GPO’s Longest-Living Employee Says the Agency Saved His Life

week on the day shift. in Australia. They selected me to get it up “GPO saved my life,” says Berman. “It and running. They gave me a big barn and gave me a good paying job in the height sent all the equipment from D.C. We ran of the Great Depression. Plus, working three shifts, seven days a week. I didn’t there, I became an expert in the printing know what an honor it was at the time.” machines that I needed to be familiar with He returned to the United States in for my work in the Navy. That printing July of 1945 and began working at GPO knowledge really helped me excel in the again, this time working night shifts on the Navy.” cutting machines. The day after the bombing of Pearl Berman says that while at GPO, he Harbor, Berman enlisted in the Navy. He particularly enjoyed the intricacy of was sworn into the Navy in 1942 at the marbling. He recalls making two books Anacostia Naval Base and was told to complete with ostrich skin, gilded edges, report to the Communications Division. and marbled insides for Speaker Samuel “I walked in the door and there in front Rayburn when he became the new of me was all the equipment — bindery speaker of the house. The books, which equipment, printing presses, stitchers, included congratulatory messages to the collators, folders, cutters — that I had new Speaker, took about two weeks to Former GPO Bookbinder Bernie Berman, who worked on at GPO,” says Berman. “I ended complete. is 101 years old, holds up a book he bound up teaching the equipment to a lot of men While at GPO, Berman also rebound during his time at GPO. and women in the Navy because I was 150-year-old books from the Library of When he was a senior in high school, familiar with it from my years at GPO.” Congress so the books were preserved, Bernie Berman (now 101 years old) When he was first inducted, the bound 40 Congressional Record books per took a test in Washington, D.C. for an Navy didn’t have a printer classification. week, and cut many postcards for the Post apprenticeship at the Government Thanks to his expertise in GPO’s printing Office. At the time, post cards were just Printing Office. For three years, he heard equipment, Berman was eventually two cents. nothing back. When he graduated from promoted to First Class Printer, a title the Another GPO job that stands out in his high school in 1936 in the height of the Navy created for him. mind? Making wallets and coin purses for Great Depression, he began working odd “Whenever the Department of the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Berman says jobs such as selling sandwiches to factory Navy needed military codes, we made of his work for the First Lady, “it made me workers. He worked 6.5 days a week for them,” says Berman. “Then in 1943, the feel quite important.” $7–$8 per week. His family’s once thriving Navy decided to open up a printing plant Berman continued working at GPO real estate and mortgage business, like until 1954, when he made the move out many others, had collapsed after the stock west to California. market crash of 1929. Finally, in 1938, Today, he lives in Springfield, Oregon GPO contacted Berman to see if he was where he volunteers for Meals on Wheels. still interested in the apprenticeship that “I drive two days a week and the people he had applied for three years earlier. I drive for are all much younger than I am,” Berman accepted and moved from says Berman. “I am thankful for my good Philadelphia to live with his uncle who had fortune.” a home in Northwest D.C. At 101 years old, he is very much And so, Berman joined the GPO with the times, texting on his iPhone, apprenticeship class of 1938, a small class emailing, and using Google. At the of only 50 trainees. (For comparison’s encouragement of his grandkids, he is sake, the previous year’s class had 100). currently writing an autobiography. He has “It was quite intense,” says Berman three daughters, eight grandchildren, 20 of the apprenticeship program. “They great-grandchildren, and four great-great- crammed in training on all the various grandchildren. Berman says his three departments, including maintenance, secrets to longevity are good genes, not proofreading, printing, and binding, in allowing stress to bother him, and having just six months. My proclivity was for phenomenal people in his life. bookbinding. I always liked to work with “I do not allow stress or worry in my my hands.” life,” says Berman. “I just take it one day at While he was an apprentice, Berman wrote When his apprenticeship was over, a time. I can do anything I did when I was a column for the Apprentice Newspaper, The Berman was hired as a GPO Bookbinder 18 years old, except a little slower.” AGPO. His column was called the Bindery making $15 a week, working five days a Bull-iten.