A Life In Ink (CONT’D FROM PAGE 30)
Sandra’s children, has worked alongside John from the time he was 13-years old, through the IVT Colordry era. After a short break he returned to work with John and now serves as the President of JB Machinery. Tanya (Bird) Rubin, their middle child, joined the compa- ny as head of HR and Finance. Nathan Bird, John and San- dra’s youngest, serves as VP of Business Development and heads up Sales and Service Support. Recently Spen- cer Bird, Warren’s son, joined the company as a Regional Sales Manager ushering in the third Bird generation.
is known as the K&B Rapida. They were about 60 percent of IVT CD’s business in 1987-88. Royal Zenith, the agent for Planeta, experienced an attempted leverage buyout. All the managers involved, AND all the suppliers were fired. “We were suddenly almost penniless. So, we sold all our intellectual property to Printing Research (PRI), and I signed on as a consultant for them and moved to Dallas.” On January 2nd, 1997 John is fired for making too much money. “Once again, I discover I’m unemployable. Who the hell is going to hire John Bird?” John approached PRI with an offer to be their agent for the flexo market and a promise to out-sell their salesmen. That was the begin- ning of JB Machinery. In March of 1998 Tom Stiles from Menasha Corp. intro- duced John to Xeric Web Drying Systems. An exclusive deal was consummated with a handshake. JB would be the exclusive agent for Xeric and Xeric would be JB’s ex- clusive manufacturer of drying and curing systems for the global flexo market. “That was another great thing about America. Where else could you strike a deal solely on a handshake?” In 2014, JB would purchase Xeric Web when founder and owner Rodger Whipple decided to retire. Today it is XDS the manufacturing arm of JB Machinery.
“There are two other key members of our organization, Dave Burgess, our Director of Sales, who has been with us for over 11 years. He has been instrumental in my transition to retirement. And Jeff DeVries, the President of XDS. We have known Jeff since the McKinely days and brought him in to run XDS when we purchased it. Dave and Jeff have been cornerstones to our success in both R&D and Sales and Marketing.” John is often asked if he finds satisfaction in his suc- cess. “I guess there is some satisfaction in being success- ful. But I find greater satisfaction in being creative, being innovative, finding solutions to solve problems, helping people get the most out of their equipment, and develop- ing long term partnerships and friendships. That’s where I find my satisfaction.” An innovative thinker, John has always had a ‘down the road’ vision. An ‘okay, but what’s next’ attitude. While that is perhaps not the secret to his success, it is a key factor in it. He will never sit idle as long as there is an incremental improvement to be made. “You must keep driving forward. You can’t move forward while sitting still, can you? And when life knocks you down, you can’t sit and pout about it. You get up, dust yourself off, remember the lesson learned and push forward. That’s how you succeed.” Based in Westport, Connecticut, JB Machinery provides superior products and services to converters and original equipment manufacturers. With over 60 years of experi- ence, its unique and efficient IR drying and UV curing sys- tem designs have generated an extensive list of satisfied customers from around the world. Visit jbmachinery.com. The Bird family. From left, are Nathan, Warren, Sandra, John and Tanya (Bird) Rubin.
JB Machinery’s ColorDry-XL300 IR Dryer
JB Machinery’s first order was Weyerhaeuser Meriden, Connecticut, a UV curing system on a 2-color Ward RDC. This was also the very first UV system Xeric had ever made. “We discussed this with Weyerhaeuser Corporate Engineer David Guffy who showed ultimate faith that this brand-new company, who had never done this before, could pull it off. Only in America could this happen.” Today, JB Machinery Inc. offers a wide range of prod- ucts to optimize and automate the flexo printing process including ColorDry® IR dryers, InKomand® precise ink management systems, AutoWash® automatic plate clean- ers, KleenPlate® print defect eliminator, and much more. From its simple beginnings, JB Machinery has grown from a one-man show to a family business that is entering its third generation. Warren Bird, the oldest of John and
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April 24, 2023
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