November 24, 2015

Dennis Kaylor

Dennis Kaylor exemplifies the kind of person who makes the Postmaster General’s Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) successful through his dedication to helping not only his employer, his association or his mail category, but the entire postal system.

Dennis has worked in logistics for over 40 years and for the past 22 years has served as Postal Affairs Manager for Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) in Huntington, Indiana, overseeing postal relations and compliance for OSV and all of OSV’s customers.   OSV is a nonprofit that serves not only its members but also helps many other nonprofits achieve success through their use of mail and other media.

Our Sunday Visitor is a Roman Catholic publishing company which prints the national weekly newspaper of that name, as well as numerous Catholic periodicals, religious books, pamphlets, inserts for parish bulletins and offertory envelopes, the Online Giving system and Faith in Action websites for parishes. OSV was founded in 1912 by Father John F. Noll.

Serving on MTAC, Dennis has been very active on the Work Groups and User Groups, most notably as Industry Representative for Changes Impacting Acceptance of Nonprofit Mailings.  He also has been a member of the Fort Wayne, Indiana Postal Customer Council (PCC), the National PCC Advisory Committee’s Education Team, the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, PostCom, the Direct Marketing Association, and Mail Systems Management Association.

Dennis has been a speaker at the National Postal Forum and PCCs events for many years. While keeping OSV on the leading edge of postal change, Dennis also started a drop ship program in 1998 which now is targeting over 220 USPS entry facilities monthly, and in 2004 began to clean up OSV’s address quality to its current 99.61% Delivery Point Validation (DPV).

Dennis holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, and a Master of Science Degree in Management. Maybe more important, many MTAC members know that Dennis also is a farmer who used his vacation time to help out with the annual harvest. He will have more time for farming with his retirement from OSV, MTAC, and all his other activities.

Dennis is a great example of the fact that nonprofits are committed to and very heavily reliant on the mail. Americans donated $358 billion to charities last year, much of it in response to direct mailings, periodical subscriptions, and multi-channel programs that include mail as a centerpiece. And many of the donations were sent to the nonprofits through First Class Mail. A recent list reported by Target Marketing has nonprofits as 10 of the top 50 USPS mailers. The USPS deserves significant credit for helping nonprofits achieve their good works and much-needed missions.

Dennis gave us the following message to pass on to all of his friends in the mailing community: “I will miss the people. I have always said, ‘It’s not the job, it’s the people.’ MTAC and the Alliance are made up of great people to work with, which made my job easy, and provided me with experience I will not forget. I am looking forward to my next chapter. God Bless to all! Thanks! Dennis.”

Going forward, the Alliance has three outstanding representatives: Deborah Damore who serves many nonprofit clients at Fairrington Transportation; Trista Niswander who was mentored by Dennis at OSV; and Steve Smith, past president of the board of the Alliance when he was with the Christian Science Monitor and current consultant to many nonprofits at Base 60 Consulting. Deb, Trista, and Steve contributed the following synopsis of their experience with last week’s MTAC meeting in Washington, DC.

Current Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers Representatives on MTAC

Deborah Damore

Trista Niswander

Steve Smith