@Lithoman - Sorry to learn you lost your business due to Katrina.
My father was an old rotogravure man. He made the transition into litho in the late 70's and was a color separation cameraman. Then became at Rotoprint in Chicago and was in charge of the National Geographic account there. In about 1984, National Geo pulled the account and moved everything to Georgia. At that time, my father started his own business and then sold the business in 1994. I spent about 11 years in the printing industry. Started as a stripper and worked my way up to prepress manager and then sales. Timeline was '87 - '98. The changes during those years were simply crazy. In 1989, the company I worked for had bought a brand new Heidelberg drum scanner to about the tune of $1,500,000. By 1993-4, the scanner and stripping were obsolete as DTP (desktop publishing) with DTP (direct-to-plate) evolved. After being in sales a few years, I shifted gears and moved to telecom/telephony sales. However, I recall my printing days fondly.