Central Steel & Wire plants ‘prosperity seeds’
CEO says investment in family-wage manufacturing jobs key to strengthening economy
Ryerson CEO Eddie Lehner wants to create more family-wage jobs in America.
“I am going to say it three times for good luck,” Lehner told a crowd Wednesday at a groundbreaking for a new Central Steel & Wire Co. production facility in University Park. “Manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing.”
Lehner sounded like a visionary when we chatted after his public remarks about the start of construction for a 900,000-square-foot building at 23301 S. Central Ave. Once built, Central Steel & Wire will move from a site at 3000 W. 51st St., Chicago, which the company agreed to sell to Amazon last year for $45 million.
Central Steel & Wire was founded in 1909. Ryerson, which employs about 3,900 people at about 100 industrial metals processing centers in North America, was founded in 1842 and acquired Central Steel & Wire in 2018.
“We have been creating and providing family wage jobs for a combined 293 years,” Lehner told a crowd of elected officials, other dignitaries and construction workers.
During the Industrial Revolution, steel makers were among the worst polluters. They dumped toxins into waterways,
belched harmful fumes into the air and left communities to deal with contaminated soil after they abandoned mills.
Today, Lehner wanted me to know, Central Steel’s new University Park facility will not emit carbon or harm the environment in any way.
“It’s not like how manufacturing was 100 years ago,” he told me. “Everything is recycled.”
Ryerson is making a bold statement about keeping good-paying jobs in America and Illinois by building its new headquarters in University Park, Lehner said during his public remarks.
“It speaks to the durability, resiliency and potential that brings us all here today,” he said. “Our mission, our passion and our purpose is to provide great experiences for our customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers and communities.”
After I introduced myself to Lehner, he spoke passionately about wealth equality and the golden age of the American middle class between the end of World War II and the mid-1970s.
He didn’t want to sound political, he said. But something bad happened over the past 50 years. Companies jacked up profits and rewarded shareholders by shipping jobs overseas to where labor costs were lower.
The global supply chain ecosystem worked so long as fuel costs were low and it was affordable to ship raw materi
als and finished products back and forth across the oceans. The rich got richer and America’s middle class shrank. Now, it’s becoming more affordable to make things here again.
“When we make it here everyone benefits and it’s not a zero-sum game but we create new prosperity and new family wage jobs that can stand the test of competition and time,” Lehner told the group.
People in the crowd nodded in agreement. Nearby, men wearing hard hats and brightly colored vests stood near bulldozers and other heavy equipment, ready to get back to work once the ceremony ended.
“We plant prosperity seeds of modernization, investment and opportunity, we tend to those seeds and they grow,” Lehner said.
Central Steel & Wire buys rolls of steel, aluminum and other metals from mills, then processes and fabricates them into everything from structural I-beams used in construction to sheet metal used to make household appliances.
The company opened its plant on Chicago’s Southwest Side 80 years ago. The University Park facility is expected to be ready to lease in 2023.
“The more we manufacture in this country and do it the way we’re going to do it in University Park, the more broad-based prosperity will increase,” Lehner said.
Companies that value employees and pay family wages promote equality and can help reduce violence and division in society, he said.
“Quality of life, well-being, income equality and inclusion are all going to improve and more and more people are going to start feeling better and getting along better,” Lehner said.
Representatives said the company chose University Park because of access to interstate highways and a skilled, trained workforce.
“There aren’t too many 100-acre parcels in Chicago proper,” Jack Barger, president of Central Steel & Wire, told me.
Local elected officials and regional economic development boosters said the project is the latest example of job growth in the region.
“They were looking at southeast Wisconsin, they were looking at northwest Indiana,” said Doug Pryor, who recently succeeded John Greuling as CEO of the Will County Center for Economic Development.
Central Steel will employ at least 300 people at the University Park center, Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant said. Will County now has more jobs than people, she said. The 2020 census pegged the population at 696,355.
“We have evolved from an agricultural economy to the fastest growing economy in the state,” she said. “We continue to welcome new industry and home construction at a record pace.”
Now, the Southland needs more skilled workers to keep up with demand from employers, officials said.
I waited to chat with Lehner until he was finished listening to pitches from Tricia Kerns, senior lecturer of operations and supply chain management at Governors State University’s College of Business, and Roger Fisher, manager of workforce and community partnerships at Prairie State College.
“I am not saying manufacturing will solve every challenge and problem we face but don’t kid yourself,” Lehner said as he concluded his public remarks.
“An honest read of the data since 1975 should be more than enough to convince you that investments in a skills-based, modern manufacturing workforce making high value-added products in the Chicagoland area and everywhere for that matter will make many things a whole lot better,” Lehner said.