Sun Chemical’s Jim Putney has received the 2014 National Association of Print Ink Manufacturers (NAPIM) Pioneer Award.

One of the most distinguished awards in the ink manufacturing industry, the Pioneer Award honors those who have given at least 25 years of service to the printing ink industry through their work with one or several printing ink companies or suppliers, in addition to service work with ink associations, production clubs and other committees. NAPIM also considers technical contributions in the areas of laboratory, engineering, production or product development.

A Southeast regional manager for Customer Technical Service (CTS), Putney is responsible for a customer technical service team of close to 50 people, including field service and in-plant personnel. He is credited with creating Sun Chemical’s performance management system to measure CTS value and captained the reorganization of the Southeast CTS team to better match sales and opportunity with skills and geography.

Putney has been instrumental in the expansion of color management, ink dispensing technology and pressroom consumables at Sun Chemical. On the customer side, he has dedicated himself to numerous accounts which have ultimately added value and helped drive customer business.

In his nearly 30 years at Sun Chemical, Putney has spearheaded various projects for large national accounts in the operations, capital installations, and cost reduction or efficiency improvement areas. He also led an operations team to integrate competitive asset purchase, a marketing team to launch the Sun Chemical Dispenser Program and facilitated a technical development team to commercialize new technology applications.

Putney holds three United States patents/extensions on color communication which have since become the backbone of PantoneLIVE and Sun Chemical’s Global Shade Library. He has served with several associations, including NAPIM, NPIRI, FTA, TLMI and GAA, and has repeatedly spoken as a guest speaker for events hosted by the Liquid Ink Council, Harper, FFTA GAA, PLGA, and GATF.

“Jim is a mastermind when it comes to creating and monitoring performance driven metrics,” says Jarred Carter, director, Customer Technical Service & In-plant Operations, North American Inks, Sun Chemical. “His abilities in this arena have taken form in a number of different applications over his 30 year career in the business. In each and every instance, he has been able to both create and measure tremendous value for our customers and the industry at large. At its very essence, the Pioneer award recognizes those individuals whose efforts advance our industry as a whole. On this fundamental premise, I cannot think of a more worthy recipient of this prestigious NAPIM award.”