Asahi Photoproducts, a provider of flexographic photopolymer plates, appoints long-time Asahi customer and senior industry expert Gene Martin as its agent in the United States.
Martin has been in the flexographic industry for 40 years, the last 30 of which were with a major provider of flexographic services, where he rose from graphics division manager to plant manager.
Martin has also served on the FTA board for six years as well as serving on the FTA Scholarship Committee from 2006 to 2019. In those volunteer roles and others, he earned market credibility and built a good network of US flexo operations.
“Ten years of successful printing with Asahi AWP CleanPrint water-wash plates has led me to this new role,” Martin said. “Based on that experience, these are products I truly believe in. I am proud to be on the Asahi team and look forward to working with them and sharing my experience with the US market about the value of these plates, in terms of productivity, profitability, time to market, and importantly, sustainability.”
As Asahi’s agent for the US market, Martin will be working directly with Asahi customers in partnership with distributors in the United States to provide value-added services to both Asahi’s distributors and their customers. This includes providing colour management best practices and procedures for all US customers, working with potential customers to understand their current printing process and provide plate specifications to Asahi distributors for print trials, and addressing all customer complaints and resolving any plate-related issues. He will also act as an advocate for Asahi AWP plates, promoting their platemaking and printing attributes, with an overall goal of increasing Asahi’s US market share.
“We are absolutely delighted to welcome Gene to our team,” said Yuji Suzuki, development and technical adviser for the US. “It was a pleasure working with him during his previous company. We appreciate the thorough due diligence he did during the process of revamping the company’s platemaking department. That knowledge, and the experience he had since implementing AWP water-washable plates, gives him great credibility as he is out in the marketplace meeting with customers. We are delighted that he is working with Asahi in this role!”
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