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BUSINESS
Sterling Supply finds its way even in tough economic times
President John Zitter, left, and his brother, Vice President Bill Zitter pose for a photo at their business, Sterling Supply Company, in Huntington.
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HUNTINGTON -- There's an old photograph hanging on the wall of Sterling Supply Company, a black-and-white, bird's-eye view of the 800 block of West 5th Street. It's 1943, and what you see is industry -- the old Owens Illinois Glass Factory, surrounded by other businesses.
Sterling Supply is not pictured. It would be founded 10 years later and would set up shop just to the right of what's captured in the photograph. As an industrial distributor that supplied tools used for cutting, grinding and drilling metal, it would grow as Huntington's manufacturing base did in the mid-20th century.
"There was industry everywhere in this town," said John Zitter, president of the company.
As industry started to fall off in more recent decades, Sterling Supply is one small business in the region that has not only survived but had a record year as recently as 2008.
In the words of employee Tim Cremeans, the company's leaders, Zitter and his brother, Vice President Dr. Bill Zitter, a retired emergency room physician, "are a great combination of old-style values with new-style techniques.
"Service is the goal," Cremeans said. "The customer is taken care of to the point where John will stop what he's doing to make sure of it."
Sterling Supply was founded by John and Bill's father, Jack Zitter, along with quarter owners Andy Houvouras and Leo DiPiero. They had come from Houdaille Industries, which made chrome car bumpers, and was Sterling Supply's first main customer.
Jack Zitter died suddenly in 1972 at age 59. His wife, Regina "Jerry" Zitter, ran the company until she passed away in 2000, and then John Zitter took over.
Though he said he essentially started doing odd jobs at the company since he was a boy, John Zitter has been working at Sterling Supply full time since 1978.
"I enjoyed the business. It seemed like a natural fit for me," he said. "It seemed like the right decision, and I've never looked back."
Bill Zitter came on board after retiring from his job as an ER physician at Cabell Huntington Hospital.
"I was in the ER and phasing out, and they were short-handed here," Bill Zitter said. "I was driving a (delivery) truck on a beautiful fall day and thought, 'This is great.' I started to help out, and it grew into a job when I retired from medicine."
They also have an older brother, Tom. He also is an equal partner in the business, though he lives near Dayton, Ohio, where he runs an agricultural business.
Over the years, Sterling Supply has taken some hits. Special Metals is one of its largest customers, and when it filed for bankruptcy in 2002, Sterling Supply suffered a significant loss. But Special Metals has since recovered, and so has Sterling Supply. Meanwhile, its two other largest customers are Toyota and Steel of West Virginia.
As all manufacturers suffer during this recession, Sterling Supply is weathering the storm as well as it can, John Zitter said. It has had no layoffs yet.
"Everyone is suffering with the recession -- manufacturing is down 30 to 40 percent across the board," John Zitter said. "This is Bill's phrase, but I use it a lot: We're short-term pessimists, but long-term optimists. (The economy) won't get better for about a year, but it will get better."
In the meantime, it's going to maintain enough to hang onto its employees, who are like family, they said. There are 12 employees total at Sterling Supply, and it's a short distance from the bottom to the top, John Zitter said.
"I just took out the trash this morning," he said.
Jobs include sales, delivery and running the warehouse, which is filled with a variety of tools used for reshaping metal: grinding and cut-off wheels of all sizes, carbide cutting tools, saw blades and drill bits as tiny as a hair or large as a child's baseball bat. It also has items like micrometers for precision measurement, machine coolant and wrenches.
"We probably stock 8,000 to 9,000 items and sell 20,000 to 30,000 (special order) items," John Zitter said.
But he'll tell you it's the employees that make the business.
"A business is its employees," John Zitter said. "We expect a lot of our employees, and in return, we hope we take good care of them."
Stephanie Woolfolk is the office manager at Sterling Supply and has been there for 16 years.
"This is a family. You couldn't ask for better people to work for," she said. "They keep you involved and ask your opinion about things. ... You look at (the business) and see how it's small and wonder how they survive. And it's the people. It's a good group of people they have."
Cremeans, a product manager for Sterling Supply, said their No. 1 goal is taking care of their customers.
"We'll prioritize the rush jobs and go the extra mile," he said. "We'll be the sales force, the tech support and the delivery service -- and we'll stand behind what we say. ... We want to supply the customer with all the information. We don't want them to have to call the factory."
He agreed that the Zitters are good men to work for, and said the brothers seem to work really well together. Just spending a short amount of time with them, one can see how they seem to understand each other to the point where they can finish each other's sentences.
And they don't just get along in front of guests and customers, Cremeans said.
"What the customer sees is what we get," he said. "There are no two sides to these guys."
