Domino has created a tribute video to Tom Staib, who passed away suddenly on 2 October, 2020.
Tom was a fourth-generation owner with his brother Andy of DWS Printing, a label manufacturer located on Long Island in Deer Park, New York.
‘Tom was our customer, our business partner, our friend,’ said Bill Myers, marketing manager at Domino. ‘He was well known and highly regarded. You could find him often at industry events presenting to and networking with other label manufacturers, sharing information and best practices. Tom was extremely passionate about his family and his employees. He was very proud of DWS Printing’s 150-plus year heritage, its exciting future, and utilising technology to be a leader in the industry.’
This included digital. With DWS Printing’s main focus being food and beverage, with a strong presence in the craft beer market, the Staibs saw an opportunity. With the craft beer market heavily into shrink sleeve labels on beer cans and a lot of DWS’ business trending that way, the Staibs wanted to have the option to print shrink sleeves digitally. Digital also allows for quick and efficient production of label jobs requiring several SKUs and versioning.
Through much research, and a very thorough due diligence process, DWS Printing’s journey into digital was celebrated with the purchase of an MPS EF Symjet hybrid press at Labelexpo Europe 2017, and installed in January 2018. This system is integrated with a Domino N610i UV inkjet digital engine. In-house application of shrink sleeves onto cans complements this, with the packaging division being managed by Tom’s son TJ, the fifth generation of the Staib family to be involved with at DWS Printing. Further, a second MPS-Domino hybrid has been installed at a new DWS Printing facility in Austin, Texas.
Mr Myers continued, ‘I received a text message from Tom last September 2020, which included a photo of the Domino press that had just arrived at the Austin facility. He wrote, ‘It’s getting exciting, Bill.’
‘We were in process of creating a wonderful video for DWS Printing that included footage of Tom, Andy, and the DWS team at the Long Island facility. And with the expansion into Texas, we set up time lapse cameras in Austin to show the second MPS-Domino hybrid press being installed. Tom and Andy were thrilled. And then in early October I received the news about Tom. I communicated my sincerest condolences to Andy, and I contacted the production company to stop the video project.
‘Carrying the DWS torch in Austin, Texas #TOMSTRONG 💪’ *picture courtesy of Andy Staib, LinkedIn
‘In February 2021, I saw a post on LinkedIn by Andy that read, ‘Carrying the DWS torch in Austin, Texas’, with a photo of him and several DWS Printing team members at the new facility. Painted on the wall above them in large letters it read #TomStrong. I thought that was awesome. It made me smile. And it gave me the idea to create a video as a tribute to Tom, honouring his legacy and the DWS family, with a glimpse towards the exciting future of the company.
‘I do believe that someday we will revisit finishing the original video we started, but for now, this one just feels right.’
The tribute video was created and sent to Andy Staib, with the hopes that he would be OK with Domino sharing the video with the label and packaging industry, as so many people in the business knew and loved Tom.
‘Andy wrote back a very personal note which I will treasure,’ said Mr Myers. ‘He concluded with these words, ‘Please share the tribute video whenever you’d like and with whoever you wish. I couldn’t be more proud of DWS’ partnership with Domino.’
Tom also featured on the cover of and in the January/February 2020 issue of Digital Labels & Packaging, talking about DWS Printing’s digital/hybrid investment strategy.
Watch the video tribute to Tom Staib here, and below.
