Supplying metals to other countries pays off for St. Augustine company

COMMENTARY | When Viv Helwig got an unexpected $7,000 check in the mail, he didn’t think it was real. Timing is everything, and the check arrived 13 months after he started Vested Metals International in St. Augustine — the same time he was out of money and ready to close the doors.

Technically he didn’t even have a door to close, considering he was renting a 100-square-foot mobile office. That was seven years ago. He was trying to sell raw materials to all sorts of industries, and it wasn’t going well.

“When that check came in the mail I called the bank and was told that the bank owed me from a house that I used to own in St. Augustine. They told me that I had overpaid my escrow for five years and that they had been trying to contact me for three years,” Helwig said.

“I didn’t understand it, considering I had been banking with them the entire time. The crazy thing is that the check didn’t show up until the right time. I took it as a sign to not give up," he said. "It’s not luck. It’s God’s providence.”

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Helwig struggled for the next two years, working as a middle man, selling stainless steel bars, aluminum sheets and titanium to manufacturers that make components for the aerospace defense, industrial and medical markets.

The company was losing money but managed to survive. He got some momentum in the second year when he was able to hire one part-time employee who worked just 10 hours a week. By the end of that year, Helwig and that same employee, Austin Lowe — who remains at the company — joined full-time. They moved into part of a 1,500-square-foot warehouse.

Then in 2018, four years after he started the business, things suddenly turned around. Customers started supporting the business like never before, and he was able to hire a few more people.

“We just kept being persistent. We kept calling on people and when they gave us opportunities, we performed,” he said. ”We just kept growing our presence in a few markets.”

Manufacturing touches every aspect of our lives

I met Viv Helwig at a recent awards event where his company was named North Florida and State of Florida Small Business Exporter of the Year by the Small Business Development Center. While he’s no stranger to the global supply chain, his company didn’t start exporting products until 2019, a year before the pandemic hit. That's when they found opportunities to supply hard-to-find metals to other countries.

But what's most interesting about this business is that Helwig started it in an industry filled with companies that have been around for decades. He considered the possibility of buying a company, because the industry is small, and he said the last new company was started in 2000.

But at the same time, when Helwig started Vested Metals in 2014, he had just emerged from what felt like a series of constant bad luck. He had two failed attempts of trying to buy a company in the metals distribution business. That's when he started to question his decision to leave his five-year sales job at a specialty steel mill, a multibillion-dollar publicly traded company.

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When he moved from Indiana to be closer to family, he had a wife and an 8-month-old daughter; he felt lost. At one point he interviewed to be a cashier at Target even though he had never worked in retail. The interviewer was confused after looking at his resume that included a 2008 degree in business administration from Flagler College.

"I remember interviewing at Target and when she questioned why I was there, I told her, 'I just need to buy more time' and she said, 'OK,'" Helwig recalled.

It didn't take long for him to decide to gamble with a start-up business.

"There are high barriers to entry in this field, but I figured, if I fail at 28, I can still recover," he said. Even then, when he had nothing but a dream, he didn't just name the business Vested Metals, he called it "Vested Metals International."

Clearly, he made the right decision. The company was listed at No. 324 in the 2019 Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s fastest-growing companies. At the time, Vested Metals had about $2.6 million in revenue in 2018, with a three-year growth of 1,424 percent, according to the listing. Since then, the company has remained on the list every year for the last three years, with $8.5 million in sales in 2021.

"We're anticipating making the list again," he said. "We'll find out next month."

Tight supply chain leads to pandemic growth

Vested Metals has grown considerably in the last two years, going from eight employees to 20, at a time when the industries that they serve were suffering. Even though Helwig said they delayed some opportunities, they remain in a good position.

“It affected our industry for sure because it's driven by the commercial aerospace industry and nobody was flying, so major manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus stopped building planes," he said. "Elective surgeries stopped too, and we supply that industry. Demand was down.”

But despite those challenges, the tight supply chain led to companies seeking new suppliers. He said they stood out mainly because the industry is so old.

"We get a lot of those calls because we are the newest in the metals distribution industry," he said. "To my knowledge, it had been 15 years between start-ups when my company started in late 2014."

Growth from teamwork, seeking help

Carlton Robinson, chief innovation officer at the JAX Chamber, said he met Helwig about five years ago when he participated in an entrepreneurial development program at the chamber.

“We talked about strategies and encouraged him to keep growing,” he said. “Some of the things that he learned from our 'Bridges' program turned into a lot of growth for him. He was committed to meeting on a regular basis."

What started as a mentor relationship turned into the two becoming friends.

“I’m happy to call him a friend now,” Robinson said. “We try to impress each other.”

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John Mark Leach, office administrator and quality assurance representative, said he enjoys working at Vested Metals because there’s a culture that encourages empowerment.

He said that's especially important when you work in the manufacturing field, but the company does not make anything. Instead, they sell metals to companies that make specific products and need specific metals.

"Our strength is meeting our customer needs. We do that,” he said.

“When people call us, they’re looking for something special and we try to find it. It’s a great feeling when you’re helping them meet their objectives.”

“It’s an exciting industry. The future is so bright that we need shades,” Leach said. “But it’s only bright because of teamwork.”

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Vested Metals St. Augustine raw materials top Florida small business