Sitting on the Dock

Today I spent some time with the fine folks who work the loading docks here at Rearden. We sat on a wooden bench made slick by a hundred coats of machinery green enamel paint -cumshawed, no doubt, from the machinists cage- with our backs resting against the cool cinder block wall. We planted our boot soles on the oily concrete floor and rocked gently from side to side as we talked about the world as we know it. Occasionally our conversation was punctuated by the low rumble of a scrap iron rollback hauler passing our yards on it's way to the main road.

Scrap haulers are about all we see around this end of town now. Most of our neighboring factories have been idled or outright closed for a couple of years and the few left are beginning to show the tell-tale signs of impending doom. You know, chain link fencing on the first floor windows and TV cameras over the entrance to the lobby. It's really over when you see the sparkling reflections from a skyline of razor wire twirled along every eave and cornice of the roof.

So, now the demolition crews arrive each morning at the old tin can plant to topple more brick fascia walls onto the parking lot leaving but random, dust smoking mounds of debris. At the foreman's signal men with red bandanas tied around their heads drag oxyacetylene gas bottles and green and red rubber hoses across the dusty berms like so many gleaners in search of rebar and woven wire to burn out and recycle. They fill the scrap trucks with iron and the C&D trucks with the rest.

The old tin can plant probably employed two hundred people and not a few of those people learned a trade which was portable to where the wages and benefits were even better. That was the American Dream to some- no, to most of us.

In another week, we will probably sit on this bench again, rock side to side and comment on how quickly the tin can plant was totally removed from it's site. No need for razor wire now. The entire grounds are as level as a parking lot. But, instead of seeing the panorama of a flattened dream, perhaps we at Rearden will see a most perfect place to raise a new industry. And, we shall do just that.

The Mittal Curse Removed

It was good news here in the vending machine area of Rearden Industries when we learned that the Mittal steel mill at Sparrows Point, Maryland is being sold to Esmark, of Chicago. The 'Point', as they call it, had it's glory days as the largest facility in the Bethlehem Steel group of companies but fell victim to a combination of it's own weight and rapidly changing market conditions.

Esmark is a Chicago-based company owned by the Bouchard brothers who are dyed in the wool steel guys grew up in a powerful family complete with Inland Steel pedigree.



Don't think for a minute that these guys are tuxedo-wearing, Ferrari driving trust fund babies with nothing else to do. No, they have been acquiring steel mills and steel service centers for about three years and, these guys have a plan for stabilizing our domestic steel industry. Plans are nice, but watching them make it happen is a true joy.

These guys are back on the linoleum after having seen firsthand the failure of web-based relations management for heavy industrial products. Imagine this, steel savvy and knowledgeable steel sales people working with customers.

Three cheers for Esmark and three cheers for Baltimore. And, thanks to Mark Reutter for the links.