Above: Throughout its 100-year history, Lapham-Hickey Steel has made acquisitions, built greenfi eld service centers, gained processing skills and built up a broad customer base
January, 2026- Let’s start with a little history. Lapham-Hickey Steel was formed on Feb. 1, 1926, when Frank Hickey, Edward and Robert Lapham, and George Clifford purchased the Chicago depot of the Fitzsimmons Drawn Bar Co., which was based in Youngstown, Ohio. Three years later, Lapham-Hickey moved to a plant and office on the South Side.
Lapham-Hickey’s first acquisition occurred after World War II, with the purchase of the Edgar T. Ward Chicago warehouse, where both Lapham brothers had previously worked. To support its growth across the Midwest, Lapham-Hickey opened its first satellite location in St. Louis in 1962.
The company expanded its Chicago footprint in 1966 with a 100,000-square-foot production facility in Bedford Park, Illinois. That location remains headquarters today with over 300,000 square feet. The latest addition to the Chicago location was in 2019 to support 30-ton coils and a new slitting line.
From the 1970s through the 1990s, the company continued to expand across the Midwest and Northeast. It built a facility in Neenah, Wisconsin, purchased Brown Steel in Columbus, Ohio, and acquired Clifford Metals in Providence, Rhode Island.
In the 2000s, Lapham-Hickey began seeing a shift in customer requirements, which prompted the owners to explore metal fabrication. The company began supporting OEMs and machine shops with cut parts from its facilities in Wisconsin and Minnesota. LaphamHickey was among the first service centers to support customers’ fabrication requirements and continues to lead in offering such capabilities, the Hickeys say.
As the fourth generation took over running the business, the owners shifted strategy toward more acquisitions. It started with Industrial Spring Steel in Philadelphia in 2015, then Cragin Metals in 2016. In 2018, Lapham-Hickey made its then-largest acquisition by purchasing Thompson-Dayton Steel and its four facilities─two in Ohio, one each in South Carolina and Georgia.
In the past five years, Lapham-Hickey bought Rebel Steel in Tennessee, SMC Fabricators in Wisconsin, Arrowhead Steel in Illinois, Crystal Steel Corp. in Massachusetts and Alkar Steel and Processing in Michigan. It also obtained a controlling interest in VC Laminations in Mexico. Today, Lapham- Hickey has nearly 1,000 teammates across 13 locations.
Lapham-Hickey Steel co-founder Frank Hickey (second from right) with his golf buddies at a tournament in 1934.
FACE TO FACE
Chairman Bill Hickey, who has been with the company for 50 of its 100 years, says the founders─including his grandfather─were looking to improve the standard of living for themselves and their employees. “And they all certainly did.”
Over the years, Bill Hickey says, “we have been able to adapt to the realities of the supply base, the customer base, the demand for products and services to support a large selection of industrial manufacturers.”
He says that although a lot has changed, particularly communication modes, some things have not. “We still get in our cars and go to talk face to face with our customers.”
The leadership also visits all locations. “Among our traditions is for a member of the Hickey family to visit each location during their holiday luncheons.” During these visits, “we provide service awards for employees’ milestones at five-year intervals. I will be in South Carolina this week and look forward to celebrating the milestones with the team there,” Bill Hickey says.
Will Hickey, Laura Hickey, Bill Hickey and Brian Hickey.
FAMILY AFFAIR
“We have had the real honor and the pleasure to have family members work for the company, and they are leaders. We are fortunate to have their vision to take us to the future,” Bill Hickey says. Those family members include Brian Hickey, president; Will Hickey, chief commercial officer; and Laura Hickey, chief information officer.
Will Hickey moved to Minnesota to start up a facility in 2001 and worked there for 20 years. His responsibilities shifted in 2017: “My focus became leading the sales effort across the organization.”
Working in several areas and listening to co-workers led Will Hickey to recognize an opportunity to grow the company “by training people on our competitive advantages and narrowing the focus for the different profiles of customers we support.” For example, he led an internal and external effort to market the company as an integral resource to stampers, fabricators and OEMs within a variety of end markets.
“We worked hard to position ourselves as a competitive partner with customers on their raw material or fabrication requirements. We focused on those areas as strengths and added additional products, services and locations along the way.”
The company offers slitting, blanking, laser cutting, stretch leveling, forming, painting and welding.
“If there is one key to success as we have grown, it is the strong, open communication between sales and operations,” Will Hickey says. “We want our leaders to develop a culture in which everyone works safely and adds value for our customers.”
PEOPLE FIRST
“We have pride and gratitude as fourth-generation family members and gratitude for the thousands of people who worked here before us,” says Brian Hickey. “It’s a people business. Our success is because of our people.” Brian Hickey joined the company in 2003, working in sales, purchasing and as a traffic manager before becoming general manager of the Bedford Park plant in 2007. Later, he was director of operations for all the facilities.
“I have seen a lot of changes with additions, equipment installations, several acquisitions and the growth of our team. We are diverse in terms of people, services, geography and products. Because of those abilities, we don’t just sell run-of-the-mill items. We include tough-to-find products. And we continue to reinvest and grow,” Brian Hickey says.
The company now has about 1,000 people working across 13 locations in the United States.
According to Laura Hickey, “one of my favorite things is the true family feeling here. There aren’t that many companies where the employees have other family members working with them.” But it is fairly normal at Lapham-Hickey to see multiple generations of employees, not just ownership. “I think that is a testament to the environment here. We treat everyone with respect,” she says.
Laura Hickey recounts a story about when she had just started working in the business, one that reflects her father’s principles. “When I was an MRO buyer, one day I was trying to get a part that was difficult to find. I talked to someone whose father worked at Lapham-Hickey. And I asked Bill, who remembered everything about that former employee, including exactly when they had worked at the company. It really taught me that no one is more important than anyone else and it helped me get that ‘hot’ part.”
The long-term relationship history “helps us with all our relationships from our smaller volume customers to our large-volume vendors,” Laura Hickey says.
As the fourth generation, the siblings all adopted their father’s values: “respect, integrity, teamwork and excellence─called the R.I.T.E. Way─we live with that as our cornerstone,” Brian Hickey says.
In 2023, the company launched a charitable initiative called LH Cares, which Brian Hickey leads.
“We have made a significant pledge to support our local communities and national charities that are meaningful to our teammates. Giving back to our communities and those in need is important to the Lapham- Hickey family,” he says.
LOOKING AHEAD
“It’s a great honor to recognize the legacy of the people who participated in the business to achieve a better lifestyle and standard of living. We respect them all,” Bill Hickey says. “The existing team here now is incredibly talented,” Brian Hickey says. “I cannot imagine working with a better group. Because of them, the future is incredibly bright.”
As long as the company produces “economic value for supplier, customers, shareholders, employees and the communities, we will continue to be here for a long time,” Bill Hickey predicts.
Lapham-Hickey Steel, 708/496-6111, lapham-hickey.com
LC Cares, lapham-hickey.com/lhcares
