Hi guys, I'm Rachel with Bryzos. I'm here at NASCC 2026 on the show floor. I am here with Tyler Cease with Southern Steel Engineers. We're here at the show just kind of hearing about all the different companies, what everyone is here doing. So Tyler, why don't you tell me a little bit about what you are doing today at the show and a little bit more about your company. Yes, I'm Tyler Cease. I'm the president of Southern Steel Engineers and I presented this morning on connections to HSS columns. I'll be presenting this afternoon on miscellaneous steel engineering. We've got our whole team of engineers here at the conference, networking, attending sessions, meeting with exhibitors and vendors. Yeah, okay. So why don't you tell me a little bit more about SSE. You said you are based out of Lexington, North Carolina? South Carolina. South Carolina. I was close. I had a 50-50 shot. Tell me a little bit more about your company, how it got started, and kind of the early days. Yeah, so I formed the company in 2017. to service the steel industry for structural engineering so we specifically work with fabricators detailers directors all in steel yeah so we're niche in that way and that's that allows us to focus on what we really enjoy doing and deliver value to our clients that way yeah so what are some projects that you guys are working on right now anything big Like a lot of people here, data centers. A lot of people are working on data centers right now. That's a hot topic right now, right? You hear about it a lot. Some schools, a big children's hospital. Do you do all throughout the United States or are you guys mainly kind of local to your area? So we're licensed in 46 states. Usually, year to year, we work in 30 different states on average. I would say two-thirds of our work is in the southeast, and then kind of spread out beyond that. Gotcha. Okay. So, what are you guys kind of planning for the future? Any big things that you're doing with your company? Like you said, AI, big topic right now. Are you guys exploring anything like that within your company? Yeah, we're using AI for various different... things on the business side but also now too to create some custom software with engineering okay so that's been we're starting to make some progress there yeah the capabilities there keep growing fast for sure it's been a good benefit for us yeah so tell me a little bit more about you and your background how did you get into the industry so kind of by default so i my father was a steel detailer okay so i started detailing steel and learning the industry when i was 14. so my whole career has been in steel and you were really learning like from him a lot yeah from him and learning the fundamentals and then i after college i moved into engineering and worked for a fabricator for nine years and did a lot of different things in the industry and including talking about material like for a while i was designing structures and working through the pricing of those So I was able to learn exactly how design influences pricing. So that was a good experience. Yeah, absolutely. And so with us being at NASCC 2026 here in Atlanta, Georgia, what are you guys kind of looking to gain from coming to these shows? Is this like the only trade show that you guys usually attend or are you guys kind of... out and about on all of them no this is the main one okay we go to another local uh south carolina structural engineering conference but this is the main one each year okay we bring all of our engineering staff um and really it's about networking seeing clients meeting people that we know in the industry attending a lot of good sessions and so our team can get learn about different things that maybe we don't see all the time or yeah other different aspects of the industry it is really crazy you think that you kind of like seen everything but every time you go to these shows we have that experience a lot with going to fab tech i mean that is and i don't know if you've ever been but that is just an absolutely insane show the the machinery that you see and even just the advancements in like robotics and automation Absolutely. One of our fabricator clients was telling me about how big Fabtech's exhibit hall is. It is. Yes, it is colossal. It is. I think every year going back to Chicago now and that McCormick Center. So it is very insane. But yeah, this one's a little bit of a smaller show for us when you compare it to Fabtech, of course. But like you said, great for networking, meeting a lot of different people. So is there anything you're looking to kind of bring back with you, like new connections or just kind of, you know. helping to kind of maintain the people that you your clients that you have now or what are you looking to bring back with you to South Carolina yeah a mixture I guess some of our clients that are in different locations, this is the only time each year we see them in person. So it's really good to connect with them and then visit with other people. I can't walk very far here without running into somebody I know since I've been in steel my whole career, which is good. There's certain people, I see them here every year. You can almost just rely on it. This is probably my third or fourth NASCC now. i'm finally starting to discover like i'm recognizing the faces i'm seeing the same companies and the same people so very exciting um and to close us out with kind of a more fun one in your your own opinion what would be your steel industry hot take so From an engineering perspective and one thing I tell our team I would say be proactive. So being proactive can mean a lot of different things and different roles and but in general planning ahead and being proactive on different decisions whether it's material sizing or what a fabricator needs for their shop like all of the just being proactive leads to better outcomes. Do you often see that people are not? like within the industry because people are busy yeah and a lot of times stuff gets kicked down the road or they just don't have time to and then but sometimes kicking that can ends up causing more problems and more time down the road so just being proactive about different projects or what you're doing that's a good one good words to live by so Tyler if people wanted to kind of check out what SSE does learn a little bit more about your company where could they find some more information about you yeah our website southernsteelengineers.com or on LinkedIn as well. So those are the easiest places. Yeah, absolutely. LinkedIn, that's where, you know, we're always very active on LinkedIn. And that's, I believe, where we connected. So yeah, always networking and meeting new people. So Tyler, thank you so much for taking the time today. It was great learning a little bit more about you and your company. And I'm excited to see what you got. You got lots of speaking engagements coming up. So good luck with those as well. Thank you. All right. Nice meeting you. Hi guys, Rachel here with Bryzos. We are here at the NASCC 2026. trade show here in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm here with Haley Fort. You are with Wilbanks Metals based out of Fort Worth, Texas. Is that right? Okay. So we're here at NASCC. Haley, why don't you kind of start off by just telling me a little bit about who you are and what you do? Yeah, absolutely. I'm Haley Fort. I'm with Wilbanks Metals. We are a raw material supplier for carbon steel. So we specialize in carbon steel sheet, plate, structural fabrication. We are a family owned company. We've been around for about 51 years. Oh, wow. Long history. Long history, still family-ran. The two brothers are heavily involved, so it's really nice to be a part of a family-owned company. It's one of the things that brought me to Will Banks. I got started in manufacturing years ago. I took a job as an admin, and I just naturally progressed through the ranks. I eventually got my project management certificate and was a project manager, which led me into purchasing. So I've actually been on the buying side of steel. Okay. And years ago, about a year and a half ago, Will Banks reached out to me and they brought me on their team to do outside sales. So my territory is actually Oklahoma. Okay. So I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and that's my whole territory. And it's been, it's been a wild ride, but I love it. I love being in steel. Yeah. That's been really fun. Okay. So 50, you said 51 years. How many like generations of the family have been involved in that now that I think we're on, we're on generation three. Okay. Wow. That's amazing. And they're all like still pretty involved in it. Well, obviously grandpa's retired. Okay. The brothers, the sons are running it now. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about the background of your company. Like what do you guys specialize in or kind of what, what are some of the projects that you guys might find yourself more like heavily involved in? Yeah. So everything that we do, we bring in, we bring in all of our carbon steel as coil and we actually have our own cut to length line and we decoil it ourselves. So we can, you know, we can create any. size sheet that you want. And we're able to take that material and process it, fabricate it a little bit further, doing things like rolling, bending, drilling and tapping. We've got two blazers. We've got kinetic machines. So we're able to do a lot. We do a lot in the tower and pole industry. So that's a big pusher for us. What kind of projects? Is that like cell towers or what kind of like projects? Cell towers, light poles, windmills. Oh, wow. Okay. so those giant poles in the sky yeah literally like giant when you're seeing them coming down in sections down the highway yes okay that's crazy so i know you touched on it a little bit but tell me a little bit more about your background how did you find yourself getting i mean we were talking briefly like off camera like How you end up in the steel industry is always just kind of, it feels almost random. I never set out and thought that I was going to be like in the steel industry at all. I was a quick trip manager for years and I just got, I got kind of burnt out and I decided I wanted to try something else. So I took an admin job in manufacturing for a heat exchanger company actually. And I did that for a little bit and then I, you know, just naturally got another opportunity and kind of climbed through the ranks a little bit and I started doing. like small projects, project management's for a company and I went into oil and gas and I was doing pipeline mitigation for like half-soles for the pipeline. Okay. And so that's when I started buying steel. And so I was buying to like special chemistry analysis for half-soles for the pipeline industry. And at that time I was actually buying from Wilbanks. Okay. And when I left my last company, Wilbanks was like, hey, why don't you come work for us? Which you must have really stood out if they were... If they were knocking out your door like that. We had a great relationship. We had a great relationship. My inside rep at the time was Megan Hudgens. She was great. She helped me a lot in this industry. She taught me a lot about steel. Because when I first started buying, I was like, I don't know anything about steel. You know, I don't really know what I'm doing. That was me at the start of this job. At the beginning of the, you know, when they asked me to start buying at my last company, they were like, hey, we just need somebody to take this over for us. And I was like. i'm a yes man you know i guess i'm in yeah just go ahead lead the way and so i learned a little bit about it and i started i started purchasing yeah and megan really will banks really helped me out they taught me a lot about steel and then on the flip side i got to go work for them so i've been with them for about a year and a half now okay it's been it's been awesome awesome yeah so we're across the hall of neighbors here at the show so why don't you tell me a little bit um about what you guys are doing here at this show, what you usually, you know, what the goal is from attending shows like this and, you know, if you guys go to any other shows in the industry. We do, yeah. So we actually just went to Con Expo in March. Okay. Awesome show. It was great. They only do it, I believe it's every three years. It's massive. It's like hundreds of acres. It was insane. But really our goal when we go to shows like this is to network and be a part of the industry and learn what's going on in the industry, keeping up with the market, keeping up with, you know. what our customers are doing what their what projects they have coming up what they're working on and that allows us to kind of be a better resource for our customers and for our team and then of course it's always great to network spend time with the team putting a face to a name that's always an interesting thing to me it's like when you meet someone that you've emailed with for the last two years i've never even met you before this is so weird what i love particularly about nascc is like there's so many service centers so many mills out here so we're all kind of like doing the same thing but we all get to be in the same place at the same time and have to like a little bit of a friendly competition and yeah and get to enjoy each other's company and you know i always say in steel i always say with my customers it's all the same steel it's all about our niche like we're good at fabrication we're good at raw materials we have a cut to length line some of my competitors they may be really great at structural they may be really great at something else so it's all about you know what the customer needs and what resource they're looking for particularly and i think we can all win if we just kind of are particular about what we're doing. Yeah, absolutely. Don't try to be the best at every single one thing. Just really like focus on one specialty. You ever go to a restaurant and they have so many things on the menu and you're like, I don't even know what I'm going to choose from. I don't think it's going to be very good. They have a little bit of a smaller, more condensed. You're like, yes, this is exactly what I need. Do a few things really well. Absolutely. So one thing that I'm interested in, I know we talked briefly about this, is In the steel industry, what is something that you think would surprise someone on the outside that is not within our industry? Yes, absolutely. So one of the things that really surprised me coming into the sales side of steel was how many women are in steel. You know, it was kind of, it's a male-dominated field. Most of the people you run into, it's a man, you know, and I was just really excited to see how many women I get to work with in this industry. A lot of my buyers are women. It's girl power. I love it. I'm excited by it. Yeah, I had that experience, you know, me and my sister at Bryzos. When we were at Fabtech back in September in Chicago, I had the opportunity to sit down and do the podcast with so many different female welders and fabricators. Yes, female welders. That's awesome. That was absolutely the coolest part because I'm like, this is just so cool. I genuinely didn't even know so many women were in the field, not only in our industry, but in welding specifically, which I'm like, badass. That's amazing. Absolutely badass. It's so exciting. When I do shop tours, I meet a lot of women who are working in the shop as well. And I'm like, absolutely. It's so exciting. It really is. It really is. So to close it out a little bit, what would you say is your steel industry hot take? My hot take? My hot take is I would really love it if all my buyers would call Steele by the same names. You know, you've got diamond plate, floor plate, flat bar, tread plate. You got W, you got B. Yeah. Can we all get on the same thing? It's all the same thing. We have that experience with, we created like the standardized search on Bryzos because we were like, well, For this one single product, it could be called 50,000 different things. So how do we figure out how this one person will say this incredibly? Absolutely. Just one thing, and they're probably going to still type in something different that we didn't quite catch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yes, that is definitely the importance of doing that, but it would be helpful if we all kind of just had one. Singular language for it, right? Yeah, can we standardize it a little bit? Yes, that would be fantastic. Well, Haley, it was so nice meeting you and learning a little bit more about Wilbank's metal. I'm excited to see what you guys continue to do in the future. Yeah, absolutely, you guys too. Yes, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah. So I'm Rachel with Bryzos. I'm here at NASCC 2026 on the show floor. I am joined by Mike Brown with JAMA, a structural engineer. We met just in the aisleways of, you know, networking at the show. So, Mike, why don't you... us a little bit about who you are and what do you do? Okay. Well, she said, I'm Mike Brown. I'm a structural engineer with Johnny Martin Associates, also known as JAMA. We are based in Los Angeles and we do anything from main structural engineering. So structural engineering of record work. So major structures, as in hospitals, K through 12 schools in California is a big deal for us. Commercial and some stadium work. And I actually head the group that is in charge of contractor services engineering. So working directly with contractors, steel fabricators, to help them with their engineering needs. Okay, awesome. So it sounds like you guys kind of do a lot of different projects. So tell me a little bit more about your company. So like, do you know a bit about the origin stories or kind of what you guys specialize in, anything like that? Yeah, so the company JAMA is Johnny Martin Associates. Jack Martin was his. I guess, his go-by. He started 75 years ago in downtown LA. His son, John A. Martin Jr., or Trailer, picked up the mantle when Jack started to back off from the main CEO work. And it's been, yeah, like I said, 75 years, mainly based in Los Angeles, downtown. And then we've since then spread out to other areas of California and into Arizona and Seattle. Do you guys mainly do work in kind of the southwestern corner of the country? Are you guys doing work like globally or all over the United States? So we are stamped in all 50, or we have licenses in all 50 states. Different people maintain different stamps, but all of our engineers when they get their license are definitely licensed in California. And then some people vary out to where they do more of their work with their... their clients yeah okay yeah so awesome so tell me a little bit about your background how exactly did you find yourself in this industry how'd you find yourself in engineering was this something that you dreamt about as a child or did you just kind of find yourself here I just kind of found myself I'd like to say I I don't blame my grandpa but he was the inspiration um i've always been fairly good at math and i like to draw as a kid okay and then realized i don't like it enough to be an architect so my grandpa said i should look into engineering got into physics in high school and loved that so it kind of led led to that I would say I fell into the construction world in the sense of I applied as a different major to all my different colleges and the one I chose to go to is California Polytechnic State University so Cal Poly is slow for architectural engineering which is structural engineering there's two different paths to get there one is you go through civil engineering which is a more broad kind of degree and then you get a master's in focus and structures architectural engineering was focused on structures from the jump day one and Cal Poly slow you also can't change your major easily so you're kind of locked in as a freshman and interesting yeah and the steel industry I kind of fell into that one as well I did 10 years as an engineer at JAMA got my licenses and kind of wanted more outdoor experience, and my buddy started his own construction firm, so I went to work with him. Got the outdoor experience, a lot of steel fabricators, I got to work with them. Loved both sides of it, but I never lost the design approach that I like. So that kind of led me to come back to JAMA when they said they were going to start this construction services engineering. So that's why I came back and joined. Or rejoined. Boomerang. Boomerang. It sounds like you have definitely had a vast career path weaving to get here. But so tell me a little bit about what you guys are doing at NASCC. If this is kind of one of the only shows that you guys go to or if you do a lot of the different ones and kind of what's your end goal with with attending these shows? So this is my third year coming to the NASCC and we. I guess the major goal for my group is to just make connections, understand what people are looking for out of their construction services engineering, which incorporates some steel detailing. There are lots of firms here that are steel detailers trying to get into the engineering and we're kind of going the other way around. We have many years of experience and many employees who are very good engineers and so we're trying to build the detailing side of it. It's also good because a lot of the clients are here at the same time, so it's good to be able to meet everybody all at once. Yeah, absolutely. That's what I found. That's pretty much what we get out of it. It's good to FaceTime, see everybody, because especially since Steel is across the country, it's hard to travel and see everybody and make it economical. You're emailing with someone that you've never met and you've been emailing for three years or something crazy. So yeah, putting a FaceTime name is definitely... more it's a lot easier to do here yes that is true and um i mean we do some shows but my group specifically is more focused on this one yeah steel contractors um we work with lots of subcontractors and you know concrete and uh more specific vendors and stuff okay but our our team does a lot of the trade shows and the call it like a lot of college um job fairs to get our names out yeah we do a lot more um interactions with architects where the main seo artwork comes from so okay not a whole lot of shows but at different universities the architectural firms will host events and so we go to those yeah okay awesome so just little conversation starters here so what do you think is something that your company does that most people in the industry still don't fully understand or appreciate Okay. Well, when you say structural engineering, a lot of people tend to think bigger than smaller. So big projects, stadiums or hospitals, which that is very much involved. Yeah. But what my group does and what people don't understand is hanging a piece of equipment is just as important, especially in a hospital because of life safety. And the major goal of any structural engineer is to prevent... damage or loss of life to an extent. So we would give up damage to a building to save lives. So that's the main design requirement for any kind of structure is you want it to withstand, especially in California, earthquakes. You want it to stand up to allow people to get out or in the case of wind design for tornadoes or hurricanes on the East Coast. So people don't necessarily understand that's what it's for. maybe they also don't understand too that engineers have some of the highest insurance next to heart surgeons uh for errors and omissions kind of thing because we deal with such life safety factors that people don't really put together that is a fun fact i would have never known that that's crazy okay so that kind of leads me into my next question so In your opinion, what do you think your steel industry hot take is? I got several, but I'll go with the fun one. There's not enough golf simulators at the conference for how many people say they play golf in the industry. Lee would agree with you on that. Big golf guy. He usually is scouting them out somewhere, and evidently we don't. We don't have enough. Yeah. Don't have enough here. Well. I guess we've got to focus on work. Yeah, right. The boring stuff. Well. To wrap up, if you want to tell our audience a little bit about if they wanted to learn more about JAMA and a little bit more about your company, where could they find you at? Well, like I said, we're based out of Los Angeles and we have offices all up and down the West Coast. If you go to www.johnmartin.com, that's our website. And you can check out a bunch of the projects we've done and the different services we offer. Awesome. Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate hearing a little bit of your fun facts and your background about you and your company. Thanks so much. No problem. Thanks. Thanks for having me.