Kathy Bedard, School of Media Sciences (SMS) alumna

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Kathy Bedard

With over 21,000 employees working at over forty worldwide facilities, Quad (NYSE: QUAD) requires a continual stream of top-level talent. To help attract the best and the brightest, they have adopted a corporate training program, in which qualified individuals cycle among various jobs and locations before selecting where they wish to permanently work. This arrangement perfectly suited School of Media Sciences (SMS) alumna Kathy Bedard; the 2013 graduate entered the Quad corporate training program shortly after finishing her bachelor of science degree in Media Arts and Technology, and has settled in at the Woburn, MA Commercial and Specialty Plant as a Customer Account Manager.

Kathy has always been interested in graphics. Like a great deal of SMS majors, she looked at several graphic design programs before finding her passion in the industry-relevant curriculum offered by SMS at RIT. As a high school senior, she did her homework in selecting her career path. Kathy visited both a graphic design firm and the Quad plant in her native Saratoga Springs, NY where she was exposed to the day-to-day operations and employment requirements for both workplaces. Meeting an RIT alumnus at the Quad plant, and being aware of the corporate training program, she decided that this was the path for her.

Beginning the corporate training program on the production floor, Kathy was then moved to various administrative roles at Quad locations in the Midwest. When the opportunity to work as a Customer Account Manager at the Woburn facility opened, she knew that this was the job for her. The fast-paced environment, combined with the ability to manage communications with customers and the departments required to produce the final pieces was attractive to Kathy. The Commercial and Specialty Plant, which produces direct mail, in-store
signage, posters, wall clings, wide format, sheet-fed offset and digital printing for Quad’s clients ensures a variety of work that keeps her job interesting. She takes the job from sales, and interacts with the client and the Quad production departments as the projects progress throughout the plant.

Managing daily production meetings is the heart of Kathy’s workday, where she employs the skills that were central to the curriculum in her program. Her work is so much more that what most envision when they hear the term “customer service.” Far from being on the phone all day, Kathy works in an interactive, hands-on, and diverse environment, and achieves satisfaction through seeing graphic jobs completed from start to finish.

Kathy states that the experiential learning inherent in her co-op was central in her career success. While enrolled in the Bachelor of Science program, she worked on the Cunard Cruise line. Like her current job, work on the ship was fast-paced, where she produced graphics seven days a week while traveling the world. This provided her with great talking points in interviews as hiring managers are genuinely interested in this unique experiential learning experience.

Another benefit to SMS is the diversity of the course offerings and the types of careers that for which they prepare graduates. Kathy appreciates that SMS graduates do not all vie for the same jobs, and that they can tailor their resumes to a wide variety of career opportunities and personal interests.

SMS graduates are especially attractive as candidates for Quad’s corporate training program, according to Kathy. Coming from a well-rounded curriculum, they are already vested in the industry. The hiring managers at Quad appreciate the students that they see from SMS.