NAME(S) ON TILE:                 ARMCO, INC.

DONOR NAME(S):                   ARMCO, INC.

Armco’s history dates to the turn of the century when founder George M. Verity broke ground for the first plant of his ambitiously named American Rolling Mill Company in Middletown, Ohio.

Verity’s vision in 1900 was to build the first “integrated” steel plant that would bring together in one place all of the steps necessary to make the steel, roll it flat into sheets, and finally galvanize, corrugate, and fabricate the sheets into a finished product.  Verity’s steel company had one steel making furnace, 35 stockholders and 325 workers.  In 1910, Verity established the first formal research department to develop a steel with special magnetic properties for use in electric motors and transformers.

The company built the first in-plant hospital in the steel industry in 1911, helped organized the National Safety Council in 1912, and bought the first steel industry group life insurance policy for its employees in 1918.  A short time later, Armco became the first American company to switch from 12-hour to an 8-hour work day for all continuous steel making operations.

One of the most significant early steel making developments was Armco’s invention of the continuous rolling process in 1924 that revolutionized the art of rolling steel sheets and made possible the mass production of automobiles and other consumer products made from sheet steel.

Growth and diversity made Armco a worldwide manufacturer of specialty steels, oil field equipment and fabricated steel products.  During the 1960s and 1970s the company acquired aerospace and financial service businesses.  After a severe recession crippled energy, steel and insurance markets in the mid-1980s, the company sold assets, restructured and reduced debt.  Armco refocused its strategy on specialty steels and in 1992 acquired Cyclops Industries, Inc., a producer of stainless steel sheet, strip and plate and other steel products.

In December 1993, Armco relocated its corporate headquarters to Pittsburgh, the specialty steel capital of America.