Steel Products

SMU Steel Summit Coming Along Nicely

Written by John Packard


There are now 14 Days to go before the start of this year’s steel conference. Unlike past years we will not be in Atlanta but instead holding the conference as a virtual event. You can learn more about what that means by reviewing a recording we did a couple of weeks ago when we unveiled our platform. You can see that recording by clicking here.

We are busy making final preparations for the 2020 SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference. We have already begun the recording process for some of the “on-demand” presentations, and we are working on the lobby video, our introduction videos and with many of the speakers’ presentations. The program looks strong, and we are looking forward to rolling out our first virtual Steel Summit Conference.

Steel SummitWhen I last checked we had 24 nominees for this year’s SMU NexGen Leadership Award. Each of the nominees will receive a free pass to this year’s conference. Nominations are now closed. The judges and I will be reviewing the nominations over the next couple of weeks and we will announce the winner during the conference. A special thank you to the Steel Manufacturers Association for their support of this award.

We had 128 new registrations for the conference last week. Here are just some of the companies who registered: Batesville Casket Company, Larson Manufacturing Company, Conklin Metal Industries, Black Rock Metals, CARMEUSE Europe, Bank of America, PGT Trucking and Steel Dynamics who registered 15 of their executives. We are now over 600 attendees making our way to 700-800 by the start of the conference. You can register by clicking here.

I want to recognize our sponsors without which our ticket prices would have been much higher than the $450 (no discounts) price ($350 for SMU/CRU member companies who register more than one person). If you would like more information about registration, please visit www.smusteelsummit.com or contact us at Events@SteelMarketUpdate.com

Our platinum sponsor is Red Bud Industries. Our Gold Sponsors are Mill Steel, Bank of America, Crowe, Big River Steel, Heidtman Steel, Reibus and Kenwal. Our Silver Sponsors are Nucor, CME Group, Steel Manufacturers Association, Fifth Third Bank, Felux and BMO. Our Bronze Sponsors are MidWest Materials, Alliance Steel, Ratner Steel Supply Company, Acero Prime, Magic Coil Products and Paragon Steel. We also want to recognize the following supporting companies: Metal Center News, Modern Metals, FF Journal, Fabricators and Manufacturers Association and Fitch Ratings.

This will be another busy week for the steel industry. We are still waiting to see if any of the EAF or conversion mills make a public move to take spot prices higher. SMU will be reaching out to a select group of steel buyers to get their opinions early this week, and we will be reporting on the results in Tuesday evening’s newsletter.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about upgrading, adding more employees or becoming a subscriber to the Steel Market Update newsletter, please contact Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012. She can also be reached at Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com

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

John Packard, President & CEO

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