Reichard Industries Grows as Domestic Steel Rebounds
COLUMBIANA, Ohio -- Watching steel being made reinforces a sense of wonder. The scope of the enterprise alone inspires awe when a visitor sees firsthand the equipment employed -- from blast furnaces to the bells and hoppers atop them to the huge ladles to the hot-metal cars.
An enterprise that builds, repairs and overhauls the equipment used to make steel sits, of all places, at the southern end of this city. A visitor to Reichard Industries Inc., 330 S., Main St., cannot help but be impressed when he walks its factory floors and sees close-up the equipment that welders, machinists, fitters, fabricators and assemblers are working on.
Among the equipment the Reichard workforce supplies or rebuilds are teeming and transfer ladles that weigh between 10 and 350 tons, hot-metal cars with capacities of 150 to 500 tons, clam-shell scrap buckets, tundishes (containers for pouring molten metal into molds), blast furnace gas seals and blast furnace bells and hoppers, steel furnace vessels and cones, basic oxygen furnace ductwork and electric-arc furnace shells.
Besides the domestic steel industry, Reichard designs, builds and rebuilds heavy equipment for the energy, construction and transportation industries, says its president and CEO, Keith A. Reichard. He and his brother, Duane, the vice president, oversee all aspects of the business their father, James, founded in 1983. James Reichard remains the majority shareholder, Keith says, but rarely visits the plant.
Notable is the absence of pollution the plant emits. “We don’t generate pollutants,” Duane points out.
The plant in Columbiana has only one-third the space as that in Niles but it has a crane beneath its 70-foot roof, something the Niles site lacks.
Both brothers earned baccalaureates in mechanical engineering at Youngstown State University – Keith in 1996, Duane in 2003 – with Keith going on to earn a master of business administration at the University of Akron in 2008. Duane recently completed his master’s in mechanical engineering at YSU and is preparing to pursue a doctorate in the field.
The CEO handles the marketing and sales aspect of the enterprise while the vice president oversees the technical side. Both worked in the plant as teenagers and throughout college.
The Fairfield plant – it sits on Fairfield Street, hence the name, immediately east of South Main Street – complements the Reichard plant in Niles acquired in 1997. Between its operations in Columbiana and Niles, Reichard has more than 130,000 square feet of manufacturing space, employs 60 and is looking to hire more, its president says. The complement would reach 70 to 75 if the company could identify those qualified.
A certification in welding or an apprenticeship as a machinist is a plus and in the Reichard workforce are several graduates of the New Castle School of Trades. The company is also looking to recruit at community colleges and the county career and technical centers in Canfield and Lisbon.
Hurting those efforts are applicants who show promise but could not pass drug tests. Reichard Industries conducts random drug tests in its workforce, Duane says, as part of its safety program.
Once an employee has reached his third anniversary at Reichard, he tends to stay until retirement, Keith Reichard says. The turnover his company sees is mostly among those who have worked there a year or less. Many who leave have an aversion to hard work, long hours or both, the brothers contend.
“Our guys are very hard workers,” the CEO says. There’s no shortage of work and 60-hour workweeks are needed from time to time.
The company stands ready 24/7 to send troubleshooters to customers’ plants that encounter emergencies and will send its engineers to plants to conduct on-site repairs and routine inspections.
Because Reichard is privately held, the brothers declined to disclose annual sales or revenues. They would identify the Midwest, from Pittsburgh to Chicago, as their strongest market, but Keith noted that Reichard Industries has signed contracts with companies in Canada and Mexico. “Our business is contract-oriented,” the president says.
Its customers are many. Reichard is dependent on no one “major steel player,” Keith relates, and serves many steel service centers as well.
The brothers allowed that their two biggest expenses are electricity – because of the considerable amount of welding the workforce performs – and raw materials.
The biggest challenge facing the company is obtaining permits to transport via oversized trucks the equipment they refurbish. Last month, U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-6 Ohio, visited the plant in Columbiana to learn more about the company for which he expedited a state permit so it could ship a rebuilt bell and hopper 15 feet in diameter to AK Steel Corp. in Middletown, Ohio.
During Johnson’s visit, he learned about more rebuilt equipment sitting in a filled Fairfield plant awaiting permission from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to ship a 50-ton AOD (argon oxygen decarburization) vessel through southwestern Pennsylvania to West Virginia.
Reichard has its own railroad spur to ship equipment and can also ship that equipment via rail to barges on the Ohio River.
Reichard Industries routinely trucks loads of up to 15,000 pounds between Columbiana and Niles.
The future looks bright for Reichard Industries, the brothers believe. Its biggest challenge is lack of space as it looks to expand its presence slightly in the city. It has purchased two vacant lots adjacent to the Fairfield plant, where it hopes to expand.
Much of the steel industry in the United States is owned by companies based outside this country but the domestic steel industry remains vibrant and is rebounding with the rest of the manufacturing sector. “As long as steel is made in the U.S., we’ll be here,” Keith Reichard promises.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story first appeared in the January print edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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