LINCOLN, RI—Jason Cagle is the director of sales for printing in North America at Windmoeller & Hoelscher Corp, where he focuses on driving innovation, customer value, and market growth.

As a past FORUM INFOFLEX chair and co-chair, Cagle holds a broad perspective on market dynamics. He is a proud Clemson University graduate, a devoted husband and father to two young boys, who considers himself a lifelong learner.

In an entertaining and thought-provoking article penned for FLEXO Magazine’s October 2025 edition, Cagle uses humor in examining the continuing evolution of the flexographic printing press, its supporting technologies and people’s reactions to them. His message: invest in future-ready technologies, understand what’s coming and lead the way in making tomorrow’s pressroom faster, smarter, cleaner and much more efficient.

The name’s Gearhead. Charlie Gearhead. I’ve been in this business longer than most of you have had a driver’s license. Four decades, six shops, nine presses, and more cups of bad coffee than I care to admit. My joints ache when it rains, and I can still smell solvent when I close my eyes.

I’m not here to preach, and I’m not here to sugarcoat the state of the industry. I’m here to tell it to you straight. the real, gritty, ink-splashed truth about how this game has changed and what you better be doing if you plan to stick around.

As I pen this confession of a pressroom veteran, I recall that back when I got started, you didn’t just run a press–you fought it, day-in and day-out. The thing didn’t come with brains. It came with knobs, belts, bolts, and a whole lot of attitude.

You didn’t learn how to run it in school. You learned by bleeding. You learned when the web snapped at 500 meters a minute and no one was around to help. You learned from the guy with the burned-out eyes and the don’t-bother-me attitude who’d been there 20 years before you.

Job changeovers? That wasn’t just part of the day. That was the day. You prayed the sleeves weren’t cracked, hoped your plates were clean, and crossed your fingers that the anilox wasn’t caked from last week’s ink job. You bled time, wasted film, and lost more patience than you made profit. And you did it all before lunch.

I remember this one press, we called her Bessie, she ran only when she felt like it. One time, I spent four hours just getting registration to hold. I walked away for five minutes to heat up lunch, came back, and she had thrown the job halfway across the room like a toddler on a tantrum. That was normal and that was life. And somehow, we were proud of it.

Fast forward to today. Let me tell you: the machines aren’t just running, they’re thinking. I saw a press the other day, the VISTAFLEX II from W&H, with dual VISTA-PORT robots doing job prep, like a well-rehearsed pit crew, while the previous run was still printing. I stood there, arms crossed, waiting for it to mess up. It didn’t.

That kind of performance used to take three people, a clipboard, and a healthy amount of yelling. Now, it happens while you sip your coffee and wonder what to do with the extra time. Blows my mind.

And speaking of ridiculous, let’s talk about this whole “EASY-SET UP” thing. When I first heard the name, I barked out a laugh so loud it startled the new guy. Press setup isn’t supposed to be easy. That’s what separates the men from the boys, I said.

Then I saw it work. Step-by-step instructions, cameras guiding impression settings, register correction happening on its own, and no more throwing on your reading glasses to stare at dots and smears. The thing lines itself up. One click and you’re cooking.

I swear, it’s like watching a rookie operator grow 10 years of experience in 10 minutes. Turns out, maybe it’s not about being the hero who knows every trick, it’s about getting good results and going home on time.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: “Charlie, this sounds like the robots are coming for our jobs.” But let me tell you something, the machines don’t want to take your job–they want to make it easier:

• No more crawling under the press with a wrench in your teeth and ink on your knees just to fix something the software can catch ahead of time
• No more second-guessing tension settings when the machine already knows better than you do

No shame in that either. It’s not about pride anymore, it’s about performance. Back in my day, the start of every job was basically a ritual sacrifice. You fed the press film and time until it gave you something usable.

Now? With predictive maintenance and real-time defect detection, presses catch problems before they wreck your job.

I saw an Internet of Things (IoT) platform monitor a press in action not long ago. This system tracks everything: job specs, sleeve inventory, press settings, and talks to everything else in your workflow. It’s like your pressroom went from a bunch of bickering loners to a synchronized team of overachievers. It’s scary good.

But let me tell you, nothing matters, if you’re not also thinking about the planet. Back then, we didn’t talk about sustainability. We just hosed the floor and hoped no one slipped.

Now? Everyone’s got an opinion: consumers, brands, the government. They want greener packaging, and they want it yesterday.

The problem? The new stuff’s harder to run–mono-materials, PCR content, and all these thinner gauges that act like wild animals on press. They stretch, curl, and ink like they’re holding a grudge.

But the new presses, the good ones, they handle it. Dynamic tension control, smarter dryers, better ink laydown, it’s like watching a press whisper to the film, “Relax, I got this.”

Everything I’ve said brings me to the biggest obstacle: us. We’re stubborn–I know I am. I hate new things just on principle.

First time I heard someone say “cloud-based workflow” I thought they were having a stroke. But it’s like when Tesla came out with self-driving cars. People said, “I’d never trust a car to drive me.” Now? They’re riding in autonomous taxis with their feet up.

Same thing’s happening here. At first, automation feels risky. But once you see what it does, and how reliable it is, you don’t want to go back.

Today’s press manufacturers are pushing smarter presses that think ahead, and don’t simply react.

The shops that will make it in the next seven years? They won’t just buy new gear. They’ll build new habits. They’ll train differently. They’ll encourage new ways of thinking. You have to mix experience with openness, grit with growth.

And that’s why I’m still here–not just to gripe about the good ol’ days, but to make sure the new days are even better. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a grouchy old pressman.

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That’s Charlie’s take and if you’ve worked in the print industry, you’ve probably met your own version of him. Maybe you are him. But if there’s one thing Charlie shows us, it’s that experience doesn’t have to resist change. It can lead it.

This industry has always been about solving problems. It’s what we do best. And now, we’ve got better tools to solve them with. At W&H, like  some other press OEMs, we’re not just watching this unfold, we’re shaping it. From extrusion to printing, we see the connections across the whole process, and we’re building solutions that make the printed product better.

Whether it’s automation platforms, lights-out prep, or system-wide smarts through IoT platforms, when you combine great machines with great people, you don’t just keep up, you lead.

Press manufacturers, like W&H,  are investing heavily in future-ready technologies because tomorrow’s pressroom should be faster, smarter, and cleaner without sacrificing quality.

R&D teams are making smart bets–automation that adapts, presses that learn and platforms that empower operators instead of replacing them. They’re building toward a future where a pressroom isn’t held back by labor shortages, inconsistent substrates, or old ways of thinking.

The goal is to make technology so intuitive and so capable that it becomes an extension of the package printer’s team–the kind of solution that makes a seasoned operator say, “Wow,” and makes a new one feel confident on Day One.

It’s not just about the machine, it’s about the experience created around it–faster setups, cleaner startups, more predictability, and considerably less waste.

So here’s the question: will your pressroom be ready, or will you be the one telling stories about how it used to be? The good news? You get to decide.

In 2040 someone may ask you, “What changed in this industry?”  Please don’t answer, “Everything passed us by.”  Reply confidently and emphatically explain to your questioner, “We saw it coming and we led the way.”