Natalie Beavers, assistant duplicating services supervisor, always tries to make a good impression—on the phone, at the front desk and even with the print jobs that come through central duplicating.For the past 11 years, she has headed the front desk at the shop and answered phone calls for incoming orders. And as central duplicating receives more than 4,000 jobs a year, Beavers has taken requests for literally millions of copies. Through all of this, she’s also gotten to know a lot of the university community.“I probably know somebody in every department on campus,” she said. “And that’s my favorite part of the job—meeting and getting to know new people.”
Oftentimes customers get so well acquainted with Beavers that they don’t even use their full names on the phone.
Beavers said that someone might call in and say ‘this is Sue’ but Beavers may know “20 Sues, so it may take a question or two to figure out which Sue I have on the line, but it is just about making people comfortable,” she said.
She processes an array of reading materials, from pamphlets for the Cooperative Extension to brochures for the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel.
Beavers is currently responsible for the booking, billing, accounting and estimates of each printing job. In any given day, she may work with up to 25 or 30 customers ranging from professors with exams to art students with invitations to their shows. Her job is fast-paced, and Beavers has to work on a quick turn-around schedule and may receive and duplicate up to 75 individual jobs per day.
While she technically isn’t a copy editor, she has been known to catch errors in print jobs and help save clients from embarrassing mistakes and costly reprints. Beavers said she frequently sees the word ‘university’ misspelled.
Denise Horton, communications director for the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, has worked with Beavers for years.
“She knows what she is doing and knows how to help you through a print job from picking your paper to completion,” Horton said. “She’s such a professional and that makes it so easy.”
Beavers is no stranger to a print shop. In fact, she has been around the printing business since she was 6 years old and her family owned one. After school and on Saturdays, Beavers would help her family with hand collating papers that could not be organized by printing machines, stapling and helping customers. She became the “go-to girl” in printing emergencies like last-minute birth announcements.
She knows how to run a printing press, all about ink and paper combinations,
about binding services and over the years she’s learned what to expect and when, from her best clients.
With the recent budget cuts on campus, Beavers has really tried to help departments get the most for their money in central duplicating.
“We try to take the responsibility off the customers—especially if they’re stressed out about an important publication,” she said. “When they hand it over to us, we want them to be able to let go of that stress.”
For example, a professor giving an exam the next day had forgotten to pick up the copies for his 8 a.m. class. So he contacted Beavers at 9:30 p.m. the night before and Beavers opened up the shop for him so he could retrieve the tests.
When Beavers isn’t helping customers or pricing jobs for printing, she might be cheering on her 13-year-old son at a football, basketball or baseball game, throwing strikes at a bowling league game, taking to the Blue Ridge Parkway for a motorcycle ride or hosting a middle school Young Life group called Wyldlife at her home.
