Darin LaHood

U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Peoria, visited Rochelle on Wednesday, Aug. 19, and toured Wheatland Tube, a local steel pipe manufacturer. LaHood met with the company’s leadership and employees along with city of Rochelle officials.

Wheatland Tube is a division of Zekelman Industries, the largest steel pipe and tube manufacturer in North America. The company located in Rochelle, at 1600 Ritchie Court, in recent years at the former site of Nippon Sharyo, a railway manufacturer. Zekelman Industries CEO Barry Zekelman was on hand for the meeting with LaHood.

Zekelman Industries relocated from its aging Chicago facility to Rochelle and invested $250 million in the new location.

“It’s been a long project,” Zekelman said. “We worked through the middle of COVID-19, which was tough. We saw delays in equipment, hiring and training people. This facility is still probably a year behind schedule of where we’d like to be, but it’s well on its way.”

LaHood said he places value on American-made products and bringing more manufacturing jobs to the country.

“To see what you’re doing here and how decisions made in Washington, D.C., can affect the future of manufacturing and the work you do here is important,” LaHood said.

Much of what Wheatland Tube does in Rochelle involves manufacturing conduit, which is used in buildings, factories, public transportation, airports, railways and data centers, Zekelman said.

Zekelman Industries is the largest manufacturer of conduit in North America, making up 42% to 45% of the market. Challenges in the industry include competing with imports from foreign countries and hiring skilled employees, Zekelman said.

“For decades people have been pushed to go into academia after high school,” Zekelman said. “We need a balance in education where there’s an appropriate number of people that are in this field. Getting your fingernails dirty isn’t a bad thing. You can do very well with that. We need to steer young people in the appropriate direction where they’re going to excel.”

Zekelman said steel consumption in the U.S. is up due to recent legislation and economic factors, with stock rising in tractor, automotive and construction equipment industries.

Wheatland Tube is currently adding a building for shipping in Rochelle and is also looking at expanding manufacturing, tooling and sizing. The plant has 388 employees currently, and could employ up to 425 people, Zekelman Industries Electrical President Kevin Heffernan said.

“I would say we’re running at about 75% of where we could ultimately be,” Zekelman said. “And I think we’re rapidly approaching that. It’s been a tough road. Everyone has worked hard here. By year’s end, we’ll be close to that 100 percent, which is meaningful. There is so much demand for conduit right now.”

Wheatland Tube currently produces 3,500 to 3,700 tons of conduit a week in Rochelle, and has a goal of reaching 5,000 tons per week. Much of the demand is from the growing data center industry. Zekelman and LaHood discussed the topic of data centers Wednesday.

LaHood asked Zekelman how misinformation issues surrounding data centers can be remedied in the future.

“We need a national plan for how we’re going to deal with data centers,” Zekelman said. “Because our power grid is woefully underprepared.”

LaHood called it “existential to the country” that the U.S. wins the AI and quantum race, along with high-capacity chip manufacturing.

“You need computer power to do that,” LaHood said. “Which is directly tied to data centers. Misinformation benefits our foreign competitors.”