A Look at Cleveland & Dover
Two divisions, one team, feeding the supply chain behind the things we see and rely on every day.
Before there were dozens of Olympic Steel locations across the nation and a Family of Brands, there was Cleveland. Our founders, Sol Siegal and Sam Sigel, started the story here in 1954, selling steel out of a small, rented warehouse with no major processing equipment. Two years later, in 1956, they built the Company’s first facility — an 11,000-square-foot single-bay warehouse at 5060 Richmond Road in Bedford Heights, Ohio. That original site has seen several upgrades and expansions over the decades, including major additions in 1992 and 1995. Today, the Cleveland campus consists of three buildings totaling more than 300,000 square feet, featuring two cut-to-length lines, including a temper mill, and a fleet of Mitsubishi lasers that keep carbon steel moving through the door and out to customers.
About 70 miles south sits our Dover division, which opened in 2009 as a satellite location to Cleveland. At about 65,000 square feet, Dover is smaller and more specialized than Cleveland’s broader mix. Dover’s teams focus on downstream plate processing — running two plasma tables and a Wheelabrator shot blaster to get plate ready for a customer's next step. And while they don’t share an address, the two divisions work like two halves of the same team. For instance, Cleveland often starts a job, buying and processing plate from domestic mills, before shipping it to Dover, where it gets run through the shot blaster before heading out the door.
Material coming off Cleveland’s lines keeps other divisions moving, too. Two examples: Coil processed and laser-cut here is often shipped to McCullough Industries for further fabrication into hoppers. Similarly, our Mount Sterling division, which focuses entirely on fabrication, starts its coil-based jobs with Cleveland-processed material.
Once it leaves the Company, that steel becomes part of everyday equipment we rely on, like tractors that keep farms running, excavators that break ground on new construction sites, and semis hauling freight across the country. It lives in military and armored vehicles manufactured by one of the country’s largest defense contractors and in the products of two of the largest original equipment manufacturers in Ohio.
There’s a lot that goes into a company being trusted with work like that. It takes more than decades of experience and capable equipment — it takes something you won’t find on a spec sheet. "It's our people and relationships that set us apart," says Brant Harbert, general manager of both divisions. “They’re experienced and knowledgeable. They have a lot of pride in their work and care tremendously about the results here — that’s our competitive advantage.”
That mindset carries past the workday, too. It's a big part of how the team lives out Corporate Citizenship, one of our Core Values. Make-A-Wish has been a cause the division has rallied around for many years, and the team also volunteers year-round and supports local groups like the Cleveland Special Olympics and the Animal Protection League.
Keep learning and growing with us! Visit Olympic Steel Academy for more behind-the-scenes insight on the work we do, our products, processes, services, Family of Brands and more.
