SMU Community Chat
October 21, 2021
SMU Community Chat: Steel Warehouse to Stay the Course in '22
Written by Tim Triplett
Steel Warehouse has withstood the test of the past year, but “it’s a pass-fail course and the assignments are always changing,” said Mike Lerman, president of the South Bend, Ind.-based service center. Lerman was the guest speaker for Wednesday’s Steel Market Update Community Chat.
Steel Warehouse was founded by Lerman’s father, Nathan, in 1947 “with a rented building, a used shear, a truck, integrity and strong work ethic.” Nearly 75 years later, the full-line service center has 10 locations in the U.S., two in Brazil and Mexico, as well as two specialty steel centers, manned by a workforce of 2,000 employees. A big believer in value-added processing, the company offers temper passing, batch annealing, pickling, stretcher leveling, slitting, cut-to-length, blanking, shearing and beveling, among other processes. It serves a diverse range of end-use markets from automotive and aerospace to construction, energy and defense. Steel Warehouse was ranked No. 14 in North America in the latest Metal Center News Service Center Top 50.
