ST LUCIE COUNTY — When it comes to steel works, the staff at Phoenix Metal Products can melt down, cut and mold any plate. 

“We can weld anything but a wooden leg or a broken heart,” said Bill Wilcox, co-owner of the 27-yespanr-old mspannufspancturer in northern St. Lucie County. 

But business the last two years, and likely the next few, is being dictated by a tiny asset that Phoenix metalworkers don’t even handle.

The production of microchips, or the lack thereof because of the pandemic, is the major supply chain issue for electronic products and vehicles. 

Before the pandemic, Phoenix Metal had flourishing contracts with airlines to build the chassis for their airport vehicles, such as sanitation carts.

“We had so many trucks here in 2019, we had to use the (Treasure Coast International) Airport property to park the overflow,” Wilcox said. “Now, we have none.”

The pandemic prompted chip factories to shut down in spring 2020, particularly overseas, where the majority of the microchips are made.

“We were off the charts in 2019,” Wilcox said. “We were doing almost 100 chassis a year. We’ve got a fantastic crew.”

But in spring 2020, the airlines not only stopped making new orders with manufacturers, they wouldn’t take deliveries from Phoenix Metal and others because the near-completed vehicles could not be finished without the microchip components. 

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A crisis within a crisis

By the time the microchip factories reopened, they had a backlog of orders to fill. They haven’t caught up because the coronavirus crisis created a new set of tech demands. 

The spike in personal computer sales, after nearly a decade of steady decline, caught the industry unprepared as millions of office workers needed laptops for home offices and students in some states outside Florida were required to do virtual learning for more than a year.

The video game and smartphone businesses also posed their demands for microchips. 

“The microchips were just like toilet paper,” the most notable product shortage at the start of the pandemic, said Brooks Price, Phoenix Metal co-owner. 

The majority of the world’s microchips are produced in Taiwan, with other Asian countries following.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, has proposed domestic production of the chips to boost the supply. 

Will Phoenix rise again? 

Manufacturers such as Wilcox and Price aren’t expecting a quick turnaround. 

“We think things will stay the same through 2023,” Price said. “But the supply chain has to open up again. It’s going to come back at some point.”

Prior to the pandemic, Phoenix had a staff of 47 people. It reduced the work force to 21 people by summer of 2020. Similarly, the company’s income was cut by more than half too; it generated $13 million in income in 2019 vs. $5 million in 2020. 

Despite the slowdown, the Phoenix brand was well established long before the pandemic. Odds are a person who has been at an airport has caught a glimpse of a Phoenix-built vehicle on the tarmac. Or take a closer look at the TV news when you see the President boarding or stepping down from Air Force One. Phoenix has built some of the stairwells used by multiple administrations. 

Whether it’s the trucks or the stairwells, you’ll be able to see the Phoenix Metal logo on them. 

In lieu of not having orders from airlines or airports, Phoenix found other ways to create income. 

“We did fencing repair, we did welding for other companies,” Wilcox said. “We’re capable of doing anything with metal. But our airline contracts were keeping us busy enough before 2020 that we didn’t have time to do other type of work.”