Today we’d like to introduce you to Bob Kula.
Bob, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
In 2003, Joe Janiszewski (President of PMP) approached Blake McKnight Sr. with an idea to start a steel coil distribution company specifically aimed at supplying Metal Building Manufactures and Building Component Manufactures with Flat Rolled Steel coils that are used in manufacturing building panels. Blake McKnight Sr. was the owner of Port Metal Processing which he started in 1986. Blake and Joe knew each other from Joe’s tenure at National Steel. National Steel was a supplier of steel to Port Metal and is also where I first met Joe Janiszewski.
Blake Sr. and Joe got the ball rolling in April of 2003. Their first year in business they did $425,000 in sales. In 2005, I was an independent steel sales rep for 2 other steel service center companies. In July of 2005, I added PMP along with the other 2 companies that I was representing. With mine and Joe’s steel experience we began to grow PMP’s sales quickly. Unfortunately, in January of 2006, Blake Sr. passed away from a heart attack. In 2006, Joe Janiszewski and Blake’s widow (Nancy McKnight) became 50/50 partners of PMP.
In 2007, I became a full-time employee of PMP and have been the Vice President since 2007. We have experienced tremendous growth in the last 11 years. Our sales in 2017 were $124 Million.
Has it been a smooth road?
Success never comes easy and there will always be struggles when growing a company but I like to focus on all the positives of the past 11 years and learn from our struggles. However, I will list some of the struggles that we’ve experienced while growing. We’ve had customers who owed us money file bankruptcy, we’ve also had to fire employees for various reasons that had long standing tenures with PMP.
The Positives far outweigh the struggles. We used to lease plant space but in December of 2011 we purchased our own 285,000 Square Foot facility a 1/2 mile away from where we used to lease. We purchased a more modern 60″ slitter in July of 2012 and learned details about equipment, installing equipment, pouring concrete and getting power supplied to our facility in order to operate our equipment. We also continued to make improvements to the facility we purchased in 2011 by using our own steel. With the help a few of our local customers, we shipped our steel to our customers to be roll formed into building panels that we used to retrofit our facility.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
PMP’s specialty is supplying Pre-Engineered Metal Building manufactures and Metal Building component manufactures with flat rolled steel products. We primarily sell painted steel and acrylic coated steel that is used to manufacture wall and roof panels. We also sell galvanized purlin material that is used for secondary framing (purlins and girts) in a metal building.
We are most proud of the customer and vendor relationships we have developed and maintained over the years. Given all the drastic steel pricing cycles that have occurred in the steel industry worldwide, we have always managed to buy and sell steel competitively. Because of the crazy steel cycles we have lived through in 2004 and 2008, our customers are loyal. They trust our experience, knowledge of the steel market and more importantly how we see steel prices moving in the upcoming months. We’re basically a steel consultant for OEM’S buying steel to manufacture buildings and building components. We remove the risk for our customers buying steel directly from steel mills.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Houston is a great city for steel distributors. The port of Houston is the largest port in America for steel product imports. The downside to being in Houston is that 100% of our steel purchases come from Mexico or overseas countries like Brazil, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. US Domestic Steel mills do not like competing against foreign imported steel due to their competitive prices that are always lower than domestic steel pricing. Due to the fact we buy mostly imported steel, we are forced to predict and buy steel 6-7 months before we can physically touch it and sell it.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1025 Lockwood Dr.
Houston, TX 77020 - Website: www.paintedmetals.com
- Phone: 713-672-9513
Image Credit:
Bob Kula
Joe Janiszewski
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