School of Art and Design students have a new hub at University of Wisconsin-Stout — the expanded, upgraded Digital Process Lab in the Applied Arts Building.
The lab, which opened last fall, is 3,000 square feet, 10 times the size of the old print lab, which was elsewhere in the building. The new lab houses new state-of-the-art printing equipment, thanks in large part to an in-kind gift valued at $100,000 from alum Bill Flesch, a 1981 business administration graduate.
Flesch’s gift was part of the Pathways Forward comprehensive campaign, which wrapped up in 2020. The gift includes three Canon printers: a wide-format inkjet, a color copier and a high-volume Canon imagePRESS C650, the latter which essentially is a digital printing press.
Kerstin Nye 
The imagePRESS is “a full-on press” capable of printing 65 high definition images per minute, folding, stapling and other features to produce full-color newsletters, booklets, brochures and 30-inch banners. Between September and early December, it had processed more than 30,000 print jobs, said Zach Kolden, lab manager.
Flesch is chief development officer and treasurer for the Gordon Flesch Company, one of the nation’s largest independent providers of office technology solutions.
“The lab has the latest and greatest equipment from the digital processing and digital imaging world. Students will be learning about digital processing at the highest level, so they’ll have experience that others typically won’t get. We had the opportunity to help, so we were in,” Flesch said.
Flesch is scheduled to attend a grand opening of the lab on Friday, May 6, when the School of Art and Design Senior Show also will be held.
The open lab is used by more than 1,000 students from all seven art and design programs and four related programs that have classes within the school.
