Blueford “Blue” Steelcoat was born on October 30, 2019 at 9:47am. It was a beautiful morning in Norfolk Virginia. I had just got finished with a meeting with my business partner, George. I was driving on I-64 towards the tunnels when I saw a battleship off in the distance. I was in a great mood, meeting with business partners went very well, I was happy, music playing, but the enormity of the ship kept catching my eye, so reached for my camera to take a picture of the ship just ahead. After I took the picture, I pulled over on the side of the road into a parking lot to post it on LinkedIn. The ship, although miles away looked huge. I attached the photo and began to write, “My partner Blue and I” is how the message began. Little did I know that this picture, and those few words would change my business life, and Regal Industrial Corporation.
I received several thousand responses, comments and “likes” from Arizona to Washington DC, all talking about my partner Blue. In early November 2019, I met a close friend named Brian in Philadelphia at a Dunkin Donuts. I was early, walked into the store and ordered coffee and sat at a high-top table, with Blue sitting outside about 20 feet away. The waitress came over and asked if that was my truck. I told her, “that truck is famous” and proceeded to talk to her about my latest adventures in Virginia, and on LinkedIn. What she did next still amazes me, she went outside and took a selfie with Blue. Obviously, it took me completely off guard and about this time, Brian walks through the door. Brian and I spoke about business and eventually I told him the story of Blue and what just happened with the waitress. He laughed and said he was going to take a picture with Blue as well. Since I had another appointment coming to the same restaurant, Brian excused himself and left. About 15 minutes later, Steve, my next appointment, comes into the facility and once again, we discuss business and how we can work together. Steve is a strong personality, very sure of himself and his company’s abilities. We begin making some small talk at the end of our meeting, and we start talking about Blue and what has happened over the last few days. Steve says, “Your truck came to life”. I walked Steve out of the restaurant, and thanked the waitress for the selfie of her and Blue. Steve and I shook hands and said, “He would be in touch” then told me, “Next time you and Blue are in town, stop up to our facility” I laughed and told him WE would. After I returned, I spoke with Jim Sasko, President of Regal Industrial Corporation. I told him, “somehow my truck came to life”, he laughed. November 2, 2019, I go to look at a silo project and take a picture from inside of Blue, just like the one I took in Norfolk a few days earlier. Again, the photo got huge numbers and people we asking to see Blue more often, I kind of laughed it off and got ready for a trip to Philadelphia, where Jim Sasko was the featured speaker at the Mid Atlantic Fabricators conference regarding metallizing. The reception after the presentation was great. We had met people from all over the country. Many of them wanted to talk about Blue. “Is he here, can I get a picture with him”? Were questions that were being asked. From that conference I received 3 pictures of various people standing next to Blue. Since then, I have received almost 3 thousand pictures of people standing with Blue and in a few weeks, Regal Industrial will be building different marketing campaigns around our newest mascot named Blue.