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moving as the business grew. With a $50,000 line of credit
secured from Farmers & Merchants National Bank and its first
supplier in place, Reliance Steel Products Co. was in business.
Neilan’s luck was holding, for this was indeed a good
time to begin a new venture. Even before World War II broke
out in Europe in September 1939, the U.S. government had
begun to mobilize for defense, financing major military and
industrial construction projects throughout the Los Angeles
area. By the end of the year Reliance had sold some 1,600
tons of steel rebar and was poised to sell even more in its
second year as the defense build-up escalated.
The management of the company was not as stable as
its business, however. Chad Calhoun was not at the March
12, 1940, Board of Directors meeting—he had already sub-
mitted his resignation. That day Tom Neilan became Reliance
Steel Products Co.’s second President. He selected another
business associate, 37-year-old Charles “Jack” Roe, to be the
new Vice President. Roe had first come to California in the
1920s as a purchasing agent for oil companies drilling and
pumping in the state. It was in this capacity that he first met
Neilan and quickly became his right hand man. The grounds
for Calhoun’s move are not known, but the differences do not
appear to have been minor; one document referred only to
“certain controversies with Chad F. Calhoun.” It took most
of the year to settle matters, but by October, Calhoun had
agreed to sell his 350 shares back to Reliance for $7,000.
Harold Ridgway and Jack Roe promptly purchased them—
187.5 shares each—and Roe replaced Calhoun on the Board
of Directors.
Over the next year, Reliance’s business continued to
grow modestly, but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941, changed everything. The United States
declared war, and California was now a redoubt of the Pacific
Theater. From December 18 to 24, Japanese submarines
prowled the West Coast hunting American commercial
ships—sinking two, damaging two, and killing six merchant
seamen. On February 23, 1942, came the “Battle of Los
Angeles,” when a Japanese submarine shelled an oil field,
touching off an air-raid panic that attracted more than 1,400
rounds from the home guard the next night.
Concerns about invasion only grew in California after
Allied forces lost ground in the western Pacific in early 1942.
No one in Los Angeles knew what might come next, least of
all Tom Neilan. But he understood that steel products would
be required for the American war effort, so whatever plans he
may have had to get out of the business quickly he put aside.
“Now is not the time to get out,” he told his family. Both
Neilan and Reliance were in for the duration.
Neilan’s commitment bore fruit when Uncle Sam handed
Reliance a virtual golden goose in the form of a priority allo-
cation for steel. President Roosevelt had created a number
of new federal agencies to reorganize the American economy
and to convert and mobilize the country’s civilian industries
to wage total war against the Axis Powers. One of these
new agencies was the War Production Board, established
on January 16, 1942. Its mission was to allocate scarce
defense-related materials, establish production and distribu-
tion priorities, and prohibit nonessential production. Metals
were vitally important—especially steel—and so the War
Production Board took complete control over which com-
panies could receive raw steel and steel products, and to
whom, where, and when they could sell it. A priority alloca-
tion from the War Production Board was highly coveted within
the industry since it guaranteed not only a steady stream of