Commercial Stays Tough with Eye on Controlling What it Can
The Commercial Metal Forming name has been stapled to Youngstown for the last 20 years, and its roots to the former Commercial Intertech and Commercial Shearing & Stamping take it back even further, to the 1920s.
With headquarters on Logan Avenue and plants in Youngstown, Saginaw, Texas, and Orange, Calif., Commercial is considered the largest privately held tank head manufacturer in the United States.
Bob Messaros, Commercial’s chief executive officer for the past 11 years and a former Miami (Ohio) University football coach, says the company has learned to battle adversity – and win.
“When you use the word ‘tough,’ it does resonate with Commercial Metal Forming, in the fiber, in the core of our people,” Messaros said. “You look up the definition … there’s a variety of things. You withstand adverse conditions, you endure, you’re physically strong, you have grit … the attitude that you’re going to get back up and keep going. All those things really, really describe us.”
Mike Conglose, executive vice president of operations and a 27-year employee of the business, agrees. He remembers well how the company rebounded from the sharp 2009 downturn that affected much of the nation’s industrial sector.
“Sometimes you get into situations when you don’t have control of everything and we couldn’t control the economy,” Conglose said. “In 2009, all of the markets were down and the challenge that brought on was how to continue controlling cost and still produce the product.”
Messaros spoke to Valley Tough about the things that make Commercial tough.
Q&A with Bob Messaros
Where does Commercial Metal Forming stand now, in terms of size, relative to 2001 when it was divested (by Parker Hannifin, after it acquired Commercial Intertech)?
We are a lot larger. Depending on the market at any given time, we are about 75 to well over 100 percent larger in revenue. Now that we are just a metal-forming operation, we’re singularly focused on driving growth and improvement in that part of the business.
What external marketing factors have supported the company’s success?
The biggest factor for our success externally has been an internal factor, and that is fixating the business on the culture and our people. It is an old-fashioned philosophy, but it works. We are going to be responsible for helping everybody we touch be successful. I think it has really resonated with our people over time as we build that trust.
This has been the foundation of our success because when you have a culture like that, it translates externally to the customers in that our purpose is to help them be successful.
How many people does Commercial Metal Forming employ in Youngstown and in total?
We employ about 90 people in Youngstown and with the three facilities in total, it’s 140 people.
The company has been through a few changes in ownership and a bankruptcy filing in recent years, plus the pandemic. How does Commercial Metal Forming stay tough?
When you use the word “tough,” it does resonate with Commercial Metal Forming, in the fiber, and core of our people. … We were in a holding company and the company had other manufacturing entities, which dragged us into bankruptcy when we were doing extremely well.
Standing up in front of our people and telling them, “This has nothing to do with you or us; rather, this has to do with other forces we have no control over” led to us focusing on the theme of fixating on controlling what we can control.
This has allowed us to be successful and that tough spirit has come through because our people believe in themselves and they believe in each other. Everything we work on is always about where are we going. When you are always looking forward, it creates a healthy attitude to take on things such as COVID-19.