Black Press in Williams Lake is becoming more colourful after a modernization of the printing press will increase its capability to print more colour pages.
Previously the press could print 12 colour pages per section. It will now be able to print 16.
The upgrade involves the installation of four GOSS community units.
Two of the units, which are each stacked two high, were installed last Friday.
The other two will go in this Friday, said press foreman Mark Lees.
“They have come new-to-us from Hawaii where Black Press also owns a paper,” Lees said of the replacement units.
Built in 1978, the original press in Williams Lake was the first one owned by Black Press chairman David Black.
Lees has worked at the press in Williams Lake for 29 and a half years and said he owes all of his professional success to former pressman “old” John Dolenuck.
“I worked with John for 20 years,” Lees said.
“He used to run the original press when it was over where advertising is located now in our building.”
Today Black Press owns presses in Cranbrook, Vernon, Williams Lake, Penticton, Goldstream, Ladysmith, Burnaby and Abbotsford.
In Williams Lake, the press churns out 18 weekly publications for communities from Ashcroft north to Prince George, and west to Prince Rupert, as well as numerous special supplements and publications.
The modernization won’t make things easier or quicker, but will add more to it, pressman Jamie Anderson explained.
Until the work is completed this weekend, the Williams Lake Tribune and Weekend Advisor’s sections can be no more than 24 pages, Anderson said.
