About William: William Birkett has engineering degrees from the University of Michigan. After a short stint in the automotive business, he started a prepress company, Precision Color Inc, which prospered for many years. He and a colleague, Charles Spontelli, got involved with print standards in 2003. Together, they developed a press calibration technique based on measurements of near-neutral colors. Since 2005, William has worked as a print quality consultant.
At the TAGA annual meeting in 2018, William and Charles introduced an improved calibration technique known as The Optimal Method. Since then, they’ve developed an open-source software tool, PressCal, to implement this improved technique. William is glad for the opportunity to apply his math and engineering skills to help the printing industry.
