Backbone Of The Nation

Managing Director Steve Mchugh Believes A Healthy Steel Industry Is Essential To A Healthy Economy, And Total Steel Of Australia Is Helping The Industry Achieve This.

- Oliver Featherston

As an industry, steel production has been labelled the backbone of any economy. Lending weight to the boldness of such a claim, Managing Director of Total Steel of Australia (TSA) Steve McHugh has this to say: “If your steel industry’s busy, your whole nation’s busy, because it’s building, developing, progressing.”It’s no less true in Australia, a country that Steve still sees as relatively young. Countless projects across a multitude of industries all require steel, from the heart of the big cities to remote rural areas. Though Australia is a smaller steel producer compared with the larger nations, it still rides the highs and lows of the global industry, where incidents such as the US–China trade war can shift the fortunes of many.

Steve calls it a boom–bust industry, but during his time in TSA and the broader steel industry, he’s worked out the right way to ride the shifting tides to continued success. “It comes back to the handling of the situation in a calm, rational and logical way,” he says. “Some things we have to accept. Weather conditions and those sorts of things can upset the apple cart, no doubt about it.”

For the past four decades, TSA has served a broad swathe of industries Australia-wide, providing cutting, welding, drilling and rolling services. It also offers steel products of countless shapes and sizes, including pipes, plates, sheets and mesh. In supporting TSA’s clients through the provision of these goods and services, Steve believes the company is helping prop up the Australian steel industry as a whole.