MSCI Northern Ohio Chapter to Hold Manufacturing Summit

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- A "Manufacturing Summit" with local and national speakers will address the crisis in U.S. manufacturing with a town hall-style meeting on Tuesday, October 12. The event, sponsored by the Northern Ohio Chapter of the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI), will be held at the Embassy Suites Cleveland-Rockside, 5800 Rockside Woods Boulevard, in Independence beginning at 5:00 p.m.

The program, entitled "Crisis in American Manufacturing," is one of a series of similar events organized by MSCI chapters around the country. It is designed to alert the metals and manufacturing communities to "game changing" public policy issues that threaten the nation's ability to continue to be a world center for manufacturing. The program is for MSCI members as well as manufacturers, politicians and friends of manufacturing from around the state.

"MSCI first raised concern about the declining state of capital goods and consumer durable manufacturing six years ago, and since that time, the situation has not improved significantly," said M. Robert Weidner, III, president and CEO of the institute, which is based in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. "In many respects, the specter of laws and regulations that will raise costs, lower competitiveness and leave us open to illegal trade practices has grown. It's time to arm our members, their customers and others with an interest in a strong manufacturing base with the information they need to be effective in the public policy confrontations yet to come."

"We believe that North American manufacturing is under attack," said John Zasadni, the chapter's president and branch manager for Yarde Metals's plant in Streetsboro, Ohio. "Entire categories of goods are no longer made in this country, and manufacturers are extremely hesitant to expand or locate facilities here. We all know how damaging the recession has been. Add to that the negative impact of proposed taxes, new health care requirements, climate change regulations, labor laws, China's continuing mercantilist policies and the like, and we all face a long, difficult period in the months and years ahead."

Weidner will be moderator for the event. Additional speakers include:

• Bill Jones, vice chairman of O'Neal Industries of Birmingham, Alabama, and chairman of the MSCI national organization
• Bill Hickey , president, Lapham-Hickey Steel Corporation, Chicago
• Michael Siegal, chairman and CEO, Olympic Steel, Inc.
• William Sopko, president, Stamco Industries, Euclid, Ohio
• Mark Romanchuk, president, PR Machine Works, Mansfield, Ohio, and president of the Regional Manufacturing Coalition

Candidates for public office have been invited to the event. In addition, time will be provided for a question-and-answer period and discussion about options that everyone has to work on behalf of the nation's manufacturing base.

Founded in 1909, the Metals Service Center Institute has more than 360 members operating from about 1,200 locations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere in the world. Together, MSCI members constitute the largest single group of metals purchasers in North America, amounting each year to more than 55 million tons of steel, aluminum, and other metals, with about 300,000 manufacturers and fabricators as customers. MSCI's membership also includes almost all ferrous and non-ferrous industrial metals producers in North America. Metals service centers inventory and distribute metals and provide first-stage fabrication services.

SOURCE Metals Service Center Institute