Fort Myers: City of Palms—A Contemporary Portrait

DEAN STEEL BUILDINGS,INC.
❖
Left to right, the Metallic Building Company representative,
Charles and Robert Dean sign the dealership contract in 1968.
Dean Steel Buildings, Inc., is the largest manufacturer of
metal building systems in Florida and continually works to
increase its market share by providing outstanding customer
service and experience in high-wind building designs.
With annual sales of $15 million and climbing, Dean
Steel Buildings, Inc., employs ninety to 100 people at
facilities in Fort Myers; Cedartown and Thomasville,
Georgia; and San José, Costa Rica. Principal customers are
contractors and metal building installers throughout the
Southeast United States and the Americas as well as direct
sales to government agencies and end-use customers.
The genesis for all this success goes back to Robert “Bob”
Dean, a welder and son of a welder, who owned and operated
a welding shop on Anderson Avenue in Fort Myers. In the
early 1950s, Bob began selling and erecting pre-engineered
metal buildings throughout the southern half of Florida,
including the Florida Keys. Originally called Bob Dean Steel
Buildings, Inc., the company purchased and installed metal
buildings manufactured by Stran-Steel Buildings.
His youngest son, Charles, a mechanical engineer, joined
his father in the business in 1967, earned a contractor’s
license, and with his father continued the practice of selling
and erecting pre-engineered metal buildings. The company’s
growth was not without obstacles. In the late 1960s, the
City of Fort Myers refused to issue permits for metal roofs
to be used on commercial buildings. Charles had to
convince the head city building officials that if metal
roofs were good enough for the early settlers—such as
Thomas Edison and Henry Ford—they should be good
enough for commercial buildings of that time.
By 1971, operating under the name Dean Steel Buildings,
Inc., the company purchased and installed metal buildings
made primarily by Metallic Building Company. The company
did so well that between 1970 and 1972, Dean Steel
Buildings, Inc., was the largest volume builder in the
country for Metallic Building Company. In 1973, Charles
purchased the business from his father and was immediately
confronted with a problem: A steel shortage forced Metallic
Building Company to cancel orders placed by the company
and other builders it worked with.
To his credit, Charles saw an opportunity rather than
just a problem and began traveling the state to meet
with builders and ask them if they would buy from him
if he started producing his own building line. The
overwhelmingly positive response he received put Dean
Steel Buildings in the manufacturing business for good.
In 1985 the State of Florida mandated that all Florida
counties develop a land-use plan that eventually required
every commercial building in the state to go through a long
permitting process. This occurred at the same time the economy
began slipping into a recession. To remain competitive,
a major modernization of equipment and processes began in
1988, including the use of computer-aided drafting and the
ability to electronically move information from drafting
directly to the manufacturing machines. All work was done
in-house, a process that continues to this day, allowing the
company to be self-sufficient and highly efficient in its
industry sector.
It was about this time that Charles’ wife, Karen Dean,
daughters, Nanette Dean, Julie Dean Fisher, Jeanie Dean
Richards, Charlotte Dean Edwards, and sons-in-law Ken
Fisher and Jeff Richards joined the organization in various
roles. They joined Charles and Bob, who continued to work
in a support role until Bob’s death in 2006.
In 1992, while the rest of the industry went to China or
India, the company started an engineering and drafting
office in San José, Costa Rica. In a time when the Internet
was still in its fledgling stage, Dean Steel Buildings was
transmitting digital drawings and material lists through
commercial servers in California.
FORT MYERS: City of Palms—A Contemporary Portrait
146