Business View - November 2015 119
building,” says Bourne.
“We have 98 employees and four facilities in three loca-
tions. Our headquarters is in Lithonia, Georgia. At this fa-
cility we have a structural shop and a miscellaneous shop.
The structural shop produces structural steel frames and
our miscellaneous shop produces stairs, canopies, lad-
ders, embedded steel, and much more. We expanded our
product mix when we added our Buford, Georgia facility
in 2003. This plant is our main supplier of handrails both
for stairs and the site. They also build stairs in this plant
and other unique structures,” Bourne says. “One of the
more unique items produced in this facility are some of
the industrial steel framed store fronts down at Ponce City
Market. Our third location is in Thomasville, North Caro-
lina. We added this facility in 2006. This plant produces
structural framing as well.” Bourne says that the compa-
ny’s business is split pretty evenly between structural and
miscellaneous fabrication.
Universal Steel’s customers are most often contractors
who have been awarded contracts and then ask Univer-
sal Steel to provide a price for the steel package on their
building. The Georgia plants service Georgia, Florida, Ala-
bama, and Tennessee and the North Carolina plant ser-
vices Virginia and North Carolina. Both plants have pro-
vided steel for projects in South Carolina. “With the three
locations, we can easily service our customers though out
the Southeast.” Bourne says. “In Atlanta we just complet-
ed the EBB Building at Georgia Tech and we are putting
the finishing touches on the renovated Ponce City Market
development. In North Carolina, we have just completed
an academic building at High Point University and the new
Asheville Middle School in Asheville, North Carolina.”
The steel industry was hit particularly hard during the
Great Recession, when according to Bourne, “the cus-
tomer service we have always provided help us survive
the down turn. Customer service is one of the ways we
MANUFACTURING
