SMU Community Chat

Wednesday's Community Chat to Focus on Infrastructure Market

Written by Michael Cowden

March 14, 2022

It’s time to register for Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat webinar, which will feature Matt Brace, owner of rebar fabricator Brace Steel and CEO of Structural and Steel Products Inc. Also joining the discussion on the construction sector will be Brian Desigio, company president and chief operating officer.

SMU MobileWe’ll be holding the Community Chat on Wednesday, March 23, at 1 pm ET (noon CT). The webinar is free. You can register here.

Why should you tune in?

Fort Worth, Texas-based Structural and Steel Products makes steel-intensive infrastructure goods such as transmission towers, guardrails, and highway lighting. The company should be well-placed to benefit from increased U.S. infrastructure spending.

The fly in the ointment: Record high steel prices last year and extreme volatility this year have made it more and more difficult to push forward with infrastructure projects.

The problem, as Brace and Desigio see it, is that mills can pass along higher costs to service centers, and service centers can pass them along to end users. But how do downstream consumers pass along higher costs to government entities working within budgets that don’t accommodate steel prices doubling, tripling or quadrupling?

The result can be cancelled projects and even manufacturers or fabricators going out of business.

We’ll also talk about how it’s not just the cost of steel that’s rising but also costs for labor, for zinc, for resins… for just about everything and everyone!

As always, we’ll keep it to about 45 minutes. You can (virtually) drop in, learn something – and then get on with your day.

We’ll take your questions too. So don’t forget to write some down now so you can throw them in the Q&A box on March 23.

By Michael Cowden, Michael@SteelMarketUpdate.com

Michael Cowden

Michael Cowden is managing editor for Steel Market Update. Cowden has covered the steel industry since 2007. He specializes in flat-rolled steel but has also reported on steel long products, steel pipe and tube, and aluminum. Before joining SMU, Cowden held reporting jobs at Fastmarkets AMM in Chicago, the Associated Press in Pittsburgh, and the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. He has also worked as a copy editor and in marketing at the University of Chicago Press. Cowden has a BA in English from the University of Chicago and an MSJ journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Contact him at michael@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7872.

Read more from Michael Cowden

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