Executive Coach & Advisor
Gerald Merfish
As President/CEO of Merfish Pipe Holdings and Chairman of Merfish United, a highly successful national distribution company, Gerald led the family business through multiple acquisitions and two successful exits concluding in the final sale in 2021. For 6 years during his career, Gerald was a minority stockholder and President of Tex-Tube Company, a steel pipe manufacturing company that Gerald acquired from Armco Steel.
Currently, he is a business advisor, mentor, coach, and exit planning advisor with Merfish Advisors, LLC, Silver Fox Advisors, and Rich Hall Group.
Gerald achieved and maintained a leadership role in the Jewish community and in the greater community through his work at the United Way, Leadership Houston, Promise Village Academy, HISD Foundation, and more.
In addition to his advisory and exit planning work, Gerald is the lead advisor to multiple profit and non-profit CEO Roundtables in the Greater Houston area.
My Story
After completing coursework for an MBA at the University of Texas-Austin, I moved to Los Angeles and joined Union Bank's training program. I later relocated to San Antonio as an assistant vice-president and established the credit analysis department for Central Park Bank. I rapidly advanced to VP and Commercial Lender within one year.
My wife, Sherry, gained admittance to the law school at the University of Houston, and we relocated to Houston thus allowing me to fulfill a lifelong desire to join the family business, Merfish Pipe & Supply Co.
With my involvement over the next 40 years, Merfish set upon a course of conservatively managed growth with sales increasing multifold along the way. Employment increased from 15 to over 125. I oversaw the purchase of four key competitors which firmly established Merfish as the predominant carbon steel standard pipe master distributor in the United States.
In December 2012, I oversaw the sale of Merfish Pipe & Supply, along with four related entities, to JP Morgan Chase’s One Equity Partners. I retained a 20% minority interest and continued to serve as President/CEO until Feb 2019. At that time, Merfish purchased United Pipe & Steel and I became Chairman of the BOD. The merged company has 13 locations and over 300 employees. It was renamed to Merfish United. In October 2021, Reliance Steel & Aluminum (NYSE-RS) purchased Merfish United and I retired from the company.
In 2019, I joined Silver Fox Advisors, an association of retired and semi-retired "C" level business leaders with a desire to mentor, coach, and advise small business leaders in the Houston community. My involvement in Silver Fox Advisors includes my being the lead advisor on multiple Silver Fox Advisors CEO Roundtables pro-bono and maintain fee-based engagements as well.
In May 2021, I agreed to help lead Promise Village Academy-USA which supports Promise Village Academy, a school in rural Tanzania for 190 severely impoverished Maasai children. I re-organized multiple aspects of the program, established a budget and developed the long term plan for the school which adds 35 new students each year with plans to grow the school to over 400 children. One can learn more about this at www.promisevillageacademy.org
My business career is complimented by my dedication to my wife of 50 plus years, Sherry, my daughters, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, 4 grandchildren, and the needs of our community. I've achieved and maintained a leadership role in the Jewish community and in the greater community through work with the United Way, Leadership Houston, Eleanor Rubenstein Jewish Community Center, Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, American Leadership Forum, Bridges to Life, National Multiple Sclerosis Society - Texas Chapter, the Houston Independent School District Foundation, and Mankind Project – Houston to name the most prominent. I have also been designated as a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum.
Gerald Merfish