Chicago-based Second City Metals recently celebrated nine years of business.

The national steel distributor sells 60-inch coil for rectangular duct and slit coil for spiral-duct manufacturers in galvanized, galvannealed, perforated, stainless, aluminum, aluminized, and polyvinyl-coated coils and sheets.

“We understand that market conditions change and sometimes the market favors the steel distributors and other times the manufacturer (or) sheet metal shop is in the driver seat,” said President Joe Landry.

“A good of example of this was during the volatility of 2008 and 2009. Unlike most of our competitors, Second City Metals has been able to react quickly to a change in steel prices,” Landry said. “We were able to protect our customers when prices increased and take advantage of the opportunities when prices decreased. Either way, our customers benefited.

“We know our strengths and sell to a very specific market: customers with coil lines -rectangular duct - and customers with tube formers - spiral manufacturing. We don’t try to supply everything to everyone. We just try to be the best at what we do, which is supply coil to the HVAC industry.

“Growth is difficult to come by these days,” he added. “Although happy customers promote growth and Second City Metals has increased revenue in each of the nine years we’ve been in business. That’s a compliment to our strong customer base, which keeps us growing one customer at a time.”