Industry giant Bob Lamont has passed away after decades of “great dedication to the graphic arts industry”.
Lamont died of leukaemia on 27 September, aged 77, following more than 50 years of involvement with the industry.
Lamont founded the organisation that is today known as the Lithographic Institute of Australia. He served as federal president of the LIA and was also a GAMAA president and a PacPrint board member.
GAMAA executive director Karen Goldsmith said tributes had poured in for Lamont since she informed members of his death.
“He really lived and breathed the industry all his life. He was an easy guy to work with. He put in a lot of hours above and beyond what he was paid for,” she told ProPrint.
“He was extremely passionate about the industry. He was one of those people who was so welcoming when I came in; I didn’t know a lot about the industry and he took me under his wing.”
Grace Training owner Greg Grace said Lamont was an industry giant who had “worked tirelessly for the LIA”.
[Photos: Lamont attends Epson event]
“His life was committed to the graphic arts industry. He was truly a gentleman. He will be sadly missed. He just had a special resonance with people,” Grace told ProPrint.
“He was a very special and intelligent man. He had a great dedication to the graphic arts industry. He was one of the very people who started the Litho Club as it was then called, which then became the LIA.”
Lamont was born in Sydney in 1935. He left school aged 14 to become an apprentice photo lithographer at John Sands.
His wife, Sue, said he had no idea what the position involved, but decided to apply for it because he loved photography.
“The first two years of a six-year apprenticeship was spent cleaning the whirlers, the plate wash-off troughs, the acid pots, mixing the ‘secret’ chemical brews and, best of all, getting the lunches, where he met the young lunch girls from the bindery and the box floors,” she said.
Lamont advanced to plate room leading hand, before accepting a job at 3M as a technical representative in 1960.
“The remuneration was a lot less than what he was earning but he recognised that pre-coated, packaged printing plates were the way of the future. The clincher was a fully maintained motor vehicle with unlimited private use,” said Sue.
[Photos: Lamont hosts LIA function]
“For Bob, 3M was a great company to work for, with terrific growth potential and dedicated training processes in place.
“He began to climb the leadership ladder. Firstly he was promoted to NSW sales supervisor then NSW sales manager and eventually on to national sales manager. Additional portfolios were added to his responsibilities. His final role with 3M was group national sales & marketing manager.”
Lamont was headhunted in the early 1980s to become general manager of Rowe Graphics, which had the agency for the ground-breaking Scitex pagination system.
“Two years on, with the economy in deep recession and with a selling price of up to $2 million, not one Scitex system had been sold. The directors sought his resignation from the company.”
The recession made it hard to find a job, so Lamont was forced to work for himself until Hartland & Hyde offered him a consultancy role.
He was initially hired to manage the acquisition of the Randle Photo Engraving Company but ended up spending five years with the company. Ironically, he was part of the team that signed off on a $2 million Scitex purchase at Drupa 1984, said Sue.
He joined DuPont in 1985 as general manager of its printing and publishing businesses. He spent 10 years in the role, during which he assumed added responsibilities for medical imaging, medical diagnostic systems and nuclear medical products.
Lamont was also a member of DuPont’s executive committee. He left the company and retired from the industry in 2000 after DuPont decided to exit printing.
Lamont was also the founding chairman of the ISO Standards for Graphic Technology in Australia. He also had a stint as president of the Australian Society of Old Friends, a group for printing veterans.
His funeral will be held on 4 October at Sydney’s Macquarie Park Cemetery.
[Photos: Lamont attends graduate awards]
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