Elite Supply first opened its doors in 2018 while President Matt Steer, a Damascus native and 2017 West Branch alum, was a sophomore at Youngstown State University. Steer said that “going into sophomore year,” he was considering his options for how to best put what he was learning into practice outside the typical corporate path.

“I was looking at my future path and I thought ‘I’m getting a business degree, what do I do?’ It seemed like everyone got into an internship or an entry level job to climb the corporate ladder, which held no interest for me. I was talking to my dad and told him that I wanted to do something and wanted to be in control of my own future and build something but wasn’t sure what,” said Steer.

Matt explained that his father Bob Steer had an existing background in the house industry from his time working at Salem-Republic Rubber in Sebring which he was able to leverage to start Elite Supply. Matt said that while incorporating in 2018 and building the business over time while finishing his education had been beneficial to the business, 2021 was really its “first full year” and was when he’d been able to begin focusing on the business full-time and bring on another part-time employee after his graduation in 2020.

“It was a good opportunity to build the business over a couple years while I was still in school because when you’re in college you don’t have to be paid much so I could be a poor kid starting a business,” said Matt.

Opened in May of 2022, Elite Supply’s growing retail space is one of several ongoing efforts to increase local business and promote awareness of its services. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

Beyond the benefit of Bob’s existing experience, Matt said he had been drawn to the hose industry and industrial supply in general due to it having “a very simple blue-collar aspect,” and the variety that working with such varied clientele in multiple industries offered.

“We get a wide range of different industries; every day is a little bit different. One day we’ll be helping with an induction furnace that’s trying to be rebuilt and the next day we’ll be dealing with a large mining company working to fix equipment. When you start to look for its hose it is everywhere,” said Matt.

Matt said that Elite Supply is “a hose shop through and through,” and that while it specialized in industrial hose they dealt in “just about any type of hose you can think of.” Steer explained that Elite Supply belonged to a co-op of independent hose shops throughout the country, through which they had access to roughly 80 suppliers throughout the country, and that even if they don’t carry a certain product, they can usually order it or refer customers somewhere that can.

“We’re not the biggest and we haven’t been around the longest, so we may not have everything on the shelf, but we can usually get our hands on something pretty quick for you or point you in the right direction of what you need to do,” said.

Matt explained that in the beginning Elite Supply found its first customers through door-to-door sales and cold calls, joking that he would “get rejected nine times out of 10,” prior to finding customers willing to give the company a chance. According to Matt, Elite Supply has excelled in retaining customers once acquired through unparalleled customer service and has had “a lot of success just showing that we care.”

Opened in May of 2022, Elite Supply’s growing retail space is one of several ongoing efforts to increase local business and promote awareness of its services. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

“What we’ve found with other hose shops is that there’s been a lot of private equity coming in buying them out, or there’s very established shops that have a lot of complacency that’s reflected in their service a lot of the time,” said Matt.

Unlike many companies severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and quarantines, Elite Supply flourished in the unique circumstances it afforded Matt while finishing his degree. Matt explained that because his classes at YSU moved to remote learning in response to the pandemic and were often asynchronous he’d been able to devote more time to the business.

“Oddly enough it was kind of a blessing in disguise. I would drive up to Youngstown two to three days a week and try to work between classes, but during covid everything went remote, so I was able to sit at the shop and work and log in a couple times a day for class, so it actually freed up quite a bit of time to focus on the business more,” said Matt. Matt said Elite Supply’s customers were spread throughout the country and beyond, joking that this widespread customer base “isn’t what a lot of people expect when they see our little shop here,” and that they had shipped products “to four different continents and 36 states.”

Although the bulk of Elite Supply’s business does not come from local customers, it is truly a local business, with Matt joking that he has a “two-minute commute to work with no traffic” from his home on nearby Valley Road.

“I grew up in Damascus, still live in Damascus, and now own a business in Damascus,” said Matt.

Opened in May of 2022, Elite Supply’s growing retail space is one of several ongoing efforts to increase local business and promote awareness of its services. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

Matt also said that the local market is increasingly taking notice of Elite Supply since opening its retail space which specializes in hydraulics in 2022 particularly members of the local agricultural community. Matt explained that as hose specialists, Elite Supply can provide local customers with the best product and service for their specific need.

“Local farmers have been big, there’s a ton of hoses on agriculture equipment whether it’s the combine, sprayers, balers, so there’s been some local companies and farms we’ve been able to help,” said Matt.

Matt also said that there is often need for the “on the spot hydraulics” that the retail space offers locally, and that for many in manufacturing and agriculture time spent with a hydraulic failure directly translates to lost revenue.

“A lot of it is they blew a hose and they’re down, whether that’s a manufacturer where now that equipment or that production line is down and they’re now losing money by the minute, or a farmer that works around the clock that blows a line that they need to get a field done or be set behind for next week,” said Matt.

Despite its success, Elite Supply is still striving to grow and better serve its community and make its location and offerings more apparent. Matt said that in April Elite Supply will be installing a billboard and banner outside of their office, and that it was in the early stages of expanding its office space even further and hoped to break ground by the end of the year or within the first quarter of next year.

Elite Supply’s comparatively small size belies its impressive reach, having shipped their products to customers throughout the United States and beyond, to four continents and 36 states. (Photo courtesy Bob Steer)

Matt said that Elite Supply was also working to develop an app that would help with hose management, which could help identify different kinds of hoses, and their life cycles to improve safety and efficiency with Bob noting the goal was to ensure any of their customers could use the app. Matt also said that they were preparing to beta test the application with one of their customers “early this spring.”

“Hoses are an expensive asset, especially for some of our customers that go through a tone of them so being able to track a hose’s life cycle, and see a hose is being blown out every three months, we can look at it and see what’s wrong with it,” said Matt.

Elite Supply’s comparatively small size belies its impressive reach, having shipped their products to customers throughout the United States and beyond, to four continents and 36 states. (Photo courtesy Bob Steer)