Moving Metal

VOICES FOR THE INDUSTRY

R eliance has long been an active leader in prominent metals service center industry trade organizations. The first and most important of these was the Steel Service Center Institute (SSCI), founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1907. SSCI provided its members with a number of important services including industry statistics, education, market analysis, negotiation assistance, and lobbying support with government agencies and elected officials. In early 2000, SSCI moved its head- quarters to Chicago, Illinois, the Midwest’s chief industrial and financial hub. A year later, in February 2001, SSCI changed its name to the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) in an effort to broaden its member base and to acknowledge that service centers now gener- ally processed and distributed a far broader range of metal products than just steel. Reliance has enjoyed a great deal of influence within SSCI/MSCI. Bill Gimbel and Dave Hannah have both served as Chairman. Reliance Board member Andrew Sharkey was working as the SSCI Director of Education in 1979 when its executive committee—which included Bill Gimbel and Earle M. Jorgensen—asked him to become the new SSCI President. Sharkey took the job, but his predecessor, who had become Vice Chairman, opposed him at every step. Finally, Sharkey had enough and called Gimbel, who had since become Chairman of

centers. Both Bill Gimbel and Joe Crider held senior leadership positions in NAAD and helped steer the organization through several tough business cycles. While the use of aluminum increased in the 1990s, especially in automobile manufacturing, industry consolidation took its toll on the organization, as its membership dropped from ninety companies in 1997 to seventy-three in 1999 to 66 in 2002. The trend was clear: NAAD was dying. MSCI was also seeing its membership decline due to industry consolidation and the severe economic slump of the early 2000s. In October 2002, a majority of NAAD’s membership voted to join MSCI as that organization’s new Aluminum Products Division (APD). The merger was completed by November and proved nearly seamless. Sandy Nelson of Earle M. Jorgensen Company, who was MSCI Chairman at the time, said, “Having a voice that encompasses the whole industry should have more impact than we’ve had by speaking separately.” The merger was a success. Bill Sales became an MSCI Director in 2011 and by the time he was Chair of its Aluminum Products Division two years later the organization had grown to include 400 members operating in 1,500 locations throughout the world. All are well represented, along with the Reliance family of companies, by current MSCI Chairman Dave Hannah.

Andrew Sharkey

the SSCI board. “Bill, this is just an untenable situation,” he fumed. “If I’m going to run this outfit, you’ve got to get rid of him.” Sharkey then threatened to quit and go back to his former occupation, teaching school. After a long pause, Gimbel replied “Okay,” and hung up. Sharkey was perplexed. “Well, what does that mean?” he asked himself. “Leave and go back to teach, or he’s going to take care of it?” Sharkey later learned that Gimbel had dismissed the Vice Chairman right after the call. Another major trade organization that Reliance supported over the years was the Philadelphia-based National Association of Aluminum Distributors (NAAD). This was an organization created in 1951 to serve aluminum processors and distributors the same way that SSCI served steel service

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