From The Editor

The Metal Center News staff will soon be one person shorter.

Subscribers to Metal Center News should have received the annual AdQ survey, which runs concurrently with our July issue.

During the first half-dozen years I worked at Metal Center News, we ran an annual survey of service center sentiment heading into the new year. You may remember the January cover during that time frame, complete with its series of hand signals identifying just what distributors were feeling as the new year approached.

An annual fixture in the pages in Metal Center News is finally returning. Starting with the October issue, and running in the August issue in subsequent years, MCN will present a sales compensation report from a survey of our readers.

Historically speaking, when the rest of the world is bemoaning rising oil prices, a position that crosses all party lines, the members of the steel supply chain have nodded in seeming commiseration.

Dr. Melissa J. Furman spoke at a Metalcon Live webinar on June 22 titled Personal Branding: An Important Skill for Professional Success. Furman is the owner of Career Potential, LLC., Augusta, Ga., a consulting, training and coaching organization.

If you’ve got everything figured out, you’re a much smarter man or woman than me. Scratch that, of course you are. Nevertheless, I’m still a little flummoxed at the moment.

The full effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the supply chain problems left in its wake are starting to be felt in the U.S. manufacturing sector.

The war in Ukraine through unprovoked Russian aggression continues to be the biggest story on the global stage. And the horrific human suffering experienced by the Ukrainian people is, and will rightfully remain, the focus of our attention.

In a recent webinar, Construction Executive’s 2022 Q1 Construction Economic Update and Forecast, Anirban Basu discussed the state of the economy as it relates to construction.