The attending inplant managers determined that this type of group participation was very beneficial.
Soon after the first meeting
, Larry Higbie of Union Oil and the late Bob Ford of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, joined Bud Bacon in writing the first set of bylaws for the Industrial Graphics Association (IGA). The members decided to meet from 9:00 to
noon, one day each month. Meetings rotated between Richfield, Union Oil, and the Department of Water and Power for the first three years.
Subject matter
and materials for presentation were decided upon and gathered together by the members for each meeting. Because of this kind of participation, there wasn't a product or piece of equipment on the market that IGA members didn't know about.
In 1972, an annual seminar was begun in order to provide the members with an opportunity to
participate in discussions that would better equip them to meet the high standards of product quality and shorter production time being required by in-plant operations in the industry. An annual twoand-onehalfday seminar has
been held every year since with each seminar improving in professionalism of presentations and equipment demonstrations, while maintaining a reasonable cost structure. For more than 25 years the IGA Seminar has been an
unbeatable bargain.
By 1973, the IGA was becoming well known in the Los Angeles area. At this time, a special ad hoc committee wrote a series of
job descriptions for in-plant personnel. These descriptions, once approved by the entire membership of IGA, were published nationwide in the trade magazine InPlant Printer.
As the inplant
communications industry grew, women moved into supervision and management in larger numbers. In 1977, this growth gave the IGA its first female member. She has since been joined by several outstanding women in this industry, who have become active and vital members of the organization.
The Industrial Graphics Association
has continued to actively exchange graphic arts information and broaden its scope of interest to such areas as office automation and electronic publishing, encompassing all of the corporate communications areas impacted by today's advanced technologies.
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