Business News
2009 Berber Award Honors Marcia Bonsell
Wednesday 14. October 2009 - Printing Industries of America, along with its Ben Franklin Honor Society, is pleased to announce that the 2009 Naomi Berber Memorial Award recipient is Marcia Bonsell, vice president of production at Communicorp, Inc. of Columbus, Georgia.
Ms. Bonsell’s career in printing spans 40 years, a time during which she was a pioneer having successfully worked her way through the ranks by self-educating in the trade while also fostering growth and training for other women in the field. She has been described as a “compassionate, yet firm leader” who is “extremely alert to the technology metamorphosis” and “quick to embrace change.”
The Beginning of an Illustrious Career
Ms. Bonsell started her printing career in 1968 working as an entry-level bindery worker. Assigned the work that the skilled men did not want to handle and feeling this was unjust, she decided to prove that women can work equally to men in the printing industry. From that moment, Ms. Bonsell began questioning and learning about each piece of bindery equipment. After earning her stripes in bindery, she ventured to all other plant equipment and departments and succeeded in gaining an understanding of each area. This quest for knowledge set the stage for her exciting career in the printing industry.
Pioneering and Fostering Women in Print
In 1977, Ms. Bonsell, along with her two children, relocated to Florida from upstate New York. Little did she realize that this move would have a large impact on her career. Once in Florida, she starting working as a folder operator and soon learned that she was the first woman folder operator in all of Florida. Ms. Bonsell saw this opportunity as a chance to grow in her field and also initiated training to encourage other women to join the trade. Any piece of information about the business that co-workers would teach her she took to heart.
Ms. Bonsell became purchasing agent and moved quickly into scheduling, estimating, customer service, and job planning as well as learning all facets of production. She continued to grow in her field, and soon became plant superintendent. Always with an eye towards keeping pace with the latest technologies, Ms. Bonsell developed a training program to teach an early version of Microsoft Windows to others.
Bonsell Joins Communicorp
In 2000, Ms. Bonsell became plant operations manager at Communicorp, a subsidiary of Aflac, in Columbus, Georgia. At Communicorp, she instituted a system of training and testing in all production areas. A new set of written procedures was developed, and workers soon saw the benefits of these procedures and accepted them.
Less than a year after joining Communicorp, job delivery rate improved to over an 85% on-time delivery rate (since then the number has improved even further into the high nineties). Regular documented programs were instituted, and vendor qualification programs were also installed by Ms. Bonsell. In 2005, she was promoted to vice president of production. That same year she earned her BBA in management.
Support for External Causes
Throughout her career, Ms. Bonsell was affiliated with the March of Dimes, Relay for Life, Outdoor Games, Iron Girl, Holy Family Church, Toys for Tots, and Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. She is also a certified volunteer at Children’s Healthcare in Atlanta and a member of Beta Gamma Sigma. Her work for Cayuga Chapter of the Bright Idea committee was also recognized.