AEC  Past Chairman Duncan Crowdis In the last blog we talked about the process that we must go through in order to maintain our hard fought, and dearly needed orders from the Department of Commerce (DOC) that have applied level-playing-field duties on Chinese imports. What we know now is that this is clearly a long term initiative. Where we perhaps had entered into the process thinking that this was a sprint – a two- to three-year all-out effort which would slow down significantly once we cross the finish line – we must now think of as a marathon. There is no real finish line. Where winning a race is typically measured on crossing some sort of finishing line, our success in this process will be measured by the continued growth and health of our industry over time. Metrics of success will be things like improving P&Ls (beyond historical levels), strong cash flow, the domestic industry’s penetration of aluminum extrusions against other materials, domestic industry’s gro...

AEC  Past Chairman Duncan Crowdis When we embarked on this process to defend our industry against an exponentially escalating level of Chinese imports in 2009, there were many things we did not know about the journey we were about to take. What we DID KNOW was that the industry’s future was at stake. We had done enough research to understand what China was doing and why (to be covered in a future blog) and that the 20% market share that they had taken was not going to be their stopping point. Something had to be done or we strongly believed that we would eventually lose the bulk of our market. What we also knew was that extruders are generally passionate about their businesses. It has been a lifetime’s livelihood for many of us, often starting with our parents and now one in which many of our children are counting on for their livelihood. No – while the Chinese are obviously formidable, what they were doing was and is predatory and illegal and we weren’t about to let...

Testing - 1,2,3....Is this thing on?  The Aluminum Extruders Council is proud to announce the launching of our first blog! This Shaping Solutions Together blog will feature timely, relevant information written by guest authors who are respected leaders in the industry, as well as staff.   Topics will range from Fair Trade Initiative updates to technical information and everything in between.  C heck back often for new and exciting blog posts.  Also, AEC welcomes comments and supports discussions on each entry.  Share this blog with colleagues within your company and within the industry, as well as end users; all will find posts of interest here! We look forward to connecting with members of the industry on this forum. Check back soon for the next post!