Paul Ryan attends town hall meeting hosted by MSCI Cincinnati and Byer Steel

The Cincinnati chapter of the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI), Rolling Meadows, Ill., and Byer Steel, Cincinnati, hosted Congressman Paul Ryan (Wis.), Republican vice presidential candidate, for a town hall meeting as part of its Manufacturing Summit series "Closing the Divide Between Jobs, Policy, and Growth." U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (Ohio), Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), and Brad Wenstrup, Republican candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, Ohio Second District, joined more than 1,000 manufacturers, metals service center owners, and Cincinnati workers.

"We launched our Manufacturing Summits to provide a platform for our members to hear directly from the candidates as to how they intend to create manufacturing jobs and grow the economy," said MSCI President and CEO M. Robert Weidner III. "Today we accomplished that goal."

Burke Byer, president and CEO of MSCI member company Byer Steel, opened the event by calling attendees to political action.

"The issues that face the manufacturing industry are very critical, and you can do something about it today," Byer said. "You have choices. Your friends, your neighbors, your networks—they have choices. You need to get people out there to vote for the right issues. The manufacturing industry is struggling, and it needs your help."

In his address, Ryan covered the national debt, the importance of jobs to U.S. economic recovery, and leadership in Washington. "We are here in a fourth-generation family business. We are here in a building that creates jobs, that struggles in a global economy. We are here in a place that is the embodiment of the American ideal," said Ryan. "The American system of freedom and free enterprise has done more to help the poor, more to produce opportunity and prosperity and job security, than any other economic system ever designed."