Final Thoughts

April 8, 2015

We have an article in tonight’s Steel Market Update about a service center which installed a new piece of processing equipment. Earlier today we posted on our website blog an article about Olympic Steel naming Andrew Wolfort general manager of their Schaumburg plant. We are interested in keeping the industry informed of these kinds of events. If something is happening at your company please send the information to info@SteelMarketUpdate.com.

We are beginning to be asked about our 5th Steel Summit Conference which will be held in Atlanta, Georgia on September 1 & 2, 2015. Those of you who follow our conferences closely know that we: 1) put on a great event that is both entertaining and valuable and, 2) we have topics which are timely and relevant to our attendees. The conference focus is on forecasting and we tackle the steel markets from a number of angles and perspectives. We will continue to do that this year.

I think I have already mentioned a couple of our speakers: new this year will be Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research. I have known Alan for a number of years and have been impressed with his forecasting skills (94.7% accuracy rate). He is the chief economist for the Heating, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) where I have heard him speak on a number of occasions. If you have not heard Mr. Beaulieu speak before you are in for a treat with some meat on the bone.

Also coming back is Dr. Chris Kuehl or Armada Corporate Intelligence. Dr. Kuehl will once again kick off our program (shortly after SMU does “our thing”which will mean something to those who attended last year’s conference). Dr. Kuehl is another entertaining, witty economist who will provide us a look at the world in a way we perhaps have not looked at it before.

Let’s put these two speakers alone into perspective. Earlier today Ray Culley, who is working with me to develop this year’s program, spoke with one of the top construction economists and forecasters about speaking at this year’s Steel Summit Conference. When this person found out we had Alan Beaulieu and Dr. Chris Kuehl he was excited to join us. We will talk more about our mystery construction person soon.

Ray Culley and I are working diligently to put the finishing touches on this year’s event. We hope to begin rolling out our program outline and some of our speakers beginning next week. We are also hopeful we will be able to begin accepting registrations for our Steel Summit by late next week or at the worst early the following week.

I have heard from a number of our attendees who came last year that they intend on assisting us in building our conference and seeing that it is recognized as “the” industry event of the year. We had close to 200 attendees this past year and our goal is to exceed 300 this year. So, mark your calendars, tell your friends in the industry that they too will want to be in Atlanta for our 5th Steel Summit Conference.

Next, looking at workshops: Our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop is 5 weeks away and about 60 percent full. We have spots available and would love to see you or others from your company at our workshop. The next Steel 101 will be in Merriville, Indiana just outside of Chicago and will include a tour of the NLMK Indiana steel mill. The dates are May 19 & 20, 2015. Come join us in Indiana! Details are on our website under the Events tab or just click here.

For those of you who are new members to Steel Market Update first I want to personally welcome you. Second, I want to make sure that you know as part of your company’s membership you are eligible for discounts on all SMU workshops and conference registrations. Even if it is not you attending but someone from your company – that is good enough for us – your person gets the membership discount. Welcome aboard and we hope you enjoy the next 12 months.

As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.

John Packard, Publisher