Jim Birkenseer

Jim Birkenseer has over 30 years experience in the graphic arts industry. In 1981, he earned a B.S. in Graphic Communications from Cal Poly, in San Luis Obispo. He started out working in traditional prepress as a stripper and camera operator, and then migrated into electronic prepress when the Desktop Publishing (DTP) craze started.

 

In 1987, Jim and his brother took over the family prepress business, Circus Lithograph, Co., in San Francisco. At about the same time, the printing industry was going through a major change: Traditional prepress and typography were being displaced by the Apple Macintosh computer and laser printers.

 

In 1990, Jim embraced DTP technology and installed a number of Macs and a Linotype L300 imagesetter at Circus. Over the next few years-in between imaging customer’s files-he went on to purchase three more Linotype-Hell imagesetters, a high-end Linotype-Hell flatbed scanner, and a 3M Rainbow Printer. In the process of these purchases, he became very involved with the Linotype-Hell Users Group (today called the Heidelberg Digital Imaging Association) and became a member of its Board of Directors.

 

In 1997, he left the day-to-day operations at Circus Litho, and started a successful consulting business, Circus Prepress Systems, Inc. During his consulting time, he became involved in the cross-platform (Macintosh vs. Windows) issues in publishing. As a consultant, Jim has been a speaker at a number of industry trade shows.

 

In 1999, he joined Collabria, Inc., an internet-based application service provider for print suppliers and their enterprise customers. While there, he wrote and provided support for an automated page layout application.

 

Jim has always been interested in computer technology. In the ’70s, Jim learned the BASIC computer language and got his first computer—a shiny new Apple ][+. Using his new computer, he wrote a database and bookkeeping program for Circus Lithograph, Co. In 1990, he learned the PostScript programming language in order to make imagesetters do useful things—like image jobs and make money! He also picked up the C and C++ programming languages, enabling him to write a number of programs and plugins for the graphic arts industry.

 

 

Peter Truskier

Peter Truskier has over 40 years experience in prepress and printing, and has been working with computer technology in the graphic arts industry for over 30. After attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, he worked as a press operator, stripper, cameraperson, color separator, and scanner operator.

 

As new technologies began to spread throughout the industry, he went on to become a Technology Director, first at Oakland National Engraving, and then at STAR Graphic Arts Co. In both cases, he was instrumental in the installation and implementation of those companies’ first color electronic page makeup systems.

 

When STAR was purchased by Applied Graphics Technologies, Peter joined the Foster City AGT plant as Director of Digital Advertising and CTP (computer-to-plate) Technology. In that role, he developed and implemented elegant and efficient copydot scanning and CTP production systems, developing both Macintosh- and Windows-based automation tools.

 

At all three of these companies, Peter was involved in external workflow consulting as well for clients including Apple Computer, Del Monte Corp., Foote-Cone & Belding, Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, Pacific Southwest Container, Imagine Publications, and West Marine.

 

Prior to co-founding Premedia Systems, Peter spent two years working in both operations and software engineering at Collabria, Inc., an internet-based application service provider for print suppliers and their enterprise customers.