Check your wallet and you may find some money made right here in North Texas.
"If it has the 'FW' on it, it's from Fort Worth," said Dan Wilson, a pressman at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Fort Worth. "If it doesn't, it's from Washington, D.C."
For the past 25 years, much of the country's currency has been printed in North Fort Worth, in what is now a massive 750,000-square-foot facility on Blue Mound Road, just one of two places that produce the nation's printed money.
"We produce more than half of the nation's currency order," said Charlene Williams, associate director of manufacturing for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. "So this year we're producing a little more than 60 percent of the currency order here in Fort Worth."
This year, the Western Currency Facility is producing every denomination except the $5 bill.
"We're producing about 19 million notes a day," Williams said. "That equates to a little around $29.4 million a day."
The notes are first printed in sheets or either 32 or 50 bills, then cut into individual bills.
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"We print our Federal Reserve Seal, Treasury Seal and serial numbers onto each note," Williams said.
More than 800 people work at the Fort Worth Facility – about 600 employees of the Bureau and Engraving and Printing along with another 250 contractors.
"We're proudly producing a product the most people love to have, you know, and I guess that will make you happy just knowing that everybody wants your product," said David Kaminiski, assistant general superintendent of plate making.
"I used to get headaches trying to count – trying to count how much is in this room, that room, but now it's just paper and I put ink on it," said pressman Juan Moreno.
For many, making money is a dream job that follows them home each night as they sleep.
"I am printing money. That's what I'm dreaming, always," said plate printer Vaghese George. "I'm dreaming, I'm printing, I'm printing 100s, 100s, 100s."
The many bills are loaded with security features to protect against counterfeiting.
"We have incorporated our latest and greatest features on our hundred," Williams said. "Basically because it is a worldwide circulated note, 75 percent of those notes are circulated worldwide."
"Those notes have color-shifting ink, security threads, micro-text printing that are incorporated into the notes," Williams said.
The visitor's center attracts about 75,000 people each year, but few visitors are allowed on the production floor itself.
To prevent theft, employees are subject to strict background checks and security measures.
"I've always told employees this is a product that we produce here, it's ink on paper," Williams said. "If you start looking at the product differently and viewing it as currency, it's probably not a place you want to work."
"Sometimes you do walk around and it's not that you forget what you do, but it becomes normal," Wilson said. "We love it, the guys that work here are the top of the line professionals at what we do."
"You know, you dream of it so much you end up you're printing it," said pressman Jeff Ewing. "And I never thought this dream would come true that I would have the opportunity to print money."
More information is available at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing website.
