Hi, I'm Randy. My brother Doug Patterson worked at your NYSII plant in Blytheville until his death in 1999 from a heart attack. He loved his job and the people there. I got to visit him for a weekend two years before he died, he was waiting for his new fishing boat to arrive on the day after I had to return home. We never got to take that fishing trip together, but he got to take it out. I'm in SE MN & recently retired from the steel industry. Doug's son & daughter are doing very well nowadays. I wanna thank everyone at Nucor for all you've done for him and for our family.
I work as a contractor for Kinder-Morgan, which works on-site of a handful of Nucor sites, including the one in Trinity, Alabama. We were depicted in a few scenes loading scrap into Charge Trucks, which deliver scrap to the mills Charge Bucket. Even though I'm not a Nucor employee, I do work alongside these people at times, and I have to say they are a wonderful company to work with. Shifts are long and hectic, at times, but at the end of the day, I'm proud to say I had a hand in the process.
I have a few questions 1. What problems does the company face? 2. How does the company answer the problem? What is being done? 3. what are the results?
I can pass along a few things I learned. They have scrap brokers to source raw materials from all over, they made their own railways for transport, they sourced iron carbide from overseas to add to the hot melt, and they set up plants on major waterways to facilitate shipping. They're the only company in the US that can compete with Japan in terms of quality & price. In fact, they're a partner with Yamato of Japan. They're one of our nation's proudest success stories and were even featured in a magazine article titled, "The Little Steel Mill That Could". They're a model of efficiency & problem solving that can & does share their valuable knowledge with all kinds of other industries. I'm even a little regretful that I never tried to seek employment from them.
The Nucor story and management style and challenges can be found in a few books in great detail! Plain talk was published in 1997 by Ken Iverson ( CEO ) , he took the time to share his ideas, observations and lessons. Copies can still be found on-line.
A good place to learn about the nucor struggles and accomplishments can be found in a few books! Ken Iverson was one of the most watched CEO's in the business. Plain Talk, Lessons from a business maverick is a great book " The story is told strait from the horses mouth!"
