Richard, a Pacific Grove resident, has been with MPC for 35 years and has seen many changes in the production process of the class schedule. Today’s slick digital process is a far cry from the days of the analog workflow. Back then the system consisted of outputting the class information to tape, printing it in galley form and cutting and pasting to lay out camera-ready flats. “We made corrections with a single-line linotype typesetter,” said Richard, “we all got very skilled with an Exacto knife.”

A twist of fate started Rich on his marketing career. During his time attending Cal Poly in SLO., he had the opportunity to take an internship with the American Association of Junior and Community Colleges in Washington, D.C. This led him to a job at MPC. Richard moved to the Monterey Peninsula not knowing a soul, thinking that he would work for a couple of years and then move on. Thirty-five years later he is still at MPC working diligently to get the Schedule of Classes, and other information, into the Monterey Bay community. When not at work, he might be found working on his cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains or rooting on the Giants at Spring Training in Arizona. “It’s been a good ride” he quipped.

Four years ago the college was at a crossroads. “They tried to have an off-campus vendor produce the schedule, but without the knowledge of the college’s overall operation, the venture proved disastrous” commented Richard. “We brought the production back on-campus and recruited Jeanette Haxton to help out. She moved to the Public Information Office to take over the task. Having come from another office on campus, she understood the organizational process that was involved to produce the schedule of classes, but the process of design and layout was new to her. “Jeanette is very creative and an accomplished fine artist, but had no previous experience as a graphic artist,” explained Richard. “The learning curve was huge. She had to learn InDesign and the Adobe Suite on the run. Her growth has been tremendous and thanks to her the production runs very smoothly. All deadlines are met, and MPC has a useful, attractive, professional product.”

Family man, businessman, editor, publisher, staunch supporter of everything “Paso Robles,” all these terms describe Bob.  Originally from southern California, as a young man Bob enlisted in the Air Force. After his honorable discharge in 1971 he attended Monterey Peninsula College. It was a summer job at the Monterey Herald that sparked his interest in publishing.  When the summer was over, they asked him to stay and he hasn’t looked back. His career took him to San Luis Obispo to work at the Telegram Tribune and then to the Times-Press-Recorder in Arroyo Grande. In 1991 he purchased the Country News, a small weekly paper that covered the Paso Robles Region. He built the newspaper into a thriving publication over eight years, and then sold it when the right opportunity presented itself.

Although temporarily out of the publishing business, Chute knew that he wanted to stay in the Paso Robles area. He did some consulting around the state and worked for other publications, but he and his late wife Karen (she died of cancer in 2004) recognized there was a need for a monthly news and feature publication in North San Luis County. Always willing to take a chance on a good idea, Paso Robles Magazine was born in May of 2001. The mission of the interesting local news publication is to report on the happenings, people and places of the Paso Robles area while providing advertisers a great medium to promote their goods and services. Readers have responded well. The publication is now mailed to 23,068 homes and boasts an average of 170 advertisers. The magazine is also published online, but he limits the online version to just three stories because he feels that the print version “provides the impact we need for our advertisers. They pay the bills.”

When he started the magazine, Chute went “straight to Casey Printing.” He cited his past experiences with Casey as the reason for this decision. “They produce consistently good quality, on time performance, and have an excellent customer service team,” he said. Chute continued, “Karen Battaglia is just a great account executive.”

When he isn’t working on the magazine, Chute and his bride of three years, Rhoda, enjoy traveling and spending time with family. He has three grown and married children scattered around the country, including a son in Portland, ME, a daughter in San Jose, a daughter in San Diego as well as grandchildren in each location. He says that his magazine takes about 3 weeks to produce so they try to take the extra week out of every month to regroup, get away from the craziness by themselves or visit children and grandchildren. Chute says that it is important to take the time to make these trips and be with people that he loves, “Life is precious.”

Longtime Casey customer, Jerilyn Lightfoot, Publication Specialist for Sunnyvale-Cupertino Adult & Community Education (ACE), has always been patriotic, but never so much as in the last six years. On September 11th, 2001 after the terrorists attacked New York City, her son decided to become a Marine.

Jerilyn’s son AJ quickly went through boot camp and was selected to be a scout sniper. Out of 150,000 marines, only 200 are chosen for this highly specialized position.

When AJ joined the Marines, Jerilyn joined an organization called the South Bay Blue Star Moms. Through this organization and a partnership with Casey Printing, Jerilyn produced We Love Our Troops notecards and posters. These products were distributed across the country and sold to raise money for care packages for the troops. The posters were also put up at Starbucks Coffee Shops along with requests for coffee donations.

Using the proceeds from the sale of the posters and notecards as well as the coffee donations, the South Bay Blue Star Moms were able to put together 130 care packages to be sent overseas each including 7 lbs of Starbucks coffee.

At the five year mark of the war, Jerilyn decided that she should purchase something that she had always wanted, a brand new Corvette. At the time AJ was home on leave and helped her secure the deal. The car (pictured below) is very patriotic with its red and white color scheme. “Its always good to have a sniper with you when you are shopping for a car” she said of the experience.