Final Thoughts

We are now two weeks away from the opening of our 4th Steel Summit Conference and our first two day conference. I am quite pleased at the response that we have received from a number of different fronts regarding our conference. Our conference is being held on September 3 & 4 which is only two days after the Labor Day holiday here in the United States. That conflict eliminated some of our potential attendees. Our conference is also one week before the MSCI annual forecasting conference in Chicago. SMU intentionally made sure our speakers and our program was different than that of the MSCI so those who wish to attend both could do so without feeling that the value of either conference was being compromised.

I want to thank our sponsors who stepped up by supporting our efforts to conduct an excellent conference at a reasonable cost. We use sponsor monies as a way of controlling our overhead not as a profit center. A special thank you to: Pacesetter Steel Service, Inc.; Alliance Steel; Magic Coil Products; Steel Market Development Institute; Cargill; Kansas City Southern Railroad; Interlake Steamship Company for their support.