OMET’s Future of Flexo Initiative Donates $5,000 to ISU Phoenix Challenge Students

ELK GROVE VILLAGE, IL—OMET Americas and a consortium of flexographic printers and suppliers—Rossini, RotoMetrics, SPGprints and Vetaphone—recently made a donation of $5,000 to the Illinois State University Department of Technology. The donation is meant to increase the growth of the industry’s future workforce and technology, as well as support this group of students as they compete in the Phoenix Challenge.

OMET’s Future of Flexo Initiative aims to ensure students receive exposure to the technologies and skills employees use in the flexographic field. These funds in particular will assist students in participating in unique opportunities outside of the classroom to further develop their skill sets in the package printing industry, said Adam Burke, instructional assistant professor at Illinois State University. In addition, the funds provide support for the purchase of equipment and supplies necessary to experiment with various innovations in flexographic printing.

Each student also received a goodie bag from each participating supply chain member as well.
“This donation could help us in so many ways and make it possible for us to truly show our potential as a program,” says Illinois student Amanda Rapp. “This department of Illinois State University means so much to us, and we can’t thank OMET enough for helping us create an even more positive experience for students of the program in the future.”

“The Phoenix Challenge gives us students real-world experience of working with a client and using the flexo process to rebrand their company. This donation impacts our program by helping with travel and accommodations for the competition, allowing us to put all our focus towards the project. We are very thankful for OMET allowing us to use their press for part of our project, and also surprising us with an extremely generous donation for our team and the future of flexo,” says student Kayla Mattson.