Vic Nathan Barkin Retires after 49 Years in Print, Paper and Wood

In January 2025, our consultant Vic Nathan Barkin officially retired from auditing. While his auditing stint with American Green was for just four years, we’ve been running in the same circles for almost two decades.

We’ll miss Vic’s auditing prowess, but he’ll be staying on as a consultant for projects that fit his unique interests and expertise.

To celebrate his semi-retirement and 49 years in the print, paper, and wood products industries, we sat down with Vic to harken back to his earlier days—and talk about what’s next.

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From “paperboy” to “paper guy”

When you think of Vic, you can’t help but also think of print media and the great outdoors.

Vic’s grandfather was a photoengraver, his father was an editor, and his mother was a composer and publisher. You could say ink runs in his blood.

Additionally, Vic’s dream job as a boy was to be a forest ranger, and he had already mastered camping, hiking, and canoeing by the age of 10. At 13, he started taking extended backpacking and bikepacking trips, and that was before “bikepacking” was really a thing.

So it makes sense that at the ripe old age of 12, Vic got his first job as a paperboy delivering papers to about 50 houses in his neighborhood. Turns out, the combination of being outdoors handling print media was quite the career foreshadowing.

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Five years after he started delivering papers, Vic took his first printing job. He had no idea what he was doing and got fired two weeks later. It was then that he decided to go back to school to earn his associate’s degree in communications and printing technology.

After graduation, Vic took on a number of odd jobs. He worked in prepress at a paperback book publisher, thinned Ponderosa Pine thickets and cut pulpwood for a Forest Service contractor, and even worked for a millwork company that made wood windows and doors.

When I landed in Flagstaff in 1979, I arrived by train with my backpack and six hundred dollars. My childhood friend Henry was there to meet me and whisked me off to his thinning camp seven miles south of Flagstaff and eight miles back on a dirt road. I didn’t see civilization for two weeks.

Vic eventually got back into the printing industry, and that’s where he remained for the next 30 years. He’s worked for commercial printers and a high-end book publisher, he ran a university print shop, and sold digital printing equipment for Kodak.

My favorite job in the printing industry was the seven years I spent at Northland Press as a pressman and production manager. Northland was the premier Western and Native American book publisher in Arizona. We produced many marvelous “coffee table” hard cover books as well as paperback books and limited edition prints.

Jumping into FSC® certification

While at Kodak, the company decided on a massive merger with three other Kodak printing equipment and supply organizations. As a result, half of the sales force, including Vic, were “invited to leave.”

Fortunately, Vic had plenty of contacts in the print industry by this time and was also Vice President of the Mountain States Printing Education Foundation, so his foray into consulting was a natural next step.

In the spring of 2006, Vic started his consulting practice, which helped printers with a variety of projects. A company he was working with was approached by one of their large clients who said they had to become FSC-certified.

No one knew anything about FSC certification, including Vic. So naturally, they offered him the project.

My response was F-S—WHAT? That was the start of a journey that has led me to become somewhat of a specialist in the relatively new world—for printers at least—of sourcing from well-managed forests.

He contacted SmartWood (which became Rainforest Alliance, then NepCon, then Preferred by Nature) at the suggestion of the printer’s paper merchant. Fortunately for us, Chris Gibbons was Vic’s first contact at SmartWood.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

A look at what’s ahead

Now, after 49 years, Vic is looking forward to his next chapter, which includes many of the same characters and activities.

First and foremost, Vic plans to spend as much time as possible with his family. He also plans to continue camping and traveling with his wife and friends to national parks, museums, and historic sites.

“My habit has always been to avoid highways whenever possible,” says Vic. “I’ve stumbled into some pretty cool places. Ask my wife about some of my ‘shortcuts.'”

Vic will also continue with his consulting business, specializing in business development, workflow, and technology implementation and focusing on “Green Procurement and Production” practices. As for what he’ll miss from auditing, it’s not the reporting requirements—it’s the people.

So many of my clients have become once-a-year friends. I’ll truly miss that.

And if you happen to be in the backwoods of Colorado, keep a keen eye out for an American Mountain Man because it just might be Vic.

One of Vic’s main passions is studying the lore and lure of the original mountain men, including their history, material culture, explorations, discoveries, and experiences. And while many may look at retirement as a chance to take things easy, Vic is looking forward to the opposite.

Getting out “on the ground,” taking only the technology available before the industrial revolution. No plastic, aluminum, matches or synthetics of any kind. Practicing primitive survival skills.

Afterthoughts and advice

What has kept you motivated to continue in the industry for 35 years?
All forest products, whether paper or wood, are the result of art, creativity, engineering and/or automation—from retrofitted infrared-optimizing scanners at 100-year-old sawmills to fully personalized digital printing technology using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools. All these things fascinate me.

Has your work impacted the products you buy?
Sustainably and responsibly managed products always get a preference-point. I’m always on the lookout for things I was not aware of, such as certified wine corks, furniture, tires and beer.

Do you have any predictions about the future of sustainability and certification?
Trend-wise, I see sustainability certification of all types moving upward. Specifically in forest certification, I’d say there has been a leveling off for now with a little ebb and flow, but that’s all about to change with the implementation of EUDR.

Also looming on the horizon are more Lacey Act implementations for fiber-based products. Lacey Phase VII, implemented in December 2024, includes cork products (think not only wine corks, but flooring and ceilings as well) and wood furniture. All those things will drive more certification.

Do you have any advice or life lessons you’d like to share?

1. Don’t overthink things.
2. Attack issues, projects, and challenges one step at a time.
3. Have a sense of humor.
4. Know when to walk away.
5. Keep your eyes on the horizon.
6. Watch your backtrail.

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We are grateful to call Vic our colleague and friend, and we wish him the best in his well-earned retirement. If you’d like to send your own well-wishes to Vic, you can email him at: vicbarkin(at)aol.com

Photo credits: Vic Nathan Barkin

Learn more about Vic
on our About Us page.