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Body of Work
Incoming PSDA President Mike Fisher has a head for business, but he leads from the heart.
By Rebecca Trela
Next to the moment his daughters were born, the greatest moment in Mike Fisher's life occurred in the operating room of Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pa. That was the hot August day he suited up in scrubs for a close-up view of open heart surgery.
Mike Fisher, CDC, president and CEO of PrintConcepts in Allentown, is certainly no heart surgeon. But there he stood, decked out in a blue gown, tucked behind the elbow of cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Ray Singer, living his dream.
"It looked like Mike was a little kid ready to jump out of his shoes," says Singer, describing the dramatic aortic valve replacement Fisher observed. "He was just thrilled, and it was great to be able to share that with him."
Mike is a tall, energetic CEO with a mile-wide smile and a light golf course tan. After 17 years of working in the family business, and six years at its helm, he's developed a strong portfolio of clients and grown the company over the $4 million mark. He was always a bright student in math and science, and he's dreamed of being a heart surgeon since childhood.
Three years ago, while playing golf with Singer, the two got to talking about their hopes and dreams. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd be you," said Mike, who was born with a congenital heart defect.
"I invited him to come in and watch a surgery," Singer says. "He thought I was kidding."
A week later, Singer phoned Mike and told him to show up for an early-morning surgery.
Mike celebrates a birthday with his friend, Dr. Ray Singer,
a surgeon who invited him to watch open heart surgery.
"If I ever had a younger brother, I'd want him to be like Mike." Singer says.
The experience, Mike says, from viewing the operation close-up to meeting the patient's family, was one of the greatest in his whole life. "I came home and told my wife, Carol, 'I'm selling the company and going to med school.'" He didn't, of course, but the thought still lingers.
Although Mike will take the gavel, not the scalpel, when he assumes the presidency of PSDA in October, friends and associates say his metaphorical heart is huge. "Mike is obviously very bright, and an intense guy, but he has a certain aura that is very sensitive," Singer says. "I envy him sometimes, because he exudes a certain positivity" that seems effortless. "It's hard to go out with him because he's always picking up the tab. He's big-hearted and is the kind of guy who tips generously and remembers you at Christmas."
Mike talks tough, but "he's a softie," says Jim Riley, CDC, CEO of RBO Print Logistix in St. Louis and former president of PSDA. "He's strong-willed but also a great listener."
Others characterize Mike as a good businessman with a can-do attitude. He dreams big, making sweeping, decisive statements: I will sway that account back from Staples. I will win this golf tournament. I will sell this customer a full vehicle wrap. As for cardiology?
"Some days I think, I'm only 38. I could still do it."
Just after dawn on most weekday mornings, Mike eases his black Lexus out of the garage and turns four times at nearly deserted country road intersections, arriving at the PrintConcepts office just outside Allentown. His GPS offers helpful instructions, but Mike has lived in the county his whole life--the directions are just background noise.
The eight-mile trip from home to office deposits him in front of PrintConcepts'18,000-sq. ft. office and warehouse space, the fifth home of the 31-year-old distributorship, formerly Lehigh Business Forms. He strides through the subdued gray reception area and heads to the left-hand corner office.
"Working with your family is dependable," Paul says. "They'll always have your back." Both Fisher brothers say they agree
"99 percent of the time" about business matters. Paul is pictured above with Michele, his wife and PrintConcepts' office manager.
"I get more done between 6 and 9 a.m. than any other part of the day," Mike says, a refrain familiar to those who spend most of their day making calls or taking calls. His office is subtly decorated in light gray and black, dotted with family photos and kid tchotchkes. The lone extravagance is a flat screen TV hung on the wall. Mike promises it comes alive only on Sundays, a sacrosanct holiday of golf, work and football games. His older brother and business partner, Paul Fisher Jr., occupies a twin office in the right-hand corner.
Later in the morning, the rest of the PrintConcepts crew will file in, including Michele, Paul's wife and the longtime office manager; Greg Stahley, a sales rep and one of Mike's high school friends; Kim Bartik, a part-time CSR; and Ben Davis, the veteran PrintConcepts employee. There's also Art Director Tim Lyter, perched in front of giant Mac screens.
Ben, who is working on an embroidered shirts order for a local municipality, has a wealth of stories to share from his 29 years at the company. In the beginning, after Mike's dad, Paul Fisher Sr., walked away from Lewis Business Forms to start his own business in the late '70s, Ben was the first employee. When the two sales reps weren't out knocking on doors, they worked at adjacent desks under the laundry hanging in the basement of the Fishers' house. Little has changed about Davis' job--the values, the customers and the cold calls--except what the customer is buying today.
He gestures to Mike's office, where the phone is already jangling. "Mike sells more than anyone else here," he quietly notes with pride. "He has a full-time sales assignment and he's also president of the company."
Paul Fisher Sr., left, passed on hardworking determination and stubborn character to his youngest son, Mike.
Ben has a background in forms, but everyone in the PrintConcepts office now sells promotional products, commercial printing, apparel and other ink-on-substrate items. He credits the company's product mix transition to the Fisher brothers, who recognized where the industry was headed. "If it weren't for Paul and Mike, I don't know that we'd still be here today," he says.
"I have a short fuse," Mike begins with a smile, contemplating how similar he is to his father: headstrong, stubborn and ambitious. "My dad would say things in front of customers sometimes, the 'I know better' statements, and I'd think, 'Oh god, we're going to get hit.'"
When Mike graduated from Penn State in 1991, he thought working at his father's distributorship would be the easy way out. "My father told me that in order to be successful, I had to make 30 cold calls a day," he relates. "I thought, 'Yeah, okay.' The first few days, I made two or three calls, had lunch, and picked up my drycleaning." When that strategy didn't bring in anything but clean shirts, Dad's lessons about wearing out shoe leather came home to roost. Mike and his father would eventually run out of gas three times in a week making cold calls, at which point Mom called a moratorium on rescuing the hardworking pair.
Mike was also the first person to sell a promotional products order in the PrintConcepts office, a market that now accounts for about 20 percent of the company's revenue. It's a sale he attributes to the persistence as deeply ingrained in him as the man he inherited it from.
Mike reviews a commercial print project with
the PrintConcepts designer, Tim Lyter.
"A customer wanted us to do imprinted golf balls," Mike says. In the president's office, Paul Fisher Sr. slammed his fist down on the desk in a signature gesture--another unconscious motion Mike has picked up. "Tell them to call someone else!" Paul Sr. said, naming a competitor. "We're a printing company!"
Mike was flummoxed. "I said, 'Dad, you're busting on me to get business, and now I have an opportunity and you're saying no. What's the difference what they put the ink on?'"
Paul Sr. slammed his left fist on the desk again, only this time a little closer to his youngest son, "but I placed the order," Mike says, "...without him knowing. Later, I worried how I'd get it through billing." He describes himself as a risk-taker, never hesitating to follow his instinct and back it up with authority.
In the office, Mike is the head of things, "and I am the heart," says Paul Jr. "We don't have a typical brother relationship. We get along, but we are both good at different things." In the office, both say they see each other as "business partners first, brothers second."
Paul is the PrintConcepts technical whiz, who mastered the forms industry early on. He finished first in his class at the School for New Sales Representatives, a week-long school for sales reps formerly offered by PSDA, then NBFA. "My brother can do every single job in this office," Mike says. "He's always been the technical brain; he knows how to run the entire computer system and everything else."
When Mike and Paul bought PrintConcepts in 2002 from their parents, Paul Sr. and Penny, Mike had more than a few sleepless nights. "I had cold feet about the deal," he said. "What if one of us wanted to grow the company through the roof and the other didn't? I couldn't enter a situation where the 'no' vote would win [in a 50/50 partnership]. Sometimes, hard decisions can't be compromised on. The right decision is not always popular, but I'm okay with that."
When PrintConcepts moved into the 18,000-sq. ft. space on Snowdrift Rd., Paul Fisher Sr. was skeptical they'd need so much room. Next year, PrintConcepts plans to remodel and spread out.
Mike considered leaving PrintConcepts, but he and Paul settled on a 51/49 split. "And in six years, there has never been one decision that I've had to pull the trump card on," Mike admits. When the two disagree, which is rare, they talk it out and end up doing what is best for the clients--and ultimately the company.
While commissions are still figured into the brothers' individual compensation, they both agree money does not come first. "It's all about the customer," Mike says. "If we ensure our company takes care of its customers, the money will follow. What matters most is that Paul and I are both focused on the customer." In the coming year, the Fishers will invest $250,000 on a building renovation, which will allow them to bring more customers to the PrintConcepts office.
Like most of his sales colleagues, Mike is driven by the heat of competition. "I still want it," he says. "Cold calls keep me motivated. I wish I could do it from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. Getting that first appointment has always been a rush for me."
Mike's an ambitious executive focused on building the business, training employees and positioning himself to retire in 15 years. Like most mornings, he's eager to get on the road today.
Our first stop is a warm call to one of Mike's longtime associates, Bill Raven--20 minutes early, which is right on schedule for Mike. As we walk into the account, Mike reflects on his younger, more headstrong sales days. "I was always so confident, but a lot of times it was false bravado. I was taught that when someone says no, that's when you start earn your paycheck. Today, I think a little differently," he reflects. The industry has changed, Mike says, and what was once true with forms has passed. "Maybe you can't sell everyone, like my father used to tell us. But I will say this--I firmly believe everyone is a prospect, considering what we have to offer today."
When PrintConcepts moved into the 18,000-sq. ft. space on Snowdrift Rd., Paul Fisher Sr. was skeptical they'd need so much room. Next year, PrintConcepts plans to remodel and spread out.
Bill and Mike are very similar: They both lead decades-old family businesses, which they've re-engineered over the years. Both work in advertising-related industries (Raven One-to-One Marketing sells a lot of direct mail and lettershop services.) Both are in each other's "top five" list of accounts.
"Mike was tough early on," Bill says, remembering the first project they worked on in the early '90s. While sitting next to Mike at a postal customer council meeting, Bill revealed that a big billing statement job wasn't registering correctly once imaged through their laser printers. The customers couldn't read their bills. Mike had experience developing forms and immediately offered his advice. "He had that in him, the 'I know what's best for you,'" says Bill, who is no meek sales rep himself.
As the two longtime friends confer over a potential sell sheet, Mike is still unsuccessfully trying to hide that urge. As the two talk, it is clear that the end product won't be printed, but rather an electronic form template for Raven to communicate with clients. Mike is already thinking about an Adobe Acrobat stamp feature, which will eliminate multiple templates. "The logo is on the left; the logo is on the right," he observes about the existing samples. "We need consistency here. Why don't we design something that can be dragged and dropped on a number of different forms?"
"Having a strong wife helps me keep the balance between work and home," Mike says. "Without her, I'd lose it a lot. I'm very cognizant that life is not a dress rehearsal. Work is only a small part of what's important in our lifetime, and Carol is a constant reminder of that." After Mike and Paul's mom, Penny, passed away in January, Mike realized he needed to slow down. "It was a wake-up call; I can't lose the perspective that family comes first."
Bill does not look happy.
"Well, why don't you just let me take a stab at designing one and we'll see if it fits the bill?" Mike taps his left fist lightly on the table, echoing his father, and stands up. "I already know the Acrobat stamp function is where we will end up. That's what you need--but you don't know it yet," he says with a confident smile. Over the past 15 years, the two have learned to leave their pride at the door, and both express admiration for one another's work.
Bill's project will stay with Mike all afternoon, tumbling through his mind during a late-afternoon golf game, a soccer practice and his favorite surf-and-turf dinner at the country club. Four months later, Mike's instinct will be proved right when the two reconvene for lunch. "He has tended to win those discussions over the years. He's not just a print guy; he's a marketing guy," says Bill, who has learned to trust Mike's advice.
Mike would know he'd made it, his father always said, when he sold that first $100,000 order. There would be several impressive sales along the way, but Mike's first $100,000+ sale was a commercial print job, a quarterly health magazine. But it wasn't all smooth sailing.
Last year, Mike Fisher became an assistant coach on daughter Rachel's soccer team, the Northwestern Tigers. "As a coach," he says, "I want them to know that they'll get out of it what they put into it. If they bring some intensity to practice, it will pay off in those Saturday games." Last spring the team was 6-2. "Rachel says I'm harder on her than I am on the other girls," Fisher says, smiling. "And, well, you know, she does have the talent to really raise the level of her game. She's very good. So, yes, I am harder on her. Because I can be!"
"My dad also always said, 'You're going to get us in trouble selling commercial print.'" Mike remembers. This was the company's first order with the commercial printer, and they had to prepay nearly $100,000. "Because of this, I flew to Cleveland on a press check," Mike said. "My father told me that if something went wrong, not to come home ever again." Luckily, everything went according to plan. "Boy, Mike knew how to make the margins," his father agrees, praising his youngest.
"I want to raise my kids to be the best that they can be at whatever they're passionate about," Mike says. "Not following that burning passion within you, the 'I should have done this' feeling, is the worst." For the most part, Mike obeys this philosophy in his own life. He's full of simple maxims for making intuitive decisions: Feel with your heart, think with your head. Bingo. Forget the red tape. Just get it done.
"If I had one regret," he reflects, "it's that I didn't give my parents enough credit for what they really did in creating our company from nothing. I was a cocky, snot-nosed kid. I worked hard, but no matter what I did during the day, I always had a building to come home to," he says, referring to the Lehigh Business Forms office. "I knew that every other Wednesday I was getting a paycheck."
Paul Fisher Sr., however, took the ultimate leap of faith. "He had a house and a young family," Mike says reverently. "And one day he came home and said, 'I can't do this anymore,' and he quit his job at the majors. On Monday he didn't have anything--an income, a business, a plan. It took me so long to appreciate how much guts that takes. I have had hard times, but I've never taken that ultimate risk.
"That is one thing I love about our association," Mike continues. "The number of true entrepreneurs who have taken that ultimate risk and put their blood, sweat and tears into making their dreams a reality. What a fabulous group of peers to learn and share with."
On the ride to dinner at Mike's country club, the car soars over the hilly terrain of eastern Pennsylvania, a region of nearly 800,000 that nestles around the edge of the Appalachian Mountains. Outside of the Fishers' weekend trips to New York and Atlantic City, this part of the country is where Mike feels most at home.
Suddenly, Mike screeches to a halt, throws the Lexus in park and darts across the road and into a ditch. He bends down and scoops up a small spotted-bottom fawn, just a few days old. The animal, which may some day grow into just the kind of whitetail Mike would consider hunting and stuffing, can barely stand. Before the rest of his passengers even realize that there was an animal on the side of the road, Mike has plucked it out of harm's way, deposited it in the brush and resumed the ride to dinner.
The car rolls past the limestone-riddled farmland of Pennsylvania, where locals grow hay, oats, corn and soybeans. At age 13, Mike's first job was baling hay on a local farm for $3/hour.
"You've always worked hard, Mike," Carol says--one of her favorite traits about him. "Well, he has a cute butt, too. What's not to love?" The first time Carol met Mike, he was working behind the counter at Yocco's, the hot dog stand Mike worked at in high school.
"It's easy to get jazzed up around Mike," says Carol, a graceful, lithe runner who smiles easily. "What makes someone successful is the passion they have, and he has so much of it." In fact, it's usually Carol's job to keep Mike out of the office and remind him to slow down a little."
Other than the job fervor, says Carol, who used to work in travel and meeting planning, "We have the same goals and values about retirement and parenting. Mike's really great with the girls; they just adore him." He's a goofy, loving father to Rachel, 11, and Maci, 4, but Carol is also referring to Rachel's soccer team, a gaggle of girls Mike co-coaches several nights a week.
Mike's a newly minted coach, but he brings the same enthusiasm and humor to the game as he does to his work. "Being with the girls helps me clear my head a little," he says.
Rachel, a center forward, thinks her dad has a cool office, but she knows "Dad wants me to be a doctor," she says matter-of-factly.
"Sweetie, you can be whatever you want," Mike says, gently. But Rachel's game for the challenge.
"No, I want to be a doctor," she says. "I like animals, and I might want to be a veterinarian."
Being a parent is very easy, Mike says. "It's easy to just love your kids. My wife is the saint putting up with the kids and me at the same time. I have the simple job; just having fun being a parent" he says slyly, "and I'm not even sugarcoating it too much."
If Mike suddenly hit the Powerball, or won big in Atlantic City--really, really big--he'd stay right where he is in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He'd still make cold calls and he'd still come home at night to the house on Werleys Corner Road, perched on the fourth highest peak in Lehigh County. "At 12 I knew I wanted to live here," he says.
Well, maybe he'd be a distributor living in the Lehigh Valley--with a helicopter.
"I recently sent my wife's parents and her 88-year-old grandmother up in a helicopter ride," Mike explains. "I've always wanted to learn to fly, and the pilot took a few hours going through the process with me, ultimately offering to mentor me through the process if I wanted to learn. So I've been investigating it," he says modestly, although next year's forecast will probably be sunny, with a chance of Mike landing his helicopter on the roof of The Borgata in Atlantic City, N.J.
"Wouldn't it be cool to go wherever you wanted, whenever? Just hop in a helicopter and fly to New York City?" The man posing these seemingly idle questions has a laid-back smile and an easy hand on the wheel. But don't let him fool you--this is the guy who is about to take the helm of a six-decade-old organization, lead a girls' soccer team to the championship, sell millions worth in printing and retire before he's 55. Mike hopes, dreams and achieves in bright lights and big numbers.
"That's just me," he says frankly. "I just can't start small."
Rebecca Trela is managing editor of Print Solutions magazine. Email comments to rtrela@psda.org.
My culture is very simple, Mike says. "I don't focus on being the biggest firm in town, but I concentrate on being the best." That's an achievement PrintConcepts measures with customer satisfaction and revenue per employee, not sales dollars or volume alone, he says. Currently, PrintConcepts' revenue per full-time employee is more than $500,000 per person, and the business has grown each of its 31 years.
The PrintConcepts headquarters on Snowdrift Road is the fifth and largest of the company's buildings over its 31-year history in Allentown, Pa.
Although they stick to simple principles, Mike and his brother Paul have grand plans for what the business will continue to evolve into. "Right now we're at the critical fulcrum to grow with the people we have," Mike says. Before moving to the new headquarters last year, space constrained the company, which has always been strong in the warehousing and fulfillment market. "By this time next year, this place will look more like an ad agency."
The brothers have plans to completely renovate their current office space. "We want to create an environment where we can bring our clients back to, keeping them in our space, and show them we are more than just desks and good looks," Mike says. The renovated space will have a large promotional products showroom, a training center where PrintConcepts staff can demonstrate their online ordering system to new clients, a boardroom and more. "We're proud of our facilities. I think it is a big plus when a client comes out and see's our building, sees the warehouse operation and sees all the inventory," Mike says. "It quickly dissipates the old adage of 'you're just a distributor'.
"We want clients to come here and see our bricks and mortar for a better understanding of what the company does," Mike says. "There's a lot of confusion about the distributor value proposition."
A few years ago, the Fisher brothers considered buying one of their customers, a local printer with digital capabilities, but ultimately decided against it. "At some point, I can see where we might be pushed on turnaround times to acquire a box," he said. "With our new print management center, I think about it a lot. My brother is very mechanically inclined and I think he'd be good at it."
For some distributors, owning a press is the "holy grail," Mike says, but he's not one of them. "We have to get rid of that stigma that if you're not a manufacturer, you have less value to the customer." He feels strongly about the worth of the distributor channel. "We should be proud to take the client back to our facility," which is one of the reasons PrintConcepts will be undergoing renovation. "I really feel that as a distributor, I'm in the best position to respond to our clients' needs. We're not tied to equipment or manufacturing techniques," Mike says, "so if a customer asks for it, we'll find it--whatever 'it' may be."
While the role of the distributor in the marketplace is changing, Mike plans to change along with it. "Sure, online ordering is the way of the future," he says confidently. "And we're not afraid of it." With hundreds of users already signed on to the online ordering system, technology is at the forefront of PrintConcepts' business model. "In the future, all PSDA members need to focus on integrating the various communication media for their clients, not just print. The web is changing the way we do business, along with the products we offer. The only difference in the future will be the speed at which this change takes place," Mike says. "What used to take two years to affect a client relationship now seemingly happens daily."
Is there anything holding him back? "We haven't decided to jump headfirst into office supplies yet," he says, and some of his competitors are outselling him on non-traditional consumables, like furniture.
"The problem is," Mike quips, "I'm not passionate about furniture."
"Yet."
Yocco's
An 86-year old hot dog stand chain owned by Lee Iacocca's family forms the backdrop of many Fisher family memories. It was this fast food joint where Mike, Michele and Greg (who all work at PrintConcepts today) worked for Paul, the shift manager, in high school. This spot on Rt. 100 was the site of several fistfights between the Fisher brothers, back when Paul could send Mike home from work.
This was also the scene where Carol Fisher, a glowing college freshman, first laid eyes on her future husband, then a high school senior. The two were introduced by her cousin, a friend of Mike's.
"Other than smelling like hot dogs all the time, I have no bad memories of that time," Mike grins.
7622 Pony Road
Mike's earliest memories of the forms business are of being a preteen, unloading skids of paper from a Ryder truck into the garage of the house on Pony Road. The house was Lehigh Business Forms' headquarters from 1977-1980. "Somewhere from six to 10 skids would fill the whole garage, leaving a space for my mom's car," Mike says. "It just took hours and hours to unload."
19th Street
Lehigh Business Forms occupied two 20 ft. by 14 ft. rooms in this building--one was used exclusively for inventory. When Lehigh Business Forms moved here in 1980, the business was big enough to get out of the house (and run a small copy machine), but it wasn't flourishing yet.
"We ate a lot of hot dogs and hamburgers in the early years," said Paul Fisher Sr. "Things never really got easier--it was always long days."
Jefferson Street
The Fishers finally decided they needed more warehouse space, and decided to buy a building. Unfortunately, Jefferson St. wasn't in the nicest part of town and after nine years at this location, the family took a loss on the building and moved on. "We were constantly getting ticketed," Mike says, and the delivery trucks would block the entire street in the back.
Paul started working at LBF here, in 1989, and Mike followed him in 1991. In the early years, Paul Fisher Sr. taught his sons "the printing business from the ground up."
7355 William Ave., Ste. 300
When Lehigh Business Forms took up residence on William Ave., the Standard Register local sales office was just two doors down in Ste. 100. Paul Fisher Sr. remembers a number of shenanigans from those days, including sifting through the dumpster out back to check on Standard Register's clients and prospects.
While at William Ave., Lehigh Business Forms was renamed PrintConcepts. Later that year (1999), Paul Fisher Jr. and Mike began talking to their parents about transitioning out of the business.
"The day we moved out here was the day I said to myself, 'I know this business is going to really make it. There is no end to how great we can become to our clients," Mike says.
Snowdrift Road--PrintConcepts HQ
The minute Mike saw the flyer advertising this property, he knew the building was his--and the deal was closed shortly thereafter, making it PrintConcepts' biggest space by far, at more than 18,000 sq. ft. "We can grow our company five-fold in this space," Mike says. "I don't envision us moving from here."
A Leaner, More Focused Association
"Unless you're a heart surgeon, nobody really needs you," says Mike Fisher, and this aphorism is where his philosophy about PSDA begins. In the coming year, Mike will look for ways to make the association indispensible to its members, who he sees as "customers."
"I'd like the association to understand a little better what its members want," which may mean fewer trade shows, he says. Potentially, the association could partner with another industry show or change the format. "Let's not be afraid to break that mold and make this thing look totally different."
Potentially, direct-selling and commercial printers could form an alliance with the association. "In the past, I think a majority of PSDA members considered the majors the real competition," Mike says. "As PSDA moves forward, the association needs to be aware that each of the members is unique, and what might be a competitor to one could be a strategic business partner to another. The association constantly needs to ensure it is looking at the industry from the 10,000-ft. view." For Mike's business, the competition comes from office supply stores and commercial printers. For digital manufacturers, the threat might be from internet printers, and for some, the competition is simply other distributors. "The role of PSDA is to serve an industry, not just a small segment of it like in the association's founding years. I am a big believer that the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
The print market is still strong, Mike says. "To hell with all the talk about 'mature and dying industry," he dismisses. "There is an entire industry out here for PSDA to represent: different markets, different segments and more. In the end, if we emerge with a slightly smaller association, but a better one, I will consider my term a success."
The 2008-2009 term of Fisher's presidency continues a three-year strategic plan begun by Past President Jim Riley in 2006 and continued by Bob O'Connell in 2007. "Mike is very involved with the board and wants to move the association forward," Riley says. "The three of us--he, Bob and I--have a special bond."
In his years on the PSDA Board of Directors, Riley has seen Mike grow as an individual and a leader. "Mike is strong-willed and competitive, it's true," Riley says. "But in the six or so years we've worked together, I think he's learned a lot. He's come to realize that a group decision by the board is oftentimes better than something any one of us would have come up with individually. Mike has grown very collaborative."
His father, Paul Fisher Sr., gives Mike a ringing endorsement. "He is a good man, and a fine salesman. I think he'll be a very successful president."
Mike also plans to form an advisory board committee to assist the board with the development of the 2009-2010 strategic plan. "When my time on the PSDA board is complete, I hope to still be very active in our association, but perhaps not in a leadership role. The association constantly needs fresh blood."
© 2008 Print Solutions Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Published by the Print Services & Distribution Association
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