Kilgore College | UBEO Business Services: A Success Story

Jamie Bolick: Hi. My name is Jamie Bolick with UBEO Business Services, and today I'm here with Betsy Hansard and Terry Hanson at Beautiful Kilgore College. And we're here to discuss the partnership between Kilgore College and UBEO Business Services and what that impact is made for Kilgore College. So let's go.

Jamie Bolick: We're standing in front of the Rangerette Showcase Museum here at Kilgore.
Betsy, can you give me a little background and history of why we're here?

Betsy Hansard: Sure, Jamie. The Rangerettes are the world's best known collegiate drill team. Established in 1940. The Rangerette Showcase Museum houses the history of the Rangerettes and tells a graphic story from the moment you walk up to the building. Ranger Print worked with the Museum on the design of the windows as well as printing the wraps and installing them.

Jamie Bolick: So, Terry, why did you and Betsy originally agreed to meet with UBEO? And what were your expectations for the meeting

Terry Hanson: One of the primary reasons we sought out of meeting with UBEO was due to persistent challenges we faced working across the college campus. We experienced the constant influx of different printer models, various toners being utilized, and the tendency for excess toner accumulation over time. This inconsistency created inefficiencies and unnecessary costs. I recognized the value of implementing a printer standardization solution. When I learned that UBEO offered similar services, I saw an opportunity for Kilgore College to streamline our printing processes.

I anticipated that UBEO’s expertise in print standardization could offer tangible benefits to our institution, and I was eager to explore the potential benefits of this partnership.

Jamie Bolick: What would you say are the two biggest wins
for Kilgore College in partnering with UBEO?

Terry Hanson: I would say the two biggest wins [are]: one, from the internal side, from an organizational holistic perspective, the implementation of the management services was extremely smooth. And I did not have any questions from anyone on the leadership committee, and that included the Vice Presidents and the President complaining to me that things were not happening as we anticipated. So everything was incredibly smooth on that internal side.

And then the other largest win is Ranger Print. And the potential that we have is it's definitely our largest entrepreneurial activity. It's lined up, ready to go, and has already started to produce wins for us.

So those by far are the two greatest wins that we have.

Jamie Bolick: What are the key ways that you think UBEO differentiates itself from other companies?

Betsy Hansard: Being part of a cooperative also facilitates the process. And I didn't have to worry about putting it out for bid. Also, addressing our invoicing challenges and streamlining processes for us was crucial. Another aspect that resonated with me and I really recall vividly was our discussion about student safety. Ensuring access to printing facilities after hours, thus allowing students to stay on campus without compromising their safety to go elsewhere for printing, was really important to us and helped us work through those challenges.

Terry Hanson: Well, I think one of the key differentiators was that UBEO was willing to be a partner and really wanted to know the college's goals and vision. Previous companies just gave you cookie-cutter solutions, whereas UBEO was able to tailor Kilgore's solutions specifically to what was needed, especially considering our vision. So I think it's that unmatched level of partnership that I've seen from UBEO is what stands out to me more than anything.

I can't fail to mention their willingness to stand behind every solution they provided. They want to make sure that we are successful.

So why don't we move on to the Oil Museum? We've got some great things to show you over there.

Betsy Hansard: The East Texas Oil Field was discovered in the fall of 1930. The boom picked up in Kilgore when the Lou Della Crim was discovered on December 28th, 1930, just four miles south of Kilgore.

At the height of the boom, the city of Kilgore had over 1,100 wells inside the city limits. Prior to the boom, Kilgore had about 500 residents. By 1936, the population of Kilgore had grown to over 1,200. The college was established in 1935 at the height of the East Texas oil boom, and as such is home to the East Texas Oil Museum, which houses a large collection of memorabilia documenting this period of Texas history. Welcome to the East Texas Oil Museum.


Jamie Bolick: Let's talk a little bit more about the partnership between UBEO and Kilgore. What are your thoughts on the future partnership with Kilgore and UBEO when we learned about the U-Manage Rental Program?

Betsy Hansard: So, I know for me the rental part was fantastic because my end users may start out with a black and white and decide to go color or go color to black and white. And it's happened several times, even happened in my office.

So being able to just do that on the fly to request it and not have to wait for a lease buyout was fantastic.

Terry Hanson: And to echo Betsy's comments, the U-Manage Rental Program has been phenomenal. It was really appealing to know that we could shift and adjust to what we needed at the time, especially when things are uncertain. With changes in programs coming out of Covid, there were a lot of uncertainty as far as the devices that we needed, and this really allowed us that flexibility to get people the equipment that they needed to be successful in their jobs.

Jamie Bolick: Terry, going back to our initial meeting, what were some of the things that you learned about UBEO that stood out that you didn't know were original options for you?

Terry Hanson: For me, a couple of aspects stand out. The first one is on the technical side. We did have our IT department support the printers, and that was really slowing them down. And with UBEO being able to handle the IT technical aspects that really freed up our IT department to do other tasks that they were falling behind on.

And then the second piece, which is being a CFO, the biggest piece is that financial flexibility of being able to pay for the equipment that we were actually using and needed for the organization.

Jamie Bolick: Terry, what intrigued you most about the BTA process
and how did that impact your decision to move forward?

Terry Hanson:
I know going through these implementations in other places, the BTA was not there. And what this did was it allowed them to understand the needs of the individual users and what their print demands were and what their expectations were. And, it allowed them to really assess that and come up with a solution that would fit those end users' needs.

Betsy Hansard:
For me, it's a little bit self-serving because it allowed me to justify and show the sheer number of printers that were on our campus. Before, it was hard for me to have people believe it because it was so incomprehensible.

You walk into a classroom, an office, and there are ten printers where only one was necessary. So having those conversations that you had with my end users and making people realize that they're only printing five times a week, you can use that centralized printer, you don't need to have one on your desk.

The cost savings for the college overall was significant and it felt good to have that validation for the BTA process. We also realized how much was being outsourced to other print shops that we could bring in-house to Ranger Print.

Let's go over there and take a look now.

Jamie Bolick: So we finally arrived at Ranger Print. This by far has been the biggest collaboration between Kilgore College and UBEO Business Services. So, Terry, I know that you and president of the Kilgore College, Dr. Kays, had a vision to be able to create a revenue-producing print shop. Can you elaborate a little bit more for me?

Terry Hanson:
Yes. One of the things that was a major initiative when I was brought on board to Kilgore College was to become more of an entrepreneurial community college. The reason was to bring in innovation and creativity, to develop a fifth funding stream for the college that could provide that consistent revenue stream. When we were looking at what UBEO could provide. We wanted to explore the opportunity of taking our low-production print shop and seeing if we could turn that into one of those entrepreneurial activities that could help the college maintain a consistent funding level to utilize it throughout the college.

Betsy Hansard:
Totally agree. I joined the college in 2019 and began collaborating with the print shop manager at that time. During our discussions, he mentioned the challenges other colleges and industry professionals were facing and finding reliable print shops. Many were shutting down their internal or on-site print facilities. This got me thinking, why not expand our services and become the go-to print shop? Even before Terry came on board. I saw it as a potential revenue stream worth exploring, and I was glad to see he was thinking the same thing.

Jamie Bolick: And, Betsy, where do you see Kilgore College going now? With the new CRD in place at Ranger Print? And what is the plan to get there?

Betsy Hansard:
With Ranger Print, now they're up and running. We're going full force. We are a Community and state-facing print shop that is equipped to design, develop and produce a wide variety of printing services that include anything from a single sheet print to full wall graphics. The ultimate goal is to run seven days a week, 24/7. The sky's the limit! With the UBEO Team, we will have the flexibility and expertise to continue to grow and adapt to the evolving needs of the community, and Kilgore College.

Jamie Bolick:
So, Terry, do you really feel like you lived up to what your expectations were? And did we follow through on everything we said we would do?

Terry Hanson:
UBEO definitely brought much more to fruition than what was first discussed in our initial meeting. I think the levels of the solution were much more robust and deep than I ever anticipated. Even with that, as things continue to evolve and we started implementing those recommendations, we realized that we needed to tweak some items. UBEO was right there beside us. With their technical expertise and their vision, they have ensured that we could change out what we needed to, modified what was originally agreed upon, and make sure that we could bring even more to light than what was expected.

So overall, I think UBEO knocked it out of the park and did a phenomenal job, and it was much more of a greater partnership than I ever expected them to be.

Jamie Bolick:
That is wonderful and amazing. It has been an absolute joy and pleasure with our partnership between both Kilgore College and UBEO Business Services. We are so excited to see what comes next. Thank you so much for joining us on our tour of Kilgore College and Ranger Print. It has been a fun time and we hope you enjoyed it. Have a wonderful day.