Cook County EDC | Four new owners at Connell Sheet Metal

Four new owners at Connell Sheet Metal

By: Charles Shiver

Connell Sheet Metal & Trim Inc. on Old Quitman Road now has four new owners, including a third-generation family member: Terry Connell, Blake Thomas Connell, Stan McDaniel, and Billy N. Welch.

Blake is the son of Terry Connell and the late Thomas Lee (Tommy) Connell, who passed away Sept. 30, 2015.

Connell Sheet Metal has specialized in providing metal and trim needs to residential and commercial customers since 1980. The industry now has 1X4 strippings available for the roofs of houses before builders lay metal.

Previously, Connell Sheet Metal was located at the current location of ANS (Albany Neon Signs) on the Quitman Highway. Tommy Connell started in the business in 1978. He subcontracted for John Scarboro with his father Barney Connell at Adel Steel as B.L. Connell & Son. Tommy Connell started his shop on Old Quitman Road in 1995, and the business expanded several times as a result of its success. He saw machines replace hands-on labor more and more in working with the sheet metal. Barney Connell worked with his son until he was 89 years old; he passed away on June 16, 2004.

Terry Connell started working with her husband at Connell Sheet Metal in 2005. McDaniel, Blake Thomas Connell, and Welch have a total of 50 years’ experience with the company.

“Business has been doing really well,” McDaniel said. “We have been blessed for the last several months.”

The company serves customers within a 100-mile radius of Adel, with delivery service available.

For more information on Connell Sheet Metal, check out the company’s Facebook page.

The late Billy Browning is credited with starting the steel building industry trend in Cook County during the 1970s. So many local steel fabrication companies opened in the wake of his early work that economic developers have unofficially named Adel as the “Little Pittsburgh of the South.”