Current Issue

Second-generation boss continues the growth of the business from simple distribution company in Canada to important tube maker in the United States.

The Nova Steel story is a winding one, beginning as a small slitting and cut-to-length house long before taking its place as a major value-added piece of the metals supply chain. 

The company, founded by Bryan Jones in 1979, went public in 1997 and then sold to private investors by way of a SPAC in 2007, before being reclaimed by the Joneses in 2009.

It has grown from its origins in Montreal to elsewhere into Canada, into the Northeastern U.S. and out to the industrial Midwest and Mexico.

But there’s one overriding element that connects this otherwise ever-changing company, says current President and CEO Scott Jones.

“It starts and ends with the steel coil. Ninety-five percent of everything we do starts with a coil and then we look for ways to add value,” says Jones. 

Finding and capitalizing on those advantages in steel coils is what makes Scott Jones, son of the founder, the 2024 Metal Center News Service Center Executive of the Year. He is the 28th honoree.

Each year, MCN recognizes one leader with the Executive of the Year award, recognizing recipients for leadership in their companies, their industry and their communities. He becomes the 28th person to claim the distinction, following in the footsteps of industry giants such as Reliance’s Dave Hannah, Olympic Steel’s Mike Siegal and fellow Canadians Bud Siegel of Russel Metals and Wayne Bassett of Samuel, Son & Co. Ltd. 

Nova Steel began, as many companies do, with an enterprising individual who saw an opportunity and seized on it. In the early 1960s, Bryan Jones recognized a need for a bilingual middleman, one that could communicate easily with the steel mills in English-speaking Ontario and the Francophones in his native Quebec. By 1974, he was a partner in St. Laurent Steel, a service center that ended up selling to Russel Metals that same year at the end of the first great steel shortage.

In 1979, after a five-year non-compete, he opened his first flat-rolled service center as a sole owner,  calling it Nova Steel. But it didn’t take him long to see the value in value-add, consistently seeking out new opportunities to serve the steel supply chain. 

In 1983, the company set off in the direction that is now being fully realized. Nova bought two small 3-inch OD tube mills from Italy. By 1984, Jones was sending hot-rolled coil to Atlas Tube to have it toll processed into larger tube for the Quebec market. In 1986, he decided he could do the larger sizes himself and bought a couple of medium-sized second-hand tube mills in England and established a joint venture with Sidbec Dosco to produce HSS and standard pipe up to 6 5/8-inch OD. 

In the late 1980s, he opened a flat-rolled service center in Ontario to sell slit coil to the automotive industry.  

In 1996, the company made its first major acquisition with the purchase of American Steel and Aluminum, a company with $250 million in annual revenue which operated 10 divisions from Maine all the way south to Virginia. “That changed the profile of the company,” says Scott Jones, who formally joined his father in the business in 1991.

Scott Jones’s career began in sales, beating the bushes in the U.S. Northeast. “We used to have those Thomas directories. I called about 2,000 people, maybe had 200 people who wanted to take my call and opened maybe 20 accounts. That took a year or two,” he recalls. 

But the business south of the border steadily grew, to the point where Bryan Jones agreed that if it reached $20 million in U.S. sales, he would look at opening a tube mill. The company opened a facility with a 7-inch OD mill in Morristown, Pa., in 2001, right before September 11 changed the world dramatically. However, within a few years, things were on the right track. 

“In 2004, like 2021, all of our ills were corrected. It was an asset almost as exciting as the one we have here,” he says, referring to the company’s newest operation in Delta, Ohio. 
Though Scott Jones was named president in 2005 and already heavily involved in the day-to-day operations, he assumed full control of the business in 2014 when his father suffered a major stroke. He remains in regular communication with his father, now 84. 

Scott Jones lost his mother in 1981 at the age of 16. A younger brother, who was saddled with a neuroblastoma from birth, died at just 26.

“It brought my father and me very close. It was just the two of us. He was quite the remarkable man, went through the loss of his wife and having to deal with what was essentially a handicapped child,” he recalls with admiration. “We’re still very tight.”

The family nature of the business doesn’t end with the second generation. His two sons, Henry and Christopher, are both working in sales for Nova Steel (his immediate family also includes wife Sophie, a mixed media artist who collects vintage magazines, and daughters Emilie and Anna, whose interests currently do not include the industrial metals business – although Jones is hoping to change their minds). 

Additionally, the American Steel and Aluminum division is now run by Sam Blatchford, Jones’s brother-in-law. 

Perhaps the most interesting family connection is between Scott and one of his chief confidantes, Ryan Taberner, the company’s senior vice president. Ryan’s father Rob served a similar function with Bryan Jones, joining the company with the move into the Toronto market and staying by his side through the years. 

“Bryan and Scott are in lockstep,” Ryan Taberner says of the Jones family leadership dynamic. “The core values of the company and how they treat employees and how they invest didn’t change.”

Then and now, the organization has remained extremely flat. There aren’t layers between Jones and any of the members of the Nova Steel team. 
“It’s decentralized. If you work for us, you can call me anytime,” Jones says. 

That he’s a resource for just about anyone is a plus. Taberner says Jones brings much to the operation, including an ability to negotiate, the ability to read a market and general foresight, all of which set him apart. 

And while he gives his employees the autonomy to do their jobs, he’s also not afraid to roll up his sleeves and help, says John Wilkinson, general manager of the company’s new ERW tube mill in Delta, Ohio.  “He’s boots on the ground. Every time he’s here he’s on the floor. He knows the business very well, he knows our equipment very well.  He’ll make it seem like he’s flying at 10,000 feet but he’s not. He’s in the weeds with us and helps us solve problems.

But even today, as he oversees all elements of the entire business, he can’t escape his origins. 

“I’m a born salesman, I do a lot of purchasing now and I’m in operations and I understand a lot more about tube mills,” he admits. “But at heart I’m a salesman. I love being on the road and meeting new people and growing the business.”

Big Volume and Value-Add is the Model
Nova Steel’s days as a pure distributor were mostly short-lived, as Bryan Jones immediately saw the importance of doing more for his customers, from simple processing equipment to constructing tube mills. His son, and successor, has only accelerated that push. 

“Over time, as a lot of service centers have done, we started to get into more and more value-add. I still think that’s the road to service centers making money. If you’re just doing the commodity stuff, it’s going to be difficult. When the price of HRC goes from $1,000 to $600 as it did in 2024, it’s hard to make money,” Jones says. 

This philosophy has resulted in a company that’s difficult to pigeonhole. Part service center, part tube maker, part fabricator, part manufacturer. That happens when you’re always looking for that next opportunity. Their challenge is to avoid channel conflicts – where they are very careful in their approach.

For Nova, the service center business complements the downstream work quite nicely. 

“There’s the volume part of the business that allows us to buy coils very competitively and then we take that buying advantage and extend it downstream where you’re making a bigger margin on your product.

Joining Scott Jones in exercising that buying power is Beric Sykes, a 38-year veteran of the steel industry who serves as senior vice president of purchasing while also running service centers in Hamilton and Quebec. As the largest buyer of hot-rolled coil in Canada, Sykes has considerable purchasing power, with Nova Steel’s tons purchased having grown considerably since he joined the company in 2013. 

But Bryan Jones saw the value in going beyond buying tons and working as a simple processor. A look at some of Nova Steel’s operations bear this out. 

In Montreal, Nova has two tube mills. An 8 5/8-inch OD mill in a 300,000-square-foot facility that makes HSS, standard pipe and sprinkler pipe and a smaller 3-inch tube mill that focuses on mechanical tube and rounds that get turned into pipe at the larger facility. 

In 1989, the company acquired Creswell Industries, now named Nova Steel Products. Among its products include specialized fabricated beams for the construction industry and excavator and front loader buckets primarily for Volvo Construction Equipment.

More recently, the company began partnering with a Finnish company, Peikko, which manufactures a new type of construction beam called the DELTABEAM for high-quality, quick-installation projects in the 5- to 15-floor category. 

In Mexico, where Nova has three facilities run by Tom Stearns, senior vice president of Automotive Tubular, the company’s primary products are automotive tubular parts for mid rails and cross section members in chassis. The output also includes roll-formed nailable steel floors for boxcars, which get sold primarily through TTX and to Trinity.

One of Nova’s largest subsidiary companies is American Steel and Aluminum, which is kind of a micro version of the company at large. 

“When I joined Nova in 2012, we were almost 100 percent distribution. 

We’ve since transformed to more value-add, mostly for OEMS, and some other job shops. Tube laser cutting, flat laser processing, plasma, kinetics, drilling, shot blasting and powder coating – things like that,” says Sam Blatchford, American’s president. 

Its customer base, once limited to small job shops, now includes a wide-ranging roster of enterprises, such as U.S. Navy ships, truck tanks, stadium seating and precision machining.  

The next phase is already under way. The company is looking to get a piece of the growing solar market when it begins manufacturing ground screws in New Hampshire in 2025 for the solar space in the Northeast U.S.   

The company’s foray into this particular niche began with the hire of a new team member, Rob Souliere – a process engineer. He had 12 years of experience in the solar sector before joining Nova. 

“He’s been bringing many new opportunities. Some work, some don’t. We think the ground screws are going to work in the Northeast,” Jones says. “Was that the plan last January? No. But you hire the right people and they bring the right opportunities.”

The Newest Facility
In many ways, Nova has long been building toward its newest facility in Delta, Ohio. Its expansion beyond simple distribution, its forays into tubing and its growth into the United States has culminated in the two tube mills housed at the 300,000-square-foot operation in Northwest Ohio. 

The small mill can produce square tubes from 1-inch x 1-inch up to 4-inch x 4-inch, rounds from 1.315-inch OD up to 5-inch OD and rectangles from 2-inch x 2-inch up to 6-inch x 2-inch. Material thickness can run from 16ga up to ¼ inches.

On the larger mill, the company can roll squares from 4-inch x 4-inch x 4-inch up to 8-inch x 8-inch, rounds from 4 ½-inch up to 9 5/8-inch OD and rectangles from 6-inch x 2-inch up to 12-inch x 4-inch in wall thicknesses from 0.125 inches up to ½ inches. 

“It’s a nice range. We can cover a lot of ground by producing all those sizes in the same facility,” says Wilkinson.

The mill sits in the shadow of the North Star BlueScope mill, an existing but not exclusive supplier to Nova. More important is its proximity to many major steel-consuming markets. 

“It’s a fantastic location, strategically located from a logistics standpoint so you can get anywhere. Being in that manufacturing beltline from Chicago, you have a great opportunity to grow. We have another 100 acres where we can grow our range or look at other opportunities,” Wilkinson says. 

The company is still building out its customer base, which will primarily be service centers, Jones anticipates. He understands it will take some time to establish itself in the market, which will likely put off any additional growth projects for the time being.

“After having done four greenfields and one major overhaul of a 100-year-old plant in the last five years, there’s no rush to jump back in. It’s time to harvest our investments, and that takes time, probably three to four years,” he says. “Then maybe we’ll look at acquisitions instead of greenfields.”

Make no mistake, the next opportunity is out there, just waiting to be discovered. It’s the Nova Steel way.


[Sidebar 1:]
Scott Jones: Through the Eyes of Others
The people who work alongside Scott Jones, in whatever capacity, see a caring, committed owner with a deep knowledge of and respect for the metals industry. 

Senior Vice President Ryan Taberner has known Scott Jones since before they both began working full-time, as Ryan’s father Rob was an executive under Scott’s father, Bryan. He’s appreciated working under both father and son during his 27-year career with the company. 

“You’re never going to find a more relatable owner. He knows every employee on the floor. He  has an open door policy and always picks up the phone when you call him. Once you earn the trust, he lets you make the decision. He fosters a very good working environment.”

John Wilkinson, general manager of the company’s new ERW tube mill in Delta, Ohio, has discovered that already. 

“He values everybody’s opinion. He values my experience and my knowledge from other manufacturing sites. They take that into consideration and use that to their advantage. It’s been very refreshing from that perspective,” he says. 

And he appreciates that he’s willing to grow, pointing to the commitment to greenfield operation in Delta during the height of the pandemic. 
“We’re always looking at new tech and looking at how to utilize that to our advantage. In a difficult market, most people pulled back the reins,” he adds. “They’re not afraid to put money in their facilities and people. They see that value.”

Sam Blatchford, who runs Nova’s American Steel and Aluminum business, says his brother-in-law’s knowledge of the steel supply chain allows him to stay committed on those investments. 

“He understands the ups and downs in our industry. He’s not leading from quarter to quarter,” says Blatchford, who joined the company from another brother-in-law’s operation, Canam Steel. “If we have a couple of tough months, or if it doesn’t pan out on the timeline as we expected, he still sees the value in the idea and the business plan. 

“He’s not a private equity guy who comes in and you have to manage to the spreadsheet,” he adds. “He gets it.”

One of Nova Steel’s primary suppliers through the years has been fellow Canadian company Stelco. Greg Anderson has worked closely with both of the Jones men. 

“They’ve been a long-standing customer of ours for decades. They’re always investing in their business. We’ve got a strong relationship where we work together. If either one of us has a problem, we’re able to work something out and come up with a solution,” says Anderson. 

That situation isn’t likely to change, even with the just-completed sale of Stelco to Cleveland-Cliffs. South of the border, Cliffs has been among Nova Steel’s most-valued partners. 

Anderson sees an obvious continuation from father to son. “Scott has really learned from Bryan and followed in his footsteps and runs the business as successfully as his dad used to. He’s hands on, he’s actively engaged and not just with suppliers, but with customers. He’s a people person, so he’s heavily involved in all facets of the business. 
“We need people like that in the industry.”

Rob Assal has known Jones directly for a much shorter time. Nova has been a long-time supplier to his company, Magna International, a major Tier 1 automotive supplier. However, the challenges of the automotive industry over the last few years led to difficult conversations throughout the supply base, and Nova and Magna were no exception. 

“That’s when Scott and I started talking. There were difficult, challenging negotiations, but Scott is a man of integrity. He kept his word and that helped us negotiate an agreement that works for both companies,” recalls Assal, the vice president and general counsel of Cosma International Group of Magna International Inc. 

Ryan Taberner’s commitment to Nova Steel is perhaps the best testament to the culture the Jones family has created. When the company was sold, Taberner remained with the new ownership group, where he was working his way up the ranks. 

But, on the day a non-compete clause expired, he called up Scott Jones and asked to rejoin the business. 

“I always felt Nova has been my home. I bleed Nova blue and everybody in the industry knows it. It comes because of my respect for Scott and his father and what they have built and done for my family through the generations,” he says.


[Sidebar 2:]
A Family Business: Now and Then but Not Always in the Middle
Nova Steel is, today, just as it was more than 40 years ago, a family business controlled by the Jones family. It wasn’t always that way. 
Unlike many family businesses which simply pass on from one generation to the next, the Nova story took a few unconventional turns before getting back to where it all began. 

The company was founded in 1979 by Bryan Jones, Scott’s father. The bilingual Montreal resident saw an opening for a flat-rolled distribution company in heavily French-speaking Quebec, one who could also communicate with the mills in English-speaking Ontario. 

The business grew through the years beyond simple distribution, picking up assets and expanding vertically, long before that became the industry fashion. 

In 1997, the company followed a new path, though one not altogether uncommon – the family sold 20 percent of its equity and went public on NASDAQ under the symbol TONS and the operating name of Novamerican Steel. 

The company was launched at $14 per share in its Initial Public Offering.  

A decade later, Bryan Jones, then 67, was looking at an exit strategy. He saw changes in the automotive supply chain, including two traditional Canadian mills getting acquired by foreign entities, and wondered where Nova would fit in the new landscape. It was time to get out, he reckoned. 

In Nov. 2007, the Jones family sold their remaining shares in Novamerican Steel to New York-based Symmetry Holdings for $56 per share – or $585 million. Symmetry Holdings quickly renamed their new acquisition Barzel and began to make major changes. The new ownership believed in the “speed of cash” and unsustainably high inventory turns. They were very academic and not at all pragmatic.

“In the first part of 2008, we thought we had missed the boat,” Scott Jones recalls. “Then came the crash in September – and I guess we didn’t.”

Barzel wasn’t so lucky – or smart. The timing of the financial crisis, coupled with some strategic decisions that left both the Jones family and other industry players scratching their heads, had them looking to offload assets within a year of the purchase. The Barzel management team managed to reduce annual sales from $850 million to $100 million in less than two years by “firing” customers that did not fit their business model.

The Joneses reacquired their main business in Montreal after a single year. Then, they acquired the rest of what was left of the company in November of 2009 – two years and two days after the sale to Symmetry.

Scott Jones recalls the meeting in New York when the Jones family reacquired the company. “There were all sorts of players interested in parts of the business. We were the only ones who wanted it all,” he says. “And the banks wanted out – fast.”

In November of 2009, the Jones family bought it all back for $75 million at 2:30 a.m. when all the lawyers were so tired they just wanted to go to bed. The next morning, Bryan Jones turned around and sold one of the assets, the Morrisville, Pa. tube mill, to Allied Tube and Conduit for $40 million. 

“The timing was storybook, though not for everyone involved. We were just in the right place at the right time,” he says. 

Upon reacquisition, the Jones men immediately set out righting what they saw were the wrongs done under Barzel. It began with repairing the Nova Steel reputation, an effort that isn’t quite complete. The company’s previous relationship with General Motors, which fell apart during the two-year gap, has yet to be rebuilt. “GM was a very good customer of ours, but we can’t get back into GM. I imagine the personnel inside GM has changed four times since then, but it must be ‘Nova Steel, never again,’” he explains.

Despite the occasional hiccups since the reacquisition, the turn of events was undoubtedly an incredibly beneficial experience to Bryan Jones, who reclaimed and restored the reputation of the company he founded, while profiting handsomely along the way.

“People ask ‘What was the best move your dad ever made, selling the company or buying it back?” says Scott Jones, who continued to go into the office daily throughout those two Barzel years, not ready to close the curtain on his own steel career. “I think it was buying it back.”

[Caption:]
Executive of the Year Scott Jones notes he’s the one of the last in the industry who still wears a coat and tie every day.  (Photo courtesy Mary Pencheff)