To be in business for 40 years requires a combination of loyal customers and loyal employees, according to longtime Meridian businessman Tommy Dulaney. It is a formula Dulaney has incorporated over the last four decades in building one of Meridian's most stable, successful and enduring companies – Structural Steel Services Inc.

Starting in the late 1960s as a steel worker for Bates Steel, Dulaney advanced to plant manager. After eight years, he wanted to start his own steel business. In 1975, after getting financial backing from two prominent Meridian businessmen, Sammie Davidson and Tommy Webb, he began operations of a small shop off St. Louis Street, in the east Meridian Industrial Park.

"We started in a small shop, some 12,000 square feet," Dulaney said. "Now, we've started another project that once done will give us over a million square feet. That's combining all of our six plants."

This includes a plant at Valley Road and the former Bates Steel Company, which Dulaney bought in 1995. Today, the combined six plants employ about 300 workers and the company does about $100 million in annual business.

"We started in 1975 with the first building, and then added a second in 1979 and we've just been building continuously since we started," Dulaney, now 76, said. "We got to have enough room to satisfy our customers with the demand they have. It's because we do so much repeat business with our customers and we do it across the nation. About $100 million in revenue is a good year for us."

Structural Steel Services provides industrial projects with fabricated structural, plate work and miscellaneous steel. The company got its jump-start by providing the steel to build one of the first large power plants in China, the Shajian Coal Fired Power Plant. Dulaney said Structural Steel did extensive work in Southeast Asia, primarily in China, Indonesia and the Philippines. After an Asian financial crisis from 2001-02, the company shifted its focus to industrial projects in the United States.

"We handle the steel needs for big engineering construction firms," Dulaney said. "We don't follow the open market. We did early, but by 1990, we started doing strictly industrial markets, like power plants and steel mills. Right now, we're doing work for two refineries out in Texas. Our work is scattered all over the U.S. We don't do a lot of work in Mississippi, but we did do the main big building at the Kemper site."

Dulaney said Structural Steel Services provided much of the steel for Mississippi Power Company's Plant Ratcliffe in Kemper County.

"We provided 26,000 tons of steel to house the gasifier building, mainly those huge steel girders that hold up the building," he said.

For more than 30 years, Harold Reid has worked for Structural Steel Services. He is the plant manager and said the company's success is easy to understand.

"We provide on-time delivery," Reid said. "And because of the quality of work we do, we get the repeat customers. We've been doing it for 40 years."

Randy Blass, Structural Steel's vice president of sales, said Dulaney deserves credit for the company's longevity.

"The main thing is Tommy Dulaney," said Blass, who has been with the company 37 years. "He has invested the funds needed to update our equipment. We started with just the one boiler and now we're approaching to go over a million square feet under roof."

Robert Cardwell, vice president of purchasing, has been with Structural Steel 39 years. He agreed that the credit for the company's success should go to Dulaney for how he has connected with his employees.

"We have good ownership and he takes care of his employees," Cardwell said. "We promote from within and we do quality work; that leads to repeat business."

Dulaney said once he graduated from then Meridian Junior College, he went straight to work. Still, he is quick to point out that he is a big believer in education. Today, his company has provided endowment scholarships at both Meridian Community College and Mississippi State University-Meridian.

"We will pay for our employees who want to further their education," Dulaney said. "And, it doesn't have to be connected to this job. If they want tuition and books to study another field, we pay for it."

The largest meeting facility at MCC is named after Dulaney.

"MCC provides such good training," Dulaney said. "You look at the engineering department. Most of our drafters have come from that department. Most of our welders have come from MCC. But, we also have welders and other employees who have come from all of our area community colleges."

Once at the plant, employees tend to stay, Dulaney said.

"We have so many long-term employees that have been with us since we started," he said. "Our management has stayed with us because we promoted from within. In business, it takes two things to be successful: customers and loyal and dedicated employees. Our customers like doing business with us. They like being able to pick which project manager they want."

One of those former project managers is Tony Dean. He and Dulaney started at Bates Steel. Then he came to work for Dulaney in 1975 and he's stayed there ever since.

"He started as a draftsman and then went to sales, then became production manager, then plant manager and now, he is the general manager," Dulaney said in illustrating how he likes to promote loyal, hard workers.

After four decades, Dulaney said he is seeing a growing number of employees retire from his company. He said he is fine with that.

"I can't blame them for retiring," he said. "We have a lot of good depth in the company. Sons are starting to come join their fathers here."

And that includes Dulaney's grandson, Cole Cardwell, 29, a Mississippi State graduate. Cardwell is now a vice president learning the ropes of the business.

"'He told me, he thought he might want to get his master's degree," Dulaney said. '"I said, he could get the master's he needs – right here."