Dover Tubular Alloys, an established Master Distributor of stainless steel, nickel alloy, and aluminum tube and pipe, has been serving customers for over 40 years. With facilities in Dover, New Jersey, and Houston, Texas, the company’s products serve a variety of sectors including the oil & gas, aerospace, medical, and chemical processing industries. The team holds itself to high standards, focusing on rapid communication, customer satisfaction, and driving product quality.
Justin Rattner, President, Alex Lima, Director of Sales, and Blake Volmer, Director of Business Development, spoke with Stainless Steel World Americas about its successful operations, established market-driven products, and future goals.
By KCI Editorial
Founded in 1983 as a family-owned business, Dover Tubular Alloys has experienced significant growth in recent years by establishing new opportunities and developing cutting edge innovations to better meet the requirements of the industries it serves.
Justin Rattner, the 3rd generation President of Dover Tubular Alloys, has observed many advancements throughout his tenure since he joined the organization more than 12 years ago.
Dover Tubular’s ability to align with—and utilize—modern technology in their processes and operations is one of the key fundamentals that have helped expand its market presence, customer base, and product offerings without dramatically increasing the company’s headcount. For instance, the company describes its progress as “all encompassing” as they have rebuilt its facilities, integrated AI, and added automated processes while hiring forward-thinking talent.
With a new generation of employees, company executives have delegated responsibility and decision making downward throughout the organization.
“We provide our employees with the destination but empower them to determine the direction,” explained Rattner. “We ask them to ‘own’ their part of the business and provide them with the autonomy to run it their way.”
While the company still holds each employee accountable to the KPIs and goals that have been set, they still have the discretion to determine how they achieve their objectives.
This philosophy, referred to as the “Dover Way,” has provided growth in many different divisions of the company, including Sales and Business Development. Alex Lima, Director of Sales, is now based in Dover, New Jersey, and previously directed the development of the Houston sales team and offices in 2022. At the time, the location was a distribution center with three operators managing orders filled from the company’s headquarters.
“I was one of four or five salespeople at the time,” explained Lima. “Since then, we’ve doubled the square footage of our Texas facility and renovated the office to create more space, which we have outgrown yet again.”
Dover Tubular has always had a strong inside sales presence with a reputation for responsiveness and accuracy. However, according to Director of Business Development, Blake Volmer, an outside sales team is essential to expand the company’s customer base nationwide. With the success of its business development program, they now have an established footprint in key regions throughout the U.S.
“The Japanese word, kaizen, comes to mind,” said Volmer. “When you make small improvements to each aspect of a business on a consistent basis, those little victories evolve into a massive mountain of success over time.”
Strategic investments and personnel additions have resulted in impressive changes. For instance, when Rattner joined the company, there were only 12 employees on the payroll. By 2022, that number had increased to 20. Today, they employ over 45 between two facilities with plans of hiring another 6 to 10 in 2026.
Facility Expansion with Continued Reliability
One of the most recent developments to advance its growth strategy was the opening of a new facility in Dover, New Jersey, in December 2025, replacing the company’s original headquarters.
“We were previously occupying a building more than 105 years old that was historically used for a variety of purposes outside of metals distribution,” said Lima. “In comparison, we now have triple the square footage, allowing us to stock larger volumes of product and to expand our aluminum and nickel alloy offerings.”
Additionally, while the previous building housed a single loading bay, the new building sports four bays with a more streamlined layout, which optimizes operational efficiency and the complex movement of long products. As a result, Dover Tubular has maintained a high degree of customer service amid its business growth and expansion.
Depth and Diversity
At the highest level, the organization offers its customers stainless steel, aluminum, and nickel alloy tubing and pipe. Custom requests can also be accommodated for specific and/or uncommon sizes through its Strategic Sourcing Team.
“What sets us apart is our product depth and product diversity,” said Volmer. “The depth comes from how much we carry on our shelves, and the diversity comes from the alloys and size combinations we carry. When we say we have hard-to-find sizes, we are talking about products our customers can’t or prefer not to manage as part of their own inventory.”
As a Master Distributor, Dover Tubular sells exclusively to metal service centers and wholesalers.
“Given that the company is positioned upstream in the supply chain, our products are often designed to serve a diverse array of commercial, industrial, and aerospace applications,” explained Lima.
While oil & gas accounts for a substantial portion of Dover Tubular’s business, Rattner notes, “We are trying to balance our product portfolio like a barbell at the gym. For each dollar we invest in the energy markets, we put an offsetting dollar on the other side of the barbell with non-energy related investment. This helps ensure that the organization is well diversified for the future.”
With the success and growth of the company, Dover Tubular is currently expanding operations into the aerospace industry. Its products are engineered to withstand demanding environments, and they deploy a rigorous set of in-house QA standards to ensure compliance and reliability.
“These demanding applications require metal that goes above and beyond the traditional 304/L’s and 316/L’s of the world,” said Volmer. “Nickel alloys are a big factor in our business and is where we’ll continue to expand moving forward.”
Dover Tubular has also continued diversifying its procurement, focusing on industry trends and geopolitical changes. They secure material from a variety of international markets, including China, India, Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Sweden, and Ukraine.
Maximizing Dover Tubular’s Certified Procurement Partnerships
The company is quality centric and ISO 9001:2015 certified, allowing it to service a wide variety of customers. In addition, its upstream mill suppliers have a number of impressive certifications to help ensure that Dover Tubular’s products meet even the most rigorous customer requirements.
Through proprietary purchase specifications and its Certified Procurement Partners, the company has been able to deliver material that exceeds commercial standards, minimizes defects, and maintains market pricing levels. After identifying potential new suppliers, vendors go through a multi-step qualification process.
This includes a series of third-party inspections designed to mitigate procurement risk and ensure that quality standards are always executed and maintained. Once material arrives, a rigorous series of tests is performed, including PMI verification, borescoping, dimensional checks, and line mark verifications, to name a few.
“It’s about the customer’s peace of mind,” Lima notes. “As a Master Distributor, we don’t win an order unless our customer does. Repeat business is earned when we’re able to offer a superior product and great customer experience.”
With a customer-centric focus, over-engineered products, and consistent execution, Rattner explained, “the QA process drives us to predictable outcomes and helps differentiate us in the marketplace.”
Future Goals and Maintaining Key Values
As part of its long-term growth strategy, Dover Tubular plans to further expand its presence in the U.S. by investing in two additional facilities and growing its aluminum and nickel alloy product lines. Additionally, a major initiative is to grow their outside sales presence, with the goal of enabling its Business Development team to promote and educate customers nationwide about the company’s products and services.
The company has also invested in a new ERP system (Invex) to reach both its short-term and long-term objectives. The system includes full API management, providing the ability to integrate with real-time inventory management systems, Transportation Management Systems, CRM, and more. The team has heavily customized the ERP to automate key processes throughout the organization and streamlined cross-departmental communication, ensuring seamless communication that its customers and vendors have come to expect.
“The new ERP system is sort of like getting a Ferrari for Christmas,” Lima explained. “It gives us a lot of room for advancement.”
A goal that Rattner, Lima, and Volmer all share is adhering to the company’s core value of customer focus. Maintaining rapid communication is paramount, especially as the organization continues to expand.
“People want to do business with companies that align actions with words,” said Rattner. “We’ve built an environment where we do what we say and say what we do. We’re determined to keep these values as we continue
growing.”
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the profiled company and do not necessarily reflect the position of Stainless Steel World Americas.