Businesses are thick with talk. Too many people who talk but don’t have the mettle to back up what they say. When Fazal Tom Ali bought the company in 1988 this was something that he decided was going to be a defining factor of his business and has maintained a philosophy and attitude of action since then.

WRITTEN BY JACK SLATER

WE DON’T TALK ABOUT IT, WE JUST GET IT DONE

www.littlegatepublishing.com

STEEL STRUCTURES LTD

001 868 642-3442

“We changed hands a couple of times,” Ali explains, “The company was acquired by a group of businessmen in 1975 and

operated under the name of Steel Fabricators and in 1986 due to a local recession the company went into receivership.”

During both of these changes Ali was retained, firstly in 1975 where he was appointed General Manager before rising through to Managing Director and then when things fell apart in 1986 he was retained by the receivers in an effort to continue operations. In 1988, in what would prove to be an astute and prestigious move, Fazal Tom Ali bought the company under the new and current name of Steel Structures T & T Limited (SSLTD) and continued in the business of design, fabrication and erection of structural steel buildings.

“At this time though,” Ali explains, “The Trinidad and Tobago construction industry was at its lowest point and our efforts to survive necessitated concentration in the Caribbean Islands.”

These included St Martin, Antigua, Grenada, St Vincent, St Kitts, Nevis and Barbados and their activity included the kind of buildings used and relied upon by professional industries such as hospitals, schools, shopping malls, stadiums, warehouses, factories and churches. The kind of buildings that people expect to not only be trustworthy but long lived and their expertise and success in this manner has not gone unrecognized by either those professionals using the buildings of the people inspecting them.

STEEL STRUCTURES LTD

Originally named Saunders and Fosters Limited, a member of the Chamberlain Group of Companies of Great Britain, the company was first established in 1959 and was involved in the design, fabrication and erection of buildings from the foundations up. Although owned by the British the entire technical staff comprised of Trinidadians or which their present owner and Managing Director Mr. Fazal Tom Ali held the post of Chief Design Engineer and with their client base being sourced locally their conduct from the start was of a Trinidad company.

“Our work was recognized in 2004 with the Prime Minister’s Award for Export in 2004,” Ali relates, “Which was presented personally by the Prime Minister.”

Currently, the company occupies a large and fully eqiuipped fabricating plant and workshop facility in the O’Meara Industrial Estate that also holds all administration offices. Sixty of the highest trained and best skilled people work with SSLTD, and Ali reveals that the secret of a successful business has always come from the quality of your employees.

“Our employees are all highly trained with regular retraining programmes to keep everyone up to date with new developments,” Ali tells us. He goes on to explain that there are two main categories of employees working for SSLTD namely monthly staff and daily paid workers. Monthly staff consists of structural and civil engineers, land surveyors, technicians, supervsors and clerical personnel whereas the daily workers consist of fabricators, welders, riggers, mechanics, labourers and drivers.

With the steel construction industry in Trinidad and Tobago fluxing greatly with highs and lows, having the resource of daily paid workers, or casual labour is a useful contingent for when the work load supercedes the number of available hands. Additionally, SSLTD’s

Today’s Business clients want excellent service, competitive products and convenient access. At RBC, our Business Banking team is geared to deliver on these needs and more, not only through our comprehensive range of products and services, but through our talented and experienced team of Relationship Managers and support staff.“It’s important to our clients that we come up with the best financial and business solutions for our clients and to work with them as their businesses grow,” said Jesus Pazos, Market Head, Business Banking, RBC.

STEEL STRUCTURES LTD

line of business involves the execution of “one off” projects while the operations therein remain constant, “Targets change and new products/services are developed and introduced but the essential nature of the operations stays the same,” Ali says.

Contract completion not only in a timely manner but with a satisfied customer is what has made SSLTD’s reputation and there are four main aspects that govern the overseeing of operations. Construction Planning, Project Scheduling, Work Control and Performance Evaluation. These four piers in the approach of SSLTD allows them to approach their trade in a one-stop-shop manner. By simplifying the approach to building it opens up a far wider and

diversified source for potential contracts and their clientele cover a broad spectrum of the economy including private, industrial, commercial, municipal and petrochemical sectors, “Client’s needs differ with respect to structural design and aesthetic value, project budget and specifications of steelwork desired,”

There is a vision at play with Steel Structures Limited, a simple but effective one, “Our vision is a company that holds quality service above all else, a company that is specifically client oriented, innovative and market responsive. A company that relies on the latest information and the most reliable technology, a company that is a driven yet caring and progressive employer of the best trained people,” Ali relates, “Only like this can we create a dynamic, vibrant and diversified steel engineering enterprise fully capable of meeting the challenges of the global construction industry of the 21st century.”

And with their full in-house steel engineering experts benefitting from decades of advanced expertise in computer aided design and the hands-on knowledge of traditional technologies, who else could be in a better position to take a client’s project from concept to reality.

STEEL STRUCTURES LTD

“Our vision is a company that holds quality service above all else, a company that is specifically client oriented, innovative and market responsive.”