Directors of the Metals Service Center Institute have created new membership categories for internationally based metals trade associations and for large trading companies engaged in the North American metals marketplace.

A member task force, chaired by Mr Michael H Hoffman president & CEO of Macsteel Service Centers USA, recommended the new membership category for non North American metals industry trade associations to give members more networking opportunities and to open MSCI education programs to the international groups.

Membership will be open only to trade associations that themselves have metals industry company members. Although representatives of the trade associations will be permitted to attend MSCI programs, individual member companies from non-North American associations will be permitted to attend only if they join the institute itself as international members. It said that trading company membership, adopted as a subcategory of the broader Associate, or producer, membership category, will be limited to North American companies with annual revenue of at least USD 50 million.

Mr Norman E Gottschalk Jr president of Marmon/Keystone Corporation and MSCI’s chairman said that “These new types of membership are consistent with the institute’s long term plan to be the premier trade association within the metals industry. The new membership categories also reflect the increasingly global nature of the metals industry.”

Mr M Robert Weidne, III president & CEO of MSCI said that “MSCI already has the broadest and most diverse membership of any significant metals industry trade association, with members that are producers, service centers and companies that provide goods and services to them. By further opening membership to the major metals trading companies and to trade associations based overseas, we add diversity and respond to membership requests that we previously could not honor.”