Employee spotlight: Sami Snelling
 
Sami Snelling estimates she�s printed the majority of business cards sitting in the wallets and purses of the thousands of staff and faculty members who are employed at the University of Houston.

That�s because since 1999, she has worked in the UH print shop as an offset press operator, coming in every morning at 7:30 a.m. to work on the never-ending printing jobs that the various departments across the university need done.

�The majority of time I am usually running letterheads, business cards, envelopes, stuff like that,� she said.

When Snelling was hired nearly 14 years ago, she was a two-color pressman. She went from doing two-color work and running two presses to now where she can operate four presses and handle four-color printing jobs. On Mondays, she runs the four-color press.

�I set it up, load the plates, load the paper, put ink in it, set the job up, and align it to where it comes out correctly,� she said.

Snelling grew up in Galena Park. It was when she was a sophomore at Galena Park High School that she was first introduced to the world of printing.

�I took the printing class in high school on purpose because it was two credits. They shipped us from one high school to the other, so I got out of class for three hours,� she said. �I didn�t do it on purpose to learn printing, but I ended up liking the class. It was something that was interesting.�

After high school, she landed a job with the Port of Houston, where much of her job duties involved running the Xerox machine. The job didn�t pay much, so she ended up looking for employment elsewhere, eventually landing a copy clerk position with a local company. When the company�s pressman quit, Snelling filled in. Ever since then, she�s been doing printing work as a career.

Snelling has two grown children: daughter Rhiana is 24 and son Samuel is 23. Her daughter is two hours away from getting her associate�s degree and then may transfer to UH.

When not at work, Snelling likes to cook, watch movies and put puzzles together as a way for her to relax. But, she said, she often turns to work as a way to relieve stress.

�Printing for me, since I have done it for so long, is a way for me to relax. It allows me to do something where I�m not just sitting in a chair,� she said. �I just can�t sit there. I have to be doing something.�

She loves working for the University of Houston.

�I bleed Cougar red. I don�t plan on leaving until I have to retire,� she said.