Steel-Willed

IF YOU SEEK STILLNESS AND QUIET for moments of personal contemplation, it’s best to avoid a metal fabrication plant, especially Salem, Ohio’s Hickey Metal Fabrication. Machines bending, robots whir, welding crackles, cranes swoop and forklifts hustle finished product out the door. The place is the human equivalent of a beehive.

“We fabricate everything from thin gauge up to 4-inch plate,” states Hickey president Leo P. Hickey. In his 51 years with the company, he has weathered it all, economic downturns, industry upheavals, addressing and mastering the advent of robotics. “Everything we do here is laser burned, punched, bent or welding” he explains. “We do tube laser burning, lots of bending. We weld some of our subassemblies and we ship kits, which is anything from a few parts to hundreds of them. We send these parts to the customers who in turn assemble it into their finished products.”

Through the roof

Hickey Metal Fabrication and its myriad of employees and clients got its start in the back of a pickup truck in 1942. “My granddad, Leo R. Hickey, started us out in 1942 as a furnace and slate roofing company,” states Leo P. Hickey. “In late 1953, my father Robert came home from the Korean War and took over, expanding the roofing to everything from shingles to hot roofing.” Through hard work and perseverance the company continued to grow.

“So now it’s 1974, and that’s where I come in,” Hickey states. Branching off into more and more commercial work, “we started building more roofing fabrication like gutters, downspouts, and flashings.” The company’s sole property at that time was on Georgetown Road in Salem, the best-looking, landscaped stone structure in the region, which was also Leo’s parents’ residence.  

The roofing aspect of the company began phasing out as their fabrication orders increased. In the early 90s, they transitioned mostly to all fabricating out of their Georgetown property. That was when the nearby Salem Industrial Park beckoned, and where Hickey Metal Fabrication, as it is recognized today, took off. Six of their eight Salem region plants are running in the Industrial Park. The other two satellite plants are located in Salem near the Industrial Parks. The timeline of new wings, buildings, additions, and major machines is dizzying. They’ve been busy over the decades.

The company grows as clients’ needs grow. How quickly can things move at Hickey Metal Fabrication? In 2023, they added 25,000 square feet to Plant Seven, followed by purchasing and refurbishing an additional building, Plant Eight, just up the road, all in one year.

Yeah, we can do that

All of this frenetic activity follows a strategic game plan. “The common theme here is we build a building, we fill it up with work and people, we reinvest in the company, we build another building,” states Vice President/Operations, Adam Hickey. “We want to build partnerships with our customers, so when they come to us and say, ‘Hey, we want to give you this chunk of business,’ and we can’t tell them that we don't have enough floor space for that, we don't tell them no. We figure it out, 'OK, what do we need to do? Build another building or buy something?’ The result is what you see here as you go down the street of buildings. It's all just been reinvesting in our customers.”

Farmers, investing in people

Farmers was instrumental in Hickey’s 2024 acquisition of Ohio Laser in Columbus, OH, the topic of our nearby sidebar story. Bill Shivers, Regional President and Chief Commercial Lending Officer at Farmers, had known Hickey Secretary and Treasurer Suzanne Hickey from working in banking together years before. Regarding the Ohio Laser purchase, “Bill brought in the team from Farmers that we needed,” Suzanne recalls. “They gave us their best number. Farmers brought some good ideas to the table and in the end we were able to be successful. They came out ready to hit a home run.”

“Farmers did a very good job of understanding the banking side that fit our strategy,” Leo P. Hickey adds.  “At the end of the day, I really felt like they left here investing in the family and the people, not just the numbers. That was really important to us.”

Shivers remembers well the work on the Ohio Laser project, "What I appreciate the most about the Hickey family is their integrity, character and work ethic,” Shivers affirms. “They are tremendous negotiators but they always let you know where you stand, and they are fair.  They are very much detailed-oriented; we never had any issues with information. They always asked the right questions.”

Greg Ensley, Farmers Senior Vice President, Market President Southern Mahoning Valley, concurs. “The Hickey family is a pleasure to work with. The entire Farmers team puts our best foot forward to help provide a win-win outcome for everyone. We were honored to meet Hickey’s expectations and play a part in their remarkable story.”

Engineered for quality

Nick Peters, P.E., is Vice President/Engineer at Hickey. Peters received his engineering degree from The Ohio State University. “I do a lot of the interfacing with customers bringing in the new drawings, new designs--getting all the CAD data prepped for production,” Peters states, “so we can burn it on the lasers or mill it in our mills or run it on the lathes.” Peters and his team are also on the lookout for ways to streamline things, to benefit their clients. "When there are revisions or changes, we work through them with the customer. We alert them if we can reduce some costs by doing a manufacturing change,” he states.

But for Peters and Hickey, the engineering oversight doesn’t end at the fabrication. “We have a quality engineer on staff who checks parts, does first part inspections. We have a FARO arm [a portable measuring device] so we can perform very accurate measurements.”  

“Some customers require we make them prototype parts, which we send to them to do their prototype build,” Peters states. “They then test the part and test everything, to make certain it functions properly. If it all lines up and is within tolerance, they tell us ‘Yes, that’s a good part’ and it’s released for production.”

Off and running

Ben Peters is a company Vice President in charge of oversight. “Most of my time is consumed with taking care of our eight properties, and keeping all the equipment running to be able to produce parts,” he states. A crucial part of his portfolio involves installing the sizable, intricate, and expensive new machinery they are increasingly employing. “When we invest money back into the company and buy new equipment, we work with the machine manufacturers, getting it put together and working out all the bugs,” he explains. “Once we feel comfortable with that, it gets turned over to production, and then they’re off and running making parts.”

Teamwork

Hickey currently employs more than 200 individuals under 450,000 square feet of workspace across eight buildings. The workforce is broken up building-by-building, each one “a little miniature company inside of Hickey,” Adam states. A plant manager oversees each building and helps get new products launched, oversees quality control, maintains their inventory. “They're in there getting their hands dirty every day. They inspect the work, they make sure they have their parts,” Adam adds.

As Suzanne states, “they're talking to employees, they’re out there seeing what's going on, making sure the quality is good. If there's a problem and they can fix that problem, the problem gets fixed. But if it's something larger that needs more attention, they will contact the owners ‘This is going on and we need some attention over here’ and it gets fixed.”

Teamwork is the overarching theme when you’ve got eight buildings working at capacity. “Plant One supplies burning and bending to the other locations who actually do all the assembly. The machine shop supplies parts to our customers, but also supplies parts to other departments,” Suzanne states. “They all have to work together for one common good, so the product gets out the door. If we have a machine down in one location, we can move the work to another location.”

“We ship anywhere from three to six truckloads a day out of here,” Leo P. Hickey states. “From Tennessee, to Texas, all over the country. Plus, we're shipping our own trucks to local companies and taking product to a secondary source, which we then bring back and ship to the customer.”

 

“Every one of us”

Adam Hickey pauses before answering an interviewer’s question ‘Who is indispensable here?’.  He gives the response you might expect of a fourth-generation owner, one who has put time, toil, and care into the place. “So look, what really makes this place run is a cross-function of everyone. If we would unplug any piece from this, it wouldn't work.  But when all the pieces are together, everyone doing their assigned task, we run really well. So I don’t believe that two or three major positions make Hickey Metal Fabrication work. They don’t. Every one of us does.”