Final Thoughts

One of the reasons why I enjoy the steel industry is the fact that every day is different. Each customer is unique, every buyer had his/her own personality and way of conducting business. As a salesman, my challenge was understanding and then navigating the motivating factors behind every purchasing decision.

The U.S. government has been involved with the steel industry well beyond my 42-year tenure. Fifty-seven years ago (1962) President John Kennedy went after the steel mills for raising prices by $6 per ton (not $6/cwt, $6 per ton). He pointed out that this “wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest” would mean the U.S. government would add $1 billion to the cost of defense. Interestingly, he also pointed out that higher costs would “make it more difficult for American goods to compete in foreign markets, more difficult to withstand competition from foreign imports, and thus more difficult to improve our balance of payments position….”