Hoffhien Knows The Language Of Signs
February 26, 2025 at 5:52 p.m.
Nearly 10,000 signs are posted throughout the Warsaw city limits, ranging in size from a few inches to several feet.
The guy behind those signs for over the last five years is Eric Hoffhien, Warsaw Public Works sign technician and pavement markings technician.
“I help maintain the street signs, the decorative lighting, lights that we have throughout town. And then we maintain the pavement markings through town, that includes the crosswalks and stuff like that, especially in the school zones,” he said.
Maintaining those signs is a big task.
“Just under 10,000 signs inside of the city limits. That includes our signs, some of those are state signs. That is one of the intricacies of this because we do have State Road 15 and State Road 25 that run through city limits, but they go under local names of Detroit and Winona,” Hoffhien said, adding the city has a good working relationship with the state. “Yeah, there’s quite a few (signs), a lot more than what people think about.”
Signs include road markers, guide signs and more.
Warsaw Public Works sign and pavement markings technician Eric Hoffhien finishes a truck route sign by placing the vinyl on the recycled aluminum blank Wednesday. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union“It’s quite a big endeavor,” he said.
The federal law on signs is called the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). At over 860 pages, it designates what all the signs have to be from size, shape and color to even placement.
Hoffhien said, “There’s a lot of stuff to try to remember, and research is your best friend when it comes to some of these things because you can’t remember it all.”
Along with following the federal MUTCD, Indiana has its own MUTCD that has to be followed.
“It’s the rule book. I call it the sign bible for lack of a better term. It’s just something that we have to make sure we follow, and anytime there’s a question on a sign or something that comes before the Traffic Commission or the Common Council, we go right back to the book and make sure that what we’re doing is 100%,” he explained.
The smallest sign Hoffhien makes is the “all-way stop” placards, which are 6 by 18 inches, that go underneath the stop signs at four-way stops. The largest are the roundabout arrows, which are 60 by 24 inches.
The MUTCD designates what reflective grade a sign has to be. For the city, stop signs are the highest grade reflectivity that they can get to draw the most attention to them.
“A lot of people think signs are an annoyance, but they’re there to help keep people safe,” Hoffhien said. “And, at the end of the day, I want people safe. Not just for their own sake, but I’ve got family and friends that are traveling on the road, so I take it as part of my responsibility to make sure that they’re safe.”
Driving through town, one might notice different colored signs. Hoffhien said the colors all have different meanings. Orange is typically for construction zones, regular yellow is a warning sign, and the fluorescent yellow green are school zones.
Warsaw Public Works sign and pavement markings technician Eric Hoffhien shows a truck route sign he finished Wednesday. Photo by David Slone, Times-UnionAll of the signs now are made from aluminum blanks.
“And then, it’s a vinyl reflective material that gets put on. We recently got our new printer, which allows us to print directly onto the reflective media. Before, we had to put another layer of vinyl over it so it was a two-step process, and we had the vinyl overlay. By going to this new printer, it allows us to expediate the process and streamline how we do things. And it puts out a near-perfect product every time,” he said.
The printer is the Mimaki for the Traffic Jet Express Print System from Avery Dennison, the manufacturer of the vinyl.
“This uses UV-dried ink, so as it prints, there are UV lights that turn on and it dries as it’s printing. The old solvent-based, you’d have to leave them sit for an hour or so to let them dry, let that solvent evaporate. With this, there is no dry time,” Hoffhien said. “Once it’s printed, we put it through the laminator and that just puts a protective coating on the sign itself. That coating does two things for us: One, it helps with UV protection ... the other thing is, it is a graffiti barrier, so if people put stickers or try to spray-paint on these signs, it doesn’t ruin the sign. We’re able to clean it off without damaging the sign.”
With the newer technology, the signs have a life expectancy of seven to 12 years, provided they don’t get hit or stolen.
“It’s a huge cost savings to the town for us to be able to do this in-house because, one, we do reuse and recycle the aluminum blanks from previous signs,” Hoffhien said.
The smallest aluminum blanks are about $3-4, but if they can recycle the blanks, that adds up over time.
“When you think about the nearly 10,000 signs in the city, being able to recycle those sign blanks - if we tried to go out and buy those new every time - that adds up really quick,” he said.
If a stop sign with the road markers above it, the post and all the hardware are destroyed or stolen, it would cost about $500 to replace it all.
The material for the signs is purchased through an Indiana Department of Transportation contract, which saves the city even more money.
“Anywhere that we can save, we try. It’s just about being efficient,” he said.
The Warsaw Street Department has come a long way over the years in how it makes signs in-house. The older signs, some of which hang in Hoffhien’s shop at the department, were made of steel and rusted. Color wasn’t much of a consideration for the signs like it is now.
Each dot on the map represents a sign within the city of Warsaw. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union“The technology has come a long way, and for us to be able to do this, we don’t only make the street signs for our streets, but we also do signs for (Oakwood) cemetery. So for all of their lanes and whatnot out there, we make signs for them. The signs for the parks department, all of their signage comes from in-house, which, again, helps save money because if they were just trying to go out and buying a couple signs here and there, it’s quite expensive if you don’t have a huge run,” he explained.
Annually, Hoffhien said they make and put up an average of just over 500 signs. They also go out and test how reflective the sign material is over time because that’s a requirement of the MUTCD.
“We keep an inventory of where our signs are and condition so we can kind of project when those signs are going to need to be replaced, and then it helps (Public Works Superintendent) Dustin (Dillon) set up a budget a lot easier. So if he knows we have a bunch of signs coming up in the next year that are going to need replaced, he knows to adjust his balance to allow for more. Or, if we don’t have as much, then he can reallocate that money to another project. It’s just being fiscally responsible,” Hoffhien said.
Nearly 10,000 signs are posted throughout the Warsaw city limits, ranging in size from a few inches to several feet.
The guy behind those signs for over the last five years is Eric Hoffhien, Warsaw Public Works sign technician and pavement markings technician.
“I help maintain the street signs, the decorative lighting, lights that we have throughout town. And then we maintain the pavement markings through town, that includes the crosswalks and stuff like that, especially in the school zones,” he said.
Maintaining those signs is a big task.
“Just under 10,000 signs inside of the city limits. That includes our signs, some of those are state signs. That is one of the intricacies of this because we do have State Road 15 and State Road 25 that run through city limits, but they go under local names of Detroit and Winona,” Hoffhien said, adding the city has a good working relationship with the state. “Yeah, there’s quite a few (signs), a lot more than what people think about.”
Signs include road markers, guide signs and more.
Warsaw Public Works sign and pavement markings technician Eric Hoffhien finishes a truck route sign by placing the vinyl on the recycled aluminum blank Wednesday. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union“It’s quite a big endeavor,” he said.
The federal law on signs is called the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). At over 860 pages, it designates what all the signs have to be from size, shape and color to even placement.
Hoffhien said, “There’s a lot of stuff to try to remember, and research is your best friend when it comes to some of these things because you can’t remember it all.”
Along with following the federal MUTCD, Indiana has its own MUTCD that has to be followed.
“It’s the rule book. I call it the sign bible for lack of a better term. It’s just something that we have to make sure we follow, and anytime there’s a question on a sign or something that comes before the Traffic Commission or the Common Council, we go right back to the book and make sure that what we’re doing is 100%,” he explained.
The smallest sign Hoffhien makes is the “all-way stop” placards, which are 6 by 18 inches, that go underneath the stop signs at four-way stops. The largest are the roundabout arrows, which are 60 by 24 inches.
The MUTCD designates what reflective grade a sign has to be. For the city, stop signs are the highest grade reflectivity that they can get to draw the most attention to them.
“A lot of people think signs are an annoyance, but they’re there to help keep people safe,” Hoffhien said. “And, at the end of the day, I want people safe. Not just for their own sake, but I’ve got family and friends that are traveling on the road, so I take it as part of my responsibility to make sure that they’re safe.”
Driving through town, one might notice different colored signs. Hoffhien said the colors all have different meanings. Orange is typically for construction zones, regular yellow is a warning sign, and the fluorescent yellow green are school zones.
Warsaw Public Works sign and pavement markings technician Eric Hoffhien shows a truck route sign he finished Wednesday. Photo by David Slone, Times-UnionAll of the signs now are made from aluminum blanks.
“And then, it’s a vinyl reflective material that gets put on. We recently got our new printer, which allows us to print directly onto the reflective media. Before, we had to put another layer of vinyl over it so it was a two-step process, and we had the vinyl overlay. By going to this new printer, it allows us to expediate the process and streamline how we do things. And it puts out a near-perfect product every time,” he said.
The printer is the Mimaki for the Traffic Jet Express Print System from Avery Dennison, the manufacturer of the vinyl.
“This uses UV-dried ink, so as it prints, there are UV lights that turn on and it dries as it’s printing. The old solvent-based, you’d have to leave them sit for an hour or so to let them dry, let that solvent evaporate. With this, there is no dry time,” Hoffhien said. “Once it’s printed, we put it through the laminator and that just puts a protective coating on the sign itself. That coating does two things for us: One, it helps with UV protection ... the other thing is, it is a graffiti barrier, so if people put stickers or try to spray-paint on these signs, it doesn’t ruin the sign. We’re able to clean it off without damaging the sign.”
With the newer technology, the signs have a life expectancy of seven to 12 years, provided they don’t get hit or stolen.
“It’s a huge cost savings to the town for us to be able to do this in-house because, one, we do reuse and recycle the aluminum blanks from previous signs,” Hoffhien said.
The smallest aluminum blanks are about $3-4, but if they can recycle the blanks, that adds up over time.
“When you think about the nearly 10,000 signs in the city, being able to recycle those sign blanks - if we tried to go out and buy those new every time - that adds up really quick,” he said.
If a stop sign with the road markers above it, the post and all the hardware are destroyed or stolen, it would cost about $500 to replace it all.
The material for the signs is purchased through an Indiana Department of Transportation contract, which saves the city even more money.
“Anywhere that we can save, we try. It’s just about being efficient,” he said.
The Warsaw Street Department has come a long way over the years in how it makes signs in-house. The older signs, some of which hang in Hoffhien’s shop at the department, were made of steel and rusted. Color wasn’t much of a consideration for the signs like it is now.
Each dot on the map represents a sign within the city of Warsaw. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union“The technology has come a long way, and for us to be able to do this, we don’t only make the street signs for our streets, but we also do signs for (Oakwood) cemetery. So for all of their lanes and whatnot out there, we make signs for them. The signs for the parks department, all of their signage comes from in-house, which, again, helps save money because if they were just trying to go out and buying a couple signs here and there, it’s quite expensive if you don’t have a huge run,” he explained.
Annually, Hoffhien said they make and put up an average of just over 500 signs. They also go out and test how reflective the sign material is over time because that’s a requirement of the MUTCD.
“We keep an inventory of where our signs are and condition so we can kind of project when those signs are going to need to be replaced, and then it helps (Public Works Superintendent) Dustin (Dillon) set up a budget a lot easier. So if he knows we have a bunch of signs coming up in the next year that are going to need replaced, he knows to adjust his balance to allow for more. Or, if we don’t have as much, then he can reallocate that money to another project. It’s just being fiscally responsible,” Hoffhien said.