In the spring of 1995, Dave Hegan, a steel salesman, had a problem that needed solving. He needed someone to shear 1,000 tons of steel per month into blanks. When he went looking for a processor, he couldn’t find any that worked for what he needed. Dave approached his friend Carl Horst with the idea and asked him to help him find someone who may want to start a shearing company. Two days later Carl told Dave he was willing to quit his job at Inland Steel and start the shearing company.   

Since the humble beginning in the late winter of 1995, Majac has sheared more than 175,000 tons of steel. All of that steel was sheared one piece at a time. That is a lot of labor requiring experienced supervision. 

One of the first hires at Majac was Ken Gospodarek. Ken has experience in welding, construction, customer service, and supervision. But Ken’s main expertise was his ability to read diagrams and understand how shears operated. Ken managed the plant and became responsible for maintenance.  In the fall of 1996, Dave left his sales job and joined Majac.   A year later, Carl decided to move on and he sold the company to Dave. Having Ken available to keep the shop running while sales grew proved invaluable. The company grew at a 50% rate for the next four years which included purchasing the assets of American Blanking Company. During this time, two other key employees were added.

Dave met Jason Rozanski in the golf shop at Woodmar Country Club. Jason was working part time in the golf shop and wanted to be a school teacher. When he didn’t get hired as a teacher in the fall of 1998, Jason came to work at Majac part time cutting steel and loading trucks. Jason has worked in all areas of the shearing operation since he joined the company and he has been the plant manager since 2004. 

Also that fall, Ken had been planting a seed in Dave’s ear that he should talk to a friend of his named Lisa Lute. Lisa had worked with Ken previously. When the need arose, Lisa was hired in the winter of 1998. Today she is in charge of running the office and maintaining the data system. 

As Majac grew, we looked for new opportunities. We wanted to grow without competing against our current customers. We also wanted to grow with products that could utilize the skills of the people already working at Majac.  In Franklin Tennessee we found a small fabrication company building strip malls, restaurants, office condos and factories utilizing cad design to create light gauge steel framed wall panels. Over time we bought the assets of the company. 

The manufacturing of steel framed wall panels is environmentally friendly, structurally sound, easy to understand, very cost effective to the contractors and customers who buy the product, and didn’t compete with any of Majac’s other customers. Ken took over the steel framing operation while Jason became plant manager of the shearing operation. In the fall of 2004, Ken built all of the internal wall panels for a Mazda dealership being constructed at Art Hill Ford in Merrillville Indiana. Since then Ken, with the assistance of Eddie Gilbert, has been involved in the building of several restaurants, office condos, large storage facilities, sheds, barns, and other structures. Our manufacturing facility currently includes three rollformers, a hat track rollformer, the jigs for building the panels, trusses, and joists, and the computers with software that make it all operate. Eddie has over 20 years experience in the construction industry.  He has been involved in the supervision and building of dozens of structures utilizing light gauge steel framing. He is operating as our field representative.

The need to constantly improve while meeting customer needs led us to ISO 9001 - 2000 certification in 2003. We are recertified on an annual basis. 

From a cold building with one shear in the winter of 1995, we have grown into a couple of industry specific businesses. We are not everything to everybody but the things we do, we do well. Our business philosophy has always been to help others make or save money. That is why our business has grown.