Published: December 14, 2011 |

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[Click image to enlarge]

This year marks the 10th anniversary of HardSteel Inc. The Tuscaloosa, Ala., overlay plate manufacturer and steel fabricator survived – even thrived in – a tumultuous decade.

On this day, Larry Williams, who owns the company with Tim Olive, is about to review HardSteel accounts receivables. “When I go through the numbers, I can tell you customer No. 3 is still doing business with us because we just sent them an invoice. Same with customer 11, 14 and 302. We’ve had 304 customers since Day 1,” says Williams. “Obviously, that’s how you grow a business. Keep old customers and add new ones.”

HardSteel got its start with three employees manufacturing steel overlay plates. Its competitive advantage: well-qualified staff, high-quality materials and quick, customized solutions.

Today, a range of abrasion-resistant products – overlay and wear plates, pins, ceramic liners, wires and rods, and custom parts – are produced in-house to assure high standards. The staff has grown to 13, and production runs 24 hours a day, five days a week.

Capabilities include forming and rolling, cutting, splicing, attaching, blanchard grinding, coating, fabricating, rebuilding and hardfacing. You name it, it’s possible. Customized thicknesses, stainless baseplate, corten baseplate. Steel alloys, titanium angle iron, custom tungsten carbide tooling. Overlays of tungsten and titanium carbide, double-sided overlays.

The HS650 chromium carbide overlay plate fits most applications. HS750 is harder, made of chromium carbide embedded with tungsten chips for serious wear situations. An even harder tungsten carbide overlay plate for extreme circumstances, such as cement plant applications, is available by special order.

HardSteel’s first customers were exclusively within the coal mining industry, according to Williams. Today, the coal industry drives 80 percent of its business.

Distributors also send customers as far away as Canada and South America. “Our newest distributor covers the Caribbean, so we will see an increase in exports there,” said Williams.

“The abrasion-resistant market is a fairly narrow niche, though it crosses several industries – paper, petrochemicals, any kind of mining, wherever material is moving. Our products are there when the raw material comes out of ground through to its final destination. They’re used in shovels, haul trucks, in plants, chute systems, hoppers, all sorts of places.”

Solid Leadership
William’s forte is accounting. Olive’s are cost-estimating and wear solutions.

They had worked together for some time in an unrelated business. Olive then entered the abrasion-resistant industry. They regrouped years later to form HardSteel.

The duo leaves the research and development up to their metallurgist/chemist friends. “Tim and I are smart enough to know when we don’t know something,” says Williams. Currently, two new overlay products are in development, and formulations are close at hand.

Marketing the new company has offered its usual challenges. “Obviously, 10 years ago nobody heard of us. So we had to figure out how to best market our product and get our name out to people. We don’t have an outside sales force; we work with customers directly. We have to be in the shop, so we can’t be traveling.” Exhibiting at Coal Prep and occasional print ads were the extent of it.

Today, HardSteel has a recognizable logo and a well-designed website at www.hardsteel.com. Much of the marketing materials are designed to appeal to a male-dominated industry. If you see the latest advertising, you’re likely to remember it.

Mostly, HardSteel marketing has been by reputation. “Not only is it a matter of producing a quality product, it’s also about our ability to solve problems for the customer. It’s the only reason we’re still here,” says Williams.

High-Quality Problem Solver
HardSteel is small enough that it can act quickly to help resolve unexpected emergencies. It goes with the territory, Williams explains. “In a plant or mine, you may not know what is needed until there’s a maintenance situation.”

It happened the first week of July. A large customer discovered a problem during a shutdown. So the entire HardSteel staff worked 12-hour shifts through the July 4 weekend to produce the parts the customer needed. The effort saved the customer three days of unscheduled shutdown and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Another example is a customer with an occasional need for 410-grade stainless steel, best for corrosive, high-wear environments. “It’s not typically in HardSteel’s inventory, and we will break the line and run it for him, when needed.”

“We have always put the customer first. We are willing to jump through hoops when our customers’ needs us to,” says Williams.

Experienced Workforce
Three years ago, HardSteel business spiked, says Williams. “Sales increased by 67 percent, with overlay products going to customers from Maine to Washington and at least nine foreign countries.”

That called for more staff, a larger facility and an equipment upgrade to all digital. A 12,000 square-foot production shop was purchased. The analog overlay machine was rebuilt to ensure consistency during increased production, and a programmable plasma machine was added.

Williams explains some of the new employees formerly worked at a large fabrication shop that closed in 2008. “They are absolutely top notch. We’re excited about their quality of work and great work ethic.”

Others were referred by Kenneth Blackwell, head of the Shelton State Community College welding program. And on this day, Williams is preparing to shake the hand of one of those students. “It’s his one-year anniversary as a full-time employee with us.”

Williams touts HardSteel’s employee benefits package, which includes health insurance, paid vacation and a 401k with matching funds. He credits Randall Dreher, the shop foreman, who has been with HardSteel since Day 1. “Randall has helped us develop the HardSteel family.”

A Tumultuous Decade
Though the HardSteel owners face the next decade with a great sense of accomplishment, optimism is tempered by a new reality of how world events and natural disasters can wreck economies, businesses and lives.

Olive recalls the dismal timing of HardSteel’s start in May 2001. “We made the first overlay plate in late August. Then 9-11 stopped the business world,” he says, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the United States. “We thought our business was finished before we even got started.”

Then came the Great Recession. Williams reports several companies in the Tuscaloosa area didn’t make it, including the large fabricator.

Then came the 2011 Super Outbreak April 25-29. It was the largest pattern of tornados ever recorded. Tuscaloosa had three tornadoes that week. The largest first touched down in the western part of the city at 5:10 p.m. CDT, April 27. It became Alabama’s deadliest tornado in recorded history, killing 72 people, 51 in Tuscaloosa alone. It took the home of HardSteel secretary Adrianne Hutson and would have taken much more had she and her family not been invited to her mother’s house for dinner.

After such tragedy, life and business go on, perhaps with greater clarity about what matters most, family and friends. For Williams and Olive, family extends to the workplace – further assurance that HardSteel will rock on, live strong and stay hard into the next 10 years and beyond.

— By Heidi Ketler

To stop by HardSteel’s website, CLICK HERE