Moving Metal

The “Metal-Rama” exhibition conceived by Bob Zurbach drew some 3,500 visitors and helps boost Reliance’s May 1966 revenues.

needed to bring our mid-1960s public relations program to a peak—an opportunity for everyone to actually see what we have accomplished over the past five years!” He appointed Zurbach as event chairman; Harold Levy took on the overall coordination. Plans for the exhibition came together quickly over the winter. Gimbel invited all of Reliance’s suppliers and major equipment manufacturers to participate and forty-two accepted. In January, after considering more than thirty employee suggestions, Gimbel named the two-day event

proved to us that we really had a moving drama taking place in our organization—one that could capture the imagination of the entire industrial community, as well as our stockholders, employees, and friends.” Zurbach decided that Reliance should host a grand exhibition or industrial fair at the Los Angeles service center to show off the company’s new high-tech operations. He pitched the idea to Gimbel and then to the Board in October 1965, and received tremendous support. “Seeing is believ- ing,” Gimbel said, and “we decided that was exactly what was

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