Business View Magazine | December 2020

82 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2020 reaching out to as many of our members as I can – having one-on-one phone conversations – and several of them have informed me that I not only have big shoes to fill, but legendary ones. But I’m not one to walk away from a challenge, so I am looking forward to the opportunity.” The Steel Tank Institute/Steel Plate Fabricators Association (STI/SPFA) is a trade association representing fabricators of steel construction products and their suppliers. Its member companies produce steel storage tanks, field erected water and industrial (oil and chemical) storage tanks, pressure vessels and heat exchangers, and pipe and pipelines. Their customers hail from the petrochemical, power generation, food, pharmaceutical, fuels, wastewater, and water transmission industries. “The Association was formed in 1916, by a group of companies that saw value in joining together,” says Geyer. “It was a Midwestern group, many from the State of Illinois, involved in boilers and the steel fabrication business. In 1933, the Steel Plate Fabricators Association was formed. Steel welding came into force as a technology in the 1930s, and especially as World War II approached. They also represented steel fabricated products, but were more involved with the water industry and with heavy steel wall vessels – sometimes over an inch thick, subject to high pressures and temperatures.” In 2004, the Steel Plate Fabricators Association joined with the Steel Tank Institute to increase the industry’s strength and impact for fabricators AT A GLANCE THE STEEL TANK INSTITUTE/STEEL PLATE FABRICATORS ASSOCIATION WHAT: A trade association representing fabricators of steel construction products and their suppliers WHERE: Lake Zurich, Illinois WEBSITE: www.steeltank.com