BY: Keith S. Shikowitz, Editor in Chief/Investigative Reporter
Everyone pays a lot of attention to the major large corporations and how they are doing financially. Whereas major corporations are important to the economy of the country, small businesses are the foundation and life blood of our communities. They employ local people and contribute to the tax base that keeps our communities funded. The Small Business Administration (SBA) is a U.S. federal agency that helps Americans start, build, and grow businesses by providing access to capital (loans), counseling, training, and federal contracting assistance, plus vital disaster relief to help businesses and homeowners recover from declared disasters. They offer resources for entrepreneurs, from managing day-to-day operations to expanding globally or exporting, and advocate for small business interests in government.
One way that the SBA accomplishes this is to go to small businesses and see what they need first hand by visiting them. On March 2, 2026, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler accompanied Congressman Mike Lawler on a visit and tour of the Celtic Sheet Metal Company in Orangeburg. Celtic Sheet Metal is a company with two manufacturing buildings totaling about 124,000 square feet with 2200 square feet of office space. They employ 200 people between the factory and offices.
In a typical year they use 2.4 million pounds of metal. Mikayla Cunney said, “In our sheet metal shop, we fabricate all our HVAC ductwork and related equipment in-house. From production to delivery, everything is handled internally – including our own trucking. We manage about five deliveries a day to our job sites, which allows us to maintain quality control and stay on schedule.”
Celtic has been involved in many high-profile construction projects in recent years including The Moynihan Train Hall, LaGuardia Airport Delta Terminal, Jacob Javits Center & various high-rise towers in Hudson Yards. It looks like Celtic will be adding the work at Penn Station to their resume.
Lawler told Cunney that he had been talking with Transportation Secretary Duffy about Penn Station. He added that Celtic will be doing a lot of work there.
Lawler arrived around 10:15 and Loeffler arrived a few minutes later. This is what the factory looks like from above:
The tour was led by Vice President Brenden Cunney and lasted for about 45 minutes, including a Q&A by Lawler and Loeffler. As we were walking through the factory, you could hear the machines and barely hear the conversation between Lawler, Loeffler and Cunney. At one point though Cunney was asked about the employees. This is a union shop as a part of the Teamsters Union. They do hire apprentices through BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services)
Loeffler was unfamiliar with BOCES, so Lawler explained what it is. “It is a career in technical and High school. students going into it, but also college, it’s a New York State system and it’s integrated with the schools and with community colleges. Rockland BOCES is about 10 minutes from here and they do a lot of technical education, electricians, plumbers.
Loeffler asked Cunney about turnover in the employees. Cunney answered, “No, we like to hold on to the people that have been with us for a long time. ”
As the tour continued, Cunney pointed to an area where there’s 4 or 5 tables and explained that they get the metal from that seen that and they assemble it all here and then they then they wrap it all up. “They get a job we sketch it, then they download it all to the machines and the fabricate based on that. ”
The tour headed into a production shop where they mill everything into the pieces that they’re putting out.
There was a machine in the back that they wanted everyone to see. The machine works on lasers to cut the metal into the pre sketched patterns.
First they pointed out a machine that brings the pre-sketched sheets to it so they can be cut into the shapes to be assembled into the finished product.
The tour ended here and the group proceeded back towards the production area for a press conference with Rockland Post, CBS News, Channel 12 News, Fox 5 News and the Journal News. I’m going to put up the entire videos of the press conference on the Rockland Post You Tube Channel.
The press conference covered a number of topics including tariffs, energy, electric prices in NY, Operation Epic Fury. When it came to the opposition to Epic Fury, Lawler said, “The fact is, under Article 2, the president is the commander in chief. The president has a responsibility to notify Congress within 48 hours of a strike. He notified Congress in advance. We are getting a briefing tomorrow which I will be attending, a classified brief, and Congress will work with the administration as we move forward. This notion that somehow he was illegally engaging is wrong, and many of my Democratic colleagues fully supported President Obama when he went on an eight-month campaign in Libya.”
On oil, he said, when asked by Tony Aiello from CBS, “Inflation kind of like follows like let’s say from gas, prices for instance this morning they’re talking about, it’s going up to like $90 a barrel and things like that?”
“Well, obviously we want to bring oil and gas prices down, which is why we fought so hard over the past year to increase domestic oil and gas production here in the United States. There’s for a number of reasons there’s going to be pauses in oil, but I believe it’s the volatility in the market because we are increasing production here.
We have greater cooperation with Venezuela. Some of the sanctions being suspended. Getting oil out of Venezuela, so there’s a lot that’s going to be. Over the next days and weeks and the administration is certainly focused on bringing down costs.”