Lakeland Mirror

Issue date: 11/16/06 Section: Features

Media Credit: Lori Sass For years Gary Thede has been known as "Printer Guy." Thede owns G.T. Graphics which is located on the southwest end of campus. Here he is shown with the Heidelberg Speedmaster, the machine that most of the work at G.T. Graphics is done on.

The building had rustic, red siding with an off white roof. A docking bay also butted up to the building. It looked like just another maintenance building, as it seemed to be surrounded by Lakeland service trucks and repair equipment. In the window of a white service door a sign reads "G.T. Graphics."

A five-foot ten-inch stocky framed man immediately greets anyone who enters. Gary Thede's huge smile stretches wide across his face as he speaks.

It turns out that Lakeland's "printer guy" never had any intentions of ever going into the printing business during or after high school. Gary, a Sheboygan Falls native, loves to work on cars and thought he would have been an auto mechanic. Gary still has a love of cars, especially Mustangs, and at one point he owned three Shelby Mustangs.

Out of high school, Gary did some racing at the Kaukauna speedway with his 1965 high performance 289 Mustang. Eventually though, Gary's attention toward cars changed directions, and he started to focus on the printing industry and his family, which left him little time for his hobby, cars.

Gary eventually married. It was his father-in-law who provided Gary with a tie into the printing business.

He started out at Fox Printing with his father-in-law. They both left Sheboygan and moved to Sheboygan Falls in 1974 and opened Falls Graphics. It was there Gary founded a shop for Sheboygan County called the Shoreline Chronicle. He also took on projects from other various clients. Hard times would eventually catch up with Gary though.

Gary left the printing business due to personal issues. It was during this time that Lakeland's own "printer guy" was selling used cars at Motorville. Disliking his new job, Gary decided to get back into the printing business again.

It wasn't long before Gary received a call from Wayne Warnecke, Lakeland's old vice president who wanted Gary's printing expertise in the college's print shop. After some time helping out with the printing shop, Gary was offered a full-time, head position of the printing department at Lakeland. Aside from his past printing experiences with his father-in-law, Gary also has an associate's degree from LTC and two years of schooling from UW Sheboygan with an emphasis in accounting.

After of two years of working for the school, Lakeland decided to sell its print shop due to the fact the college could no longer justify the means for all the expensive equipment it had.

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