Australian commercial web printing pioneer Peter Clark is to retire at the end of this month.

A founding director and partner in AIW Printing – established in 2000 – he led the Melbourne heatset printer to a number of innovations, including installation of what was then the country’s (and one of the world’s) largest heatset presses, an 80-page Goss Sunday 4000 with a 2060 mm web width.

AIW, which he founded with some industry colleagues, now claims to be the fourth-largest heatset web catalogue printer in Australia.

His retirement also marks 50 years in printing. His career started as an apprentice litho platemaker and printer at the Hobart, Tasmania, firm of Cox Kay. After progressing to manager of the city’s Fleetprint, he set up his first printing business supplying customers including the Wrest Point Casino, ABC concert department, Purity Supermarkets and RACT.

He moved to Melbourne in 1979 after selling the business, and worked for a number of printing and packaging companies. At Visyboard, he set up a new printing operation called Visyflex Preprint, and in the early 1990s he joined News Limited’s commercial division which later became PMP. He headed the group’s NZ operations, ran its Moorebank, NSW, and returned to Melbourne to head Progress Printing and its letterbox distribution business, before leaving to set up AIW.

Environmental initiatives there have included pioneering the use of recycled and ultra lightweight stocks for catalogues, and installing tanks to enable the Springvale plant to run mostly on rainwater collected from its roof.

Peter Clark says he plans to remain on the board of AIW Printing, working for it as a consultant on printing technology and automation projects.