Universal Stainless and Dennis Oates invest for the future

 
Like many manufacturers, Dennis Oates, chairman, president and CEO of Universal Stainless Alloy & Products Inc., fights stereotypes.
When the general public thinks about the steel industry, smoke stacks, backbreaking labor and companies on shaky financial footing mistakenly come to mind.
Oates says the truth is actually a good news story because the U.S. steel industry has invested in a tremendous amount of technology. This has made it the most efficient industry in the world — comparing output to input, yields, output per man-hour and how much energy is used per pound produced.
“And I think we kind of lost a generation, in some respects, from a professional standpoint and also from a skilled and unskilled labor standpoint,” he says.
For example, basic metallurgy is unheard of as a career choice, Oates says.
“If I was giving advice to some kid coming out of high school today and he (or she) had even a small interest in science, I would steer him (or her) towards metallurgy with a very clear conscious because there’s a strong need for metallurgical talent in this country,” Oates says. “You can almost write your own ticket.”
In this environment, the company has had to retain people to do headhunting-type searches for hourly employees and more aggressively utilize staffing agencies.
But although Universal shares many characteristics with other manufacturers who fight to change perceptions and struggle to hire labor, in one area it stands out. The company is investing for the future in a major way.
Here’s how Universal, which has 700 employees and $200 million in revenue, plans to continue managing industry challenges while it looks to double in size.

Building for the 21st century

In order to ensure long-term success, it’s important to make investments that expand and diversify the business.
“We were interested in making sure we had a company that was there for the long haul,” Oates says.
To compete against foreign producers and provide more products for those concerned about mill consolidation, Universal looked at new technologies that allowed it to work with specialized alloys like nickel.
“We were looking at getting into higher value products that we couldn’t then make, and to do that we needed specialized equipment, which we didn’t have,” Oates says.