Times pressroom supervisor retires after 65 years

Not many people can count on a 65-year career at the same newspaper.

Bob Bagwell will reach that milestone Friday when he retires as pressroom lineup supervisor for The Times.

His job, which co-workers liken to that of an air traffic controller who decides when and where planes will land, involves determining how the paper’s’ presses are configured each day to accommodate news and advertising pages.

Bagwell, 83, began as a Times pressman in 1947, when the old-school letterpress printing operation and news and advertising departments were in the same building in downtown Los Angeles.

During his career, Bagwell experienced the switch to offset print production at a new Los Angeles pressroom, the opening of satellite printing plants in Orange County and the San Fernando Valley and the introduction of full color.

He also saw the acquisition of The Times by Chicago’s Tribune Co. and continued staff reductions prompted by the souring economy and shrinking circulation.

Nonetheless, Bagwell was upbeat and optimistic Tuesday when friends and co-workers saluted his career.

“I think we’ll always have a printed newspaper. Not everybody wants to look at news on computers,” he said at a reception in his honor.

Co-workers recalled how Bagwell came to the rescue of new pressroom computers in 1985 when the manufacturer of The Times’ presses installed a new control system that was supposed to automatically configure color page positions on presses.

“Their engineers said to just give them a call if the computer ever freezes,” said Rick Terry, a production planning coordinator who has worked with Bagwell for 38 years.

But the balky new computer froze every day, requiring Bagwell to manually configure the presses’ page layouts.

“This went on for three months until the engineers finally gave up on the computer,” Terry said. “Bob figured it out in his head: He’d say, ‘This goes here, that goes there,’ and he could do it in two minutes.”

Terry said Bagwell’s skills “made millions of dollars for this company” during the 1980s and ‘90s when the paper was brimming with advertising and his ability to do last-minute ad-juggling allowed the pressroom to meet its tight production deadlines.

“I don’t think I ever saw him react to pressure. When something would happen, Bob never unraveled. He would just chuckle and find a way to fix it,” said retired pressroom supervisor William Hutfless, who worked for 35 years with Bagwell.

Bagwell said knee problems that made travel by bus from his Arcadia home to downtown L.A. difficult prompted his decision to step down as he reaches the 65-year mark.

“I don’t think that Bob called in sick once in his 65 years,” said Lois Shonebarger, manager of planning and pagination for The Times.

“A team of three or four will take different pieces of what he does when he leaves,” she said.

bob.pool@latimes.com