By Ed Avis
The decision is unanimous - the name of our association soon will revert to International Reprographic Association (IRgA). We received 42 completed ballots for the name change vote, and every single person voted "Yes" on that question. According to New York State rules, we needed votes from at least half of our membership, which is 80, so 42 was two more than we needed.
IRgA logo
The official vote tally was on Wednesday at 11 a.m. Central in APDSP's headquarters in Chicago. In addition to the official count, the Board of Directors voted for the name change, and that vote was also unanimous. The board's vote was also a requirement of New York State.
The next step is to file amended Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws with the State of New York. We are also working on a refreshed logo and some other updates and new initiatives. With a new name comes a fresh look and fresh programs! Stay tuned for details about those.
The name changed from IRgA to Association of Printing & Data Solutions Professionals in 2016. The decision was made because it seemed that IRgA was out of date and APDSP more closely matched the current state of the industry. But, over the years it became clear that many people preferred the old name. Furthermore, the word "reprographics" has a significance to our industry that no other word quite matches.
The effort to change the name back to IRgA was launched by current APDSP president John Lipari. He suggested the change as one key issue that he wanted to address as president.
"I'm hopeful the name change will give the membership momentum to market our membership (reprographics) again as 'repro,'" Lipari says. "I believe the A/E/C markets still know us as 'repro' and we should begin to leverage ourselves again as a qualified channel for their needs as a partner industry. Defining these channel services are the next challenge for the IRgA membership as the generational change is always moving forward and our need to diversify is a need for our success."