Gary O’Toole

It’s been 20 years. Can you take us back to how you came to Walsworth?

I started here in 2003 and came in as the plant manager at the South Plant. I managed the South Plant until three and a half years ago, when I was promoted to Executive Vice President of Manufacturing.

Prior to Walsworth, I’d been in printing since 1988, which is a date I had to look up. (laughs) I was looking for a job, and Bawden Printing wanted somebody who would be willing to work night shift and supervise a group of people. Bawden Printing was a family-owned company. They were starting up a third shift in the bindery, so they hired me as kind of a management trainee. I worked third shift in the bindery for about three years as a supervisor.

From there, I went into scheduling for five and a half years at Bawden. Then I became the plant superintendent. At that point, our company was bought by Von Hoffman, and they transferred me to Jefferson City, Missouri, where I became the press room manager.

At Von Hoffman, the pressroom ran 18 Web Presses and was one of the largest textbook manufacturers in the country. When I got there, we had about 300 people in the press room. I ran the press room for a year, and then they made me director of manufacturing over the entire plant.

This was where you met Phil Archer, correct?

Yes, actually, when I was promoted to director of manufacturing in Jefferson City, I hired Phil (general manager of Walsworth – Saint Joseph) to replace me as the press room manager. And also, at that point, Kevin Werdehausen (plant manager of Walsworth – Fulton) was working as a pressman for us.

Of course, not long after I got Phil in the fold, I was contacted by a recruiter for Walsworth, and I responded because of the lure of working for a privately held company.

Once you started doing your research and really looking into the opportunity, what was it about Walsworth that really stood out and appealed to you?

Well at that point, there was a lot of opportunity. Walsworth was state-of-the art with the page processing, but on the manufacturing side they weren’t as advanced in technology. I saw an opportunity for growth.

It was also the people; it really was. It was meeting with Don, Don and Mark Hatfield at that point. Everyone I met – all just good people. And the company had a feel about it that was more like what I was used to feeling back in the days when I first started in printing.

You’ve made a career out of the printing industry. What is it about printing that appeals to you?

Printing was a bit of an accident for me. I’m a farm kid from Iowa. I was born and raised on a farm. My brother still runs the same farm.

When I got out of college, farming wasn’t so good. It was the mid-80s and there just wasn’t room for all of us on the farm. So, I bounced around doing different jobs. I worked at a credit union for a little bit. I tried to sell insurance. I even ended up in the Army for a little bit. I was going to become an officer, but then the Army started cutting people.

And now I’ve been in printing for 36 years. I like that it’s something of a puzzle; it’s a challenge. The technology and the ways to do things are constantly evolving. I mean, we’re looking at constantly evolving technology. We’ve seen that journey here in Walsworth, going from the old Miller presses to perfecting four-color presses and Digital and so on.

It’s really phenomenal when you take people on tours. You start showing them the dots that make up a printed piece and put it under a magnifying glass for them. And they’re amazed.

Over the past 20 years, the company has grown. Within manufacturing specifically, what progress have you been most proud of?

The technology implementation, especially here in Linn County, has been phenomenal.

We’re doing three times as much work as we used to do when I started, and it’s much more complicated work. There have been opportunities for people, as well as challenges, but just being able to take the technology and implement it is important. And again, I didn’t do it. It was my team.

And it’s investment. So you have to give our ownership a lot of credit. Because these things we’re buying, when I say it’s technology, it’s automation. And that stuff’s obsolete in five or six years. At times you invest in equipment, that’s millions of dollars, then five years later, you’re going to need to replace or update it again.

You’ve been the leader of the modernize and optimize platform team for the company. Can you describe what that project has been like for these last couple years?

It’s been a really good experience to get people involved in thinking about the business in ways that maybe they haven’t thought before. I mean, I have people who weren’t previously exposed to manufacturing at all on the team, and they provide different viewpoints on what modernizing our platform means to them. The different perspectives are appreciated.

And the work has been validating, because I have been thinking along those lines for my entire career. What’s next? What can we make better? What do we need? And to get some other people exposed to that and involved in it has been good.

Let’s talk about life outside of work. Can you tell us about your family?

How much time you got? (laughs) I mean, that’s my reason for being.

My wife Wendy and I have been married for 42 years. We have four kids, and 16 grandkids.

All my kids are doing wonderfully. My two daughters, Amanda and Hannah, are in the medical field. One runs a sleep study clinic, and one does x-rays and works in a cath lab. And my sons, Sean and Matt, one is manager at a Dollar Tree distribution center in Ocala, Florida, and the other works as a Branch Manager for a fire suppression and alarm company. 

They’re all good people, who have given me wonderful grandkids. People say, don’t have kids, have grandkids and I would echo that. Now, I get to be the fun guy. (laughs)

And you grew up in Iowa, right?

Yes, originally from southeast Iowa, a little town called Letts. My graduating class from high school was like 75 people. So this whole setting, the rural setting, it’s me. That’s who I was growing up. Our high school was out in the middle of a cornfield. That’s where I’m from, rural America.

What kind of farm did your parents have?

When I was growing up, it was hogs, cattle, corn and soybeans. I was one of six kids. As soon as all of us kids were raised, then they got rid of the animals. (laughs)

There was a lot of extra labor involved there. We kind of joke that my parents raised their own workforce. Free labor. Now it’s crop land. They don’t have any animals.

It was a great place to grow up. It’s a great way to grow up in the country, to go out walking around in the timber once in a while.

Other than family time doting on your grandkids, what are your other hobbies?

We like to go to concerts. I would probably put our concert travel up there next to most anybody.

People often ask what my favorite concert has been, and I couldn’t name one. It’s usually a surprise to me. Like we went to see a Mongolian rock band called Hu. I couldn’t understand a word they said, but they had a great beat and an amazing crowd who knew them. It was just fun.

We saw U2 at the Sphere. That was tremendous. Blake Shelton is a favorite. We saw The Eagles a couple weeks ago. We might bend a little bit toward the country, but we will go see lots of different stuff. Hardly a month goes by where we’re not going to a concert. Jelly Roll was really good. We’re going to see him again. Probably felt a little out of place at the Jonas Brothers. (laughs)

You guys just love going to see live music?

Live music is great. And even if you aren’t into the specific music, watching the crowd is as much entertainment as anything.

And we kind of have to travel. Not a lot of those concerts come to Brookfield, Missouri. We have a circuit. We’ll go to Omaha, Des Moines, Kansas City, St. Louis, Evansville, we have even gone out to Wichita.

With the concerts, is there a specific venue you guys particularly enjoy?

The venue doesn’t really dictate it. The most convenient is T-Mobile in Kansas City, but we go all over the place.

We’ve gotten so many T-shirts. My wife keeps saying she’s gonna have them made into a quilt or something. We just like to travel.

Any favorite spots on your travels?

When we travel, we like to drive because then we can stop wherever we want. We see a sign, and we’ll stop and hang out for a while. But generally, travel wise, anything to the beach suits us.

We go to Gulf Shores, Orange Beach down in the Floribama vicinity. My son Matt, when he moved down there, he started calling it the Emerald Coast. We’ve probably been going down there for 14, 15 years.

We’ve traveled abroad. We went to Ireland. It was wonderful. For my wife’s 60^th birthday, went to Croatia. Because we saw it on Below Deck Mediterranean. (laughs) We thought it looked beautiful. We saw amazing history and a lot of Game of Thrones scenery. 

What’s a fun fact about you that people might not know?

I don’t know. I’ve got five dogs and three cats. It seems like, for a while when the kids were growing up and getting older, we always had a dog and a cat around, but then every time one of the kids would move out, we’d end up with another animal.

Then there’s the Halloween costume thing. I won a costume contest one year with a KISS costume.

Another year I was a Druid priest. I’m walking up and down the street in front of our house dressed like a monk, and for the costume I had a skull cap on and everything because I had hair back then. I’m walking in front of our house with a stick and our neighbor called and told my wife, “Hey, there’s a monk walking up and down the street. You gotta go take a look at this guy.” (laughs) Won the contest that time, too.

Do you have a favorite book? 

Yeah, I’m probably one of the first people to get every John Grisham book that comes out. I’ve read all the Grisham books.

Reading for me is an escape, just for entertainment. I’m not looking to be moved. Kind of like my movies, I like the Bourne movies or a Tom Cruise, or a Sylvester Stallone. Anything that’s just going to entertain.

When I’m on vacation, that’s the time I can read for pleasure. Because normally at work, I’ve got piles of stuff around me to read. The last thing I want to do when I go home is sit down and read a book.

You have a particular Grisham that is top of the list?

Yeah, he got me with The Firm. That was the first one I read. That’s kind of the one that grabbed me. From that point on, probably The Pelican Brief. I liked the early series the best.

With movies, it sounds like you’re an action guy?

Yeah, action for sure. I don’t want to go to a movie to be scared. I don’t want to go there and cry.

Same thing if we’re binging Netflix, find some action series or something like that.

We’ll sit down and watch the Guardians of the Galaxy, or we’ll watch a Tom Cruise movie, like a Mission Impossible. He’s an entertainer. He’s not going to win any Academy Awards, but I don’t need that.

If you had to choose a favorite meal, what would it be? 

As a farm boy, a good steak is wonderful. But, to go with my steak, I like sweet corn. It’s got to be sweet corn. I’m an Iowa sweet corn guy. In fact, it’s the only way I’ll eat corn. I actually freeze my own sweet corn when it comes out. I’ll go buy a bunch of it, blanch it, cut it off the cob and freeze it. And that’s the corn I will eat for the rest of the year.

If you had a personalized coffee mug, what would it say on it? 

Probably “Papa Number One” or something like that. Most of my grandkids call me Papa.

What’s funny is, people can tell you, I’ve got these little sayings posted around my computer, just little witticisms I have found over the years that I use all the time. I don’t even know who said all of them, or who to attribute them to, but they’re just little things that I think apply to work.

Like (Vince) Lombardi says, “We’re going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we cannot catch it. We’re going to relentlessly chase it because when we do the process, we’ll catch excellence.” That kind of thing resonates with me.

Here’s another one. “If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems.” I like that.

Just little things like that, I use all the time. My kids can probably recite them to you.

When you reflect, do you have a favorite memory of your time at Walsworth?

I don’t know if it’s really one thing.  A recent one was when we delivered the yearbook season 100% on time. That was a pretty specific goal.

But it’s kind of been the journey. I would say our manufacturing group has been on a roll for a long time. And I’ve had good people. I always look for people who are curious, who want to be problem solvers.

I would say I’m also a problem solver. It doesn’t matter where it is, what’s the problem? How do we fix it, or how can we make it better? We’ve solved a lot of problems.