Contrarian Metal Resources was started long before the founders realized it

Jim Halliday embraced creativity, science and entrepreneurship at an early age.  With an engineer father and artist mother, Jim came into this world with different wiring.  In his youth, he earned money by whatever means were possible for a boy that lived on a farm, learning the art of negotiation along the way.  He studied architecture, having been attracted to the ultimate balance of art and engineering that is required by that field.  While architecture fit Jim’s wiring, the tedium of drafting did not.  In those days, a graduate was required to work for five years as a draftsman as a pre-qualification for taking the licensing exam.  The prospect of this kind of work, especially at the prevailing wage sent Jim in another direction.  He spent 20 years working for a steel mill imagining the day he might start a business of his own.  He used his negotiating skills in sales and eventually that wiring of his put him in charge of product and market development.  Looking back on all of this, Jim had the perfect resume for starting a company that makes architectural metals. 

Fred Deuschle was wired in a similar fashion.  Like his dad, he studied engineering, but was also gifted with creativity.  This enabled Fred to look at things differently and better equipped him to find solutions to problems.  As a young metallurgist, Fred worked for a steel mill and was put in charge of quality control.  He spent a significant amount of time on the shop floors of both the mill and its customers, learning a great deal about the steel-making process as well as various downstream applications.  Since Fred was a strong candidate for advancement, his company assigned him sales responsibility to round out his experience.  In that environment, he gained a sense of the business world and entrepreneurial thoughts entered his head.  After a decade with that company, he joined the same steel mill where Jim worked.  He advanced into management, where he worked closely with Jim.  Adding Fred’s background to Jim’s, a creative, technically competent problem solving machine was realized with knowledge of steel, architecture and business management.  It was as if both founders were pre-ordained to make this company happen.

The Contrarian Brothers get their name

Shortly after Jim and Fred started working together, it was apparent that they viewed things differently from the pack.  After all, they had similar wiring.  Steel mills not being known as bastions of creativity, the two of them stood out among their peers as mavericks.  They were quick to offer a different perspective or another way to do things.  In addition to being inclined to evaluate alternative solutions to problems, both Jim and Fred were known to say what was on their minds, which is often a fatal behavior in large organizations.  However, on occasion these points of view were welcomed and that is probably why they were kept around.  In recognition of their maverick ways, Jim and Fred were dubbed the “Contrarian Brothers” by their department head.  Although the “brothers” discovered their moniker by having inadvertently overheard it being used in conversation, they were not offended in the least.  In fact they wore that badge with honor because there was a certain truth to it.  They were contrarians after all, wired the same and of like mind on many issues.  Since at least one stranger mistook them for brothers in the biological sense, it was not a far stretch to conceive that these two were brothers in a figurative sense.  While their colleagues first grouped them as brothers, Jim and Fred were about to embark on a partnership that would change the way stainless steel is used in architecture. 

The Contrarian Brothers make a business plan

In 2000, with some coaching from Fred, his trusted colleague, Jim was working on commercializing a low glare stainless steel flat rolled product that the company had developed a few years earlier.  It was appropriate for building envelope applications in glare-sensitive environments and even found its way on a few buildings.  The company had a good, sustainable product but no infrastructure in place to effectively bring it to market.  After about a year of research that included meetings with architects, contractors, fabricators, panel manufacturers and distributors, Jim presented his plan to the company.  His recommendation was to create an architectural materials division that would focus on the construction market by making flatter, more visually uniform products, coaching architects on writing proper stainless steel specifications, marketing to architects and supplying small quantities as well as large for a variety of architectural applications.  These activities being foreign to the way steel mills are managed, Jim suggested the only way this could work was to position the business as a separate unit.  In reality the business plan was a little too foreign to the company's management and the proposal was turned down.  

While Jim was initially disappointed in failing to gain support on the project, a light went off in his head.  He and Fred had already been working on a separate business plan that involved the two of them leaving their employer to start a stainless steel strip company.  The architectural products division was a better plan anyway, and the company had turned it down!  Why shouldn’t the two of them do it on their own?

Jim requested a follow-up meeting with the president.  He succeeded in getting a commitment to assign distributor rights for the low glare stainless product to a new company that he would create.  At the time it appeared to Jim that the distributor arrangement had eliminated the boss’s big objection to the project – the need for investment dollars.  The investment being Jim and Fred’s responsibility, all the steel mill had to do was make full sized coils and ship them.  Jim and Fred would get the product specified, make the small shipments, maintain the inventory and do all the dirty work.  While this was the plan when Jim and Fred left the company, their former employer would reconsider their position within a few short weeks.

Contrarian Metal Resources becomes a reality

The contrarian brothers spent much of their spare time before leaving the steel mill working on their plan.  While the how to’s were complete in terms of the steps the big company would take to create a division of itself, the mechanics of how a couple of meager salary earners were going to capitalize the business were not at all clear.  After breaking their 401K piggy banks and having meetings with an accountant, a lawyer and a banker, a viable financial strategy was created.  The company was founded July 23, 2001. 

The company has had its share of challenges.  The steel mill the founders left had withdrawn its support almost immediately after the distributor agreement was put in motion.  Despite this development and the company having lost its first order in the September 11, 2001 attack, Contrarian Metal Resources has prospered.  The company has changed the way stainless steel is used in construction.  Numerous buildings have been clad in stainless steel that would have been built with lesser materials were it not for Contrarian.  The company has developed new products and solved numerous application challenges.  The company produces and distributes truly sustainable building products that are good for the environment and cost less in the long run.  With the wind of the green movement at its back, Contrarian is making a meaningful contribution to the world. 

Somewhere amid all of the organizational efforts that were underway back in the summer of 2001, the name of the company was discussed.  Jim had thoughts of a more conservative name, but Fred insisted on Contrarian Metal Resources.  The name was unique and defined the partners and the business itself.  After all, the company’s plan was to convince architects to envelope their buildings in stainless steel.  That required a different way of looking at architectural design.  It required a contrarian point of view.  The name also invites a new acquaintance to ask how the company got its name.  It’s a story any contrarian is proud to tell.