Moving Metal

cost of $700,000, and expanded both in 1967. Gimbel moved Lyle Imler from Phoenix to Dallas to manage Reliance’s Texas operations. The company also hired its first industrial engineer in 1967. Victor Awdeychuk was trained at the University of Western Ontario and based at the flagship location in Vernon. There, Awdeychuk became responsible for production systems, equipment alignment, and other technical issues related to plant efficiency. Soon, Gimbel promoted him to Corporate Engineer with engineering duties at all seven of the compa- ny’s locations. Although Awdeychuk’s arrival relieved Gimbel of the burden of personally dealing with the company’s daily engineering challenges, the President was not quite ready

inches wide and cut quarter-inch thick metal sheets to close tolerances. To augment the slitters, Reliance also acquired a state-of-the art, precision, automatic cutting torch. Manu- factured by Liquid Carbonic Division of General Dynamics in Chicago, it was capable of cutting squares, rectangles, and circles in a wide variety of sizes using a 60,000 degree Fahr- enheit plasma flame. Few other companies in the country had this capability, giving Reliance a clear lead in the plasma cutting field. Reliance also resumed its geographic expansion in December 1966, acquiring Delta Metals, Inc. and its two small metals service centers in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas. Reliance built modern plants for the operations at a total

This Cincinnati-Forte slitter installed in the mid-1960s was one of the largest slitters available, capable of processing 20,000-pound coils up to forty-eight inches wide.

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