RIPON, Wis. — Walsworth, a Ripon-based commercial printer, prints products ranging from book blocks and high-end magazines to catalogs and the Farmers Almanac. Production includes everything from printing to binding to shipping.
Chasity Clark works there as a binder inspector. She sees a bit of everything pass through her hands and the machines.
Clark was recently working on a saddle stitching machine. With a few well-choreographed twists of the glossy paper, she loaded a handful of book pages into the machine.
“I feed the covers and loaders and I also inspect the books,” she said.
Clark sometimes sees the books she helped make after they’ve been delivered to customers.
“It’s kind of cool to see where a lot of these books go,” she said. “I just hope people enjoy them.”
Clark has been with Walsworth in Ripon for almost five years.
“I had started here as a temp, actually. I really liked it here, and I ended up getting a full-time job here,” she said. “What keeps me coming back is the people, and the work is different. I do something different pretty much every day.”
Walsworth is now seeking more of those people.
Human Resources manager Kelly Mundell said there are about 30 open positions. Mundell has been with Walsworth for nine years.
“We need people anywhere from entry level to highly skilled positions,” she said. “We need them in our bindery where they’re finishing up the products and in our press where they’re starting all of the printing process.”
Open jobs range from web press operators to bindery operators and inspectors and pre-press quality assurance.
“Our average tenure is 14 years. That’s both in the office and in the production area,” she said. “Usually when people stay and they like it, they stay a long time. That gives them nice opportunities to explore different departments if they’d like to, and people do that.”
Alex Kastenschmidt started at Walsworth six months ago as a web press operator. He said goal-oriented training has helped him grow into the job.
“Before this, I had no idea what I was doing — no idea about web press operating or anything that had anything to do with a press,” Kastenschmidt said. “I’m learning my way, but I’m getting there.”
More information about careers at Walsworth’s Ripon location can be found here.