Xanté CEO and Founder Robert Ross Jr. to Keynote the Toners 2014 Conference

MOBILE, AL—March 26, 2014—Robert C. Ross Jr., CEO and founder of Xanté headquartered here, will be the keynote speaker for The Tiara Group Toners 2014 Conference in Santa Barbara, CA, at the Fess Parker Resort Hotel from June 2-4, 2014.

Xanté is a pioneer in production printing with a portfolio encompassing chemical and process-free technology, workflow solutions, and digital print output. Ross founded Xanté in 1989 with the goal of offering upgrade boards for Apple and HP laser printers, which increased the speed and brought the resolution to 600×600 dpi. Xanté was the first to offer this technology and continued to be the first on the market with 1,200×1,200 dpi, and now 2,400 x 2,400 dpi on graphics printing solutions. Xanté also developed patented technologies in encrypted data transfer, electrophotography, and image dimensional accuracy.

Prior to founding Xanté, Ross was QMS, engineer/product manager for Adobe Postscript products from 1983-1989. Ross received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Alabama; he is a Member Board of Advisors, University of Alabama School of Engineering; a Member of the Board of Advisors, University of South Alabama School of Engineering and the School of Computing; and Former Chairman of Board of Advisors, Spring Hill College Division of Business.

In his keynote address, Ross will also represent Memjet, the provider of the high-speed engines that drive Xanté wide format output devices.

Memjet, headquartered in San Diego, supplies high-speed color printing technologies, including print-heads, driver chips, ink, and software. Memjet technologies and components, leveraged by OEMs, create high-speed color printing capabilities in office, labels, and wide format markets. Memjet supplies OEMs across the printing industry in the same way that chip makers supply OEMs across the cell phone, smart phone, and personal computing industries. Memjet technologies put more than 70,000 ink nozzles on a single print-head and produces 1,600×800 dpi color at 60 pages-per-minute or 12″ per second.

Kevin Shimamoto, vice president of sales and marketing for Memjet’s wide-format products, will participate in an OEM panel, a special feature of the conference.

The Toners Conference, produced by The Tiara Group in partnership with the Graphic Communication Institute at Cal Poly (GrCI), has been held annually since 1984. For the first time since its beginnings, the conference is featuring presentations by OEMs and addressing production printing. There will also be presentations on the impact and future of inkjet printing in the production printing market.

Other OEMs and their dealers participating along with Memjet and Xanté include EFI, HP, Konica Minolta, Lexmark, Xerox, and Ultrex. Others will be added.

Harvey Levenson, Director of the GrCI, said, “Production digital printing is at the core of the future of the printing industry, and the role of inkjet must be addressed in any conversation on toner printing. Robert Ross is the perfect keynote speaker for this conference because his experience in developing production printing technology using one of the fastest print engines available, Memjet, points to a future that those involved in toner and inkjet media, and printing systems, must know about. The conference addresses each of these areas.”

Terry Gorka, President of The Tiara Group, also noted, “At the 2013 Toner Conference we began to introduce talks on inkjet inks that would give attendees an opportunity to hear firsthand the latest developments in this competing technology. It was a risk we were willing to take and it paid off handsomely with conference participants engaging inkjet speakers on what they were doing. We are excited to have Mr. Ross on board representing Xanté and Memjet. He has had experience in both laser and inkjet printing. Mr. Ross’s presentation is sure to ignite the kickoff of the conference on Tuesday morning.”

About The Tiara Group
The Tiara Group was founded in 2001 as a spin-off of Diamond Research Corporation, a technology consulting firm that facilitates the planning and hosting of the corporation’s events. Today, as an independent company, Tiara produces industry expositions, seminars, conferences, symposia, and specialized meetings for public and private clients across the globe. The Tiara Group excels at offering creative, affordable ways to promote, market and operate events customized for companies, associations or groups.

About Cal Poly’s Graphic Communication Institute at Cal Poly
The Graphic Communications Institute at Cal Poly – GrCl is an outreach of the university’s Graphic Communication Department, created to provide industry professionals with access to Cal Poly’s state-of-the-art resources via seminars and workshops, custom training programs, consulting, product evaluations, laboratory testing, and research initiatives. GrCI programs involve the participation of Cal Poly faculty, leading industry experts, and advanced students from the Graphic Communication program.

Classes make use of dedicated training labs, as well Cal Poly’s extensive, state-of-the-art prepress imaging and traditional and digital press facilities. Education includes prepress and print training; graphic arts research; ink, toner, and substrate testing; as well as training in project management, quality control, marketing, sales, pricing, estimating and more. The GrCI, established in 2001, promotes the idea that people learn by doing. Training is heavily geared for hands-on learning. Graphic arts businesses and suppliers can engage the GrCI directly to sponsor research projects.