Moving Metal

MetalCenter, Inc. in Cerritos, where the new system was pilot tested. “It was a great experience for me,” Lewis recalled. “I was out on the warehouse floor training all those people on all the different areas of the new system.” Meanwhile, Lewis learned a great deal about the company’s operations, its cus- tomers, and the industry, which laid the groundwork for a bigger role in company leadership. Once the new technology was installed and the employees were trained, Lewis returned to Hannah and said, “You know, Dave, this has all been great, but I would really like to be an accountant. I am not asking for anything really glamorous, but can I do my real job that I was supposed to do?” Hannah welcomed Lewis back to the corporate office. THE PATH TO GOING PUBLIC While Reliance was identifying and recruiting new leaders, it continued to integrate new technology into its operations. The ongoing company-wide capital investment and modernization program was stepped up in late 1988 with the installation of a $1.5 million blanking line capable of holding extremely close tolerances at the Vernon flat-rolled carbon-steel facility. At a time when the national economy was slumping and West Coast distributors were cutting prices and squeezing margins, the move seemed counterintuitive. “We took a big risk when we put the machine in,” Crider acknowledged, “but the line has opened new markets that were previously closed to us.” In 1990, Reliance spent $10 million on capital improvements, including the purchase of the $2 million leveling system for Tricon Steel Service, and expansion and modernization of the Reliance Metalcenters in Portland, Oregon, and Salt Lake City, Utah. “If we were to abandon our current philosophy of keeping those facilities

do a good job. He knew that she did not want to spend her entire career in public accounting, so he discreetly asked her to interview for the open position. On reflection, however, Hannah decided that he needed Lewis more at the Reliance corporate office. Bob Zickerman had recently retired, leaving only Hannah and Accounting Manager Louise Newman to handle corporate finance. Hannah told Crider, “You know, I actually want Karla to work here.” Crider was not sure, but Hannah insisted. Crider deferred to his CFO, and Hannah tendered the job offer to Lewis. She accepted and became Reliance’s Corporate Controller. As it happened, the first job that Lewis undertook was not in accounting but in replacing Reliance’s obsolete infor- mation technology system. Reliance had bought its first big computer system in 1973, a $485,000 IBMmainframe that filled an entire room. In the early 1990s, a time when personal com- puters were revolutionizing business, Reliance was still in the informational Dark Ages. Records were generated by noisy deck writers spitting out endless reams of green and white paper. Orders and receipts were stowed in bulky ledgers. The system could do the basic tasks but provided managers with very little operating information of value. The IT depart- ment, recalled Lewis, “consisted of three or four people on this old mainframe. Basically if anyone in the field called in and asked for something, the IT people would say, ‘We don’t want to do that’ and hang up.” Hannah suggested that Lewis start by making the IT staff friendlier. Crider said, “You know what? There is a lot of tech- nology out there. Our computer is from the seventies. It’s now the nineties and maybe we should consider doing some- thing about it.” Lewis accordingly shopped for and selected a new computer system. She then spent most of her time at

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