Inside Sales Person

Albany based steel service center seeks inside sales person. Knowledge of steel helpful but will train.

Looking for candidate with good computer and math skills. Fair starting salary, paid vacation, sick, paid holidays and health insurance. Please send resume to salesalbanysteel.net No Phone Calls In the early 1920s, F.

Arthur Hundorfer worked as a regional sales manager for Carnegie Steel Corporation. Hunsdorfer was responsible for covering all of upstate New york, from Newburgh to the Canadian border, on both sides of the Hudson River. Due to the lack of bridges across the Hudson in the 1920s, Hunsdorfer usually only made sales calls on the eastern side of the river in the winter when he could drive across the ice.

He would put the car in neutral and place a weight on the accelarator to hold it down. Then, exiting the vehicle, he would stand on the running board outside the car, reach in and jam the shifting lever into gear. The car would start its slow progress across the river with Hunsdorfer ready to jump off a the first sign that the ice was cracking.

He had a few close calls but never got wet. It may have been this early experience that made him decide to start his own business; building a warehouse in one place and letting most of his customers come to him. In 1922, Hunsdorfer joined forces with two of his business associates, Ben Gifford, president of Gifford-Wood Company of Hudson and Walter Strope, purchasing agent for McKinney Steel of Albany.

Gifford provided funding; Hunsdorfer and Strope were to run the business. The first business, named General Mill and Contractors Supply Company, was located in a vacant greenhouse at 899 Broadway, just north of steam fire engine no. 3 (currently near the Miss Albany Diner). After one year, Strope split off and started a competing business, Strope Steel, on Terminal Street in Albany. Hunsdorfer, with Gifford’s financial support, moved across the street to much larger quarters at 892 Broadway (now called 900 Broadway, housing Universal Auto Parts) and incorporated the new company as Albany Steel and Iron Supply Company.