History

Nucor traces its origins to auto manufacturer Ransom E. Olds, who founded Oldsmobile and then, in 1905, REO Motor Car Company. The new company was an innovator, producing the first commercial cars with electric lights, an electric starter, and pneumatic tires.

Through a series of transactions, the company Olds founded eventually became, in 1955, Nuclear Corporation of America.  By that time, the company was involved in the nuclear instrument and electronics business.  Nuclear bought several companies over the next few years, including a South Carolina maker of steel joists and joist girders called Vulcraft Corp. that would soon provide the spark for the company's remarkable evolution. 

Nuclear Corp. suffered through several money-losing years and was facing bankruptcy in 1965, when it installed Vulcraft's top executive, Ken Iverson, as president, and Nuclear Corp's controller, Sam Siegel, as financial vice president.  The new management quickly sold many of the company's wide-ranging operations to focus on profitable Vulcraft.  The company moved its corporate office from Phoenix to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1966.

The high cost of steel soon led Iverson to believe that the company would be more profitable if it supplied its own bar steel.  Borrowing an idea that was already gaining popularity in Europe, the company decided to build an electric arc furnace mill, one that made steel from scrap metal.  Since these mills were much smaller and less expensive to build than traditional iron ore mills, they were known as minimills.

The bar mill opened in Darlington, South Carolina, in 1969.  The first of several regional bar mills, it became the prototype for today's vast minimill industry and launched Nuclear Corp. into a wide range of steel businesses.  In 1972, the company officially adopted the Nucor Corporation name, which was proposed by Sam Siegel.

Today, Vulcraft is the nation's largest producer of steel joists and steel deck, standard building components in non-residential construction.  Nucor's tireless workers and modern techniques can make steel and steel products at a cost that is competitive anywhere in the world.

Nucor and affiliates are manufacturers of steel products, with operating facilities primarily in the U.S. and Canada.  Products produced include:  carbon and alloy steel --in bars, beams, sheet, and plate; steel joists and joist girders; steel deck; fabricated concrete reinforcing steel; cold finished steel; steel fasteners; metal building systems; light gauge steel framing; steel grating and expanded metal; and wire and wire mesh.  Nucor, through the David J. Joseph Company, also brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, and HBI/DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap.  Nucor is North America's largest recycler.

Please see the Annual Report and News Releases for information on Nucor's current and future growth plans.

Safety

Our attitude toward safety couldn't be clearer:  Safety is the TOP priority for every Nucor employee.  Period. 

Safety is the first thing discussed at meetings throughout the company.  Some managers sign their correspondence, "Be Safe."  Every Nucor division has a safety coordinator.  Twice a year, all of our safety coordinators gather to share information and best practices, discuss new trends, and receive additional training.  All of our divisions have safety committees composed of workers from a variety of departments.  The workers meet regularly to discuss ways to make their division a safer place. 

To demonstrate the importance of safety, we created the President's Safety Award, presented for outstanding achievement in the prevention of on-the-job accidents.  The standards are strict:  For each division, Nucor determines the safety records for similar facilities at other companies around the nation, based on lost workday case rates and injury/illness rates.  For the Nucor division to win the award, it must post rates that are 67% lower than the national average.  Despite these strict requirements, it's not unusual for about half of our divisions to win the award.  Several of our divisions are pursing the challenging OSHA Voluntary Protection Program or similar state-run programs.  The OSHA initiative is for facilities that implement outstanding health and safety programs.

It's not hard to understand why safety always receives so much attention with us.  For one thing, it's smart business.  Groups with great safety records also tend to perform equally well when it comes to quality, costs, timeliness, and productivity.  But more importantly, when your company's success is built on treating workers well, that all starts with creating the right focus on safety.

Lean Management

Nucor operates one of the leanest corporate organizations in the nation.  A typical Fortune 500 company has a triple-digit corporate staff.  Nucor, which ranked No. 189 on the list in 2005, has about 75 corporate employees.

5 Layers of Management

1.  President & CEO
2.  Executive Vice President
3.  General Manager
4.  Department Manager
5.  Supervisory/Professional

This streamlined chain of command allows the general managers at each Nucor division to operate their facility as an independent business.  It is one of the main reasons that Nucor has maintained a strong entrepreneurial spirit, even as annual sales grew into the multi-billions.  With the day-to-day decisions made at the operating facilities, Nucor can respond to suppliers, customers, employees, and neighbors without waiting for a decision from the corporate office.

Commitment to Employees

In the words of one Nucor executive, "Workers excel here because they are allowed to fail."  Nucor managers at all levels encourage their employees to try out their new ideas.  Sometimes the ideas work out, sometimes they don't.  But this freedom to try helps give Nucor one of the most creative, get-it-done work forces in the world. 

Employee Relations Principles

1.  Management is obligated to manage Nucor in such a way that employees will have the opportunity to earn according to their productivity.
2.  Employees should feel confident that if they do their jobs properly, they will have a job tomorrow.
3.  Employees have the right to be treated fairly and must believe that they will be.
4.  Employees must have an avenue of appeal when they believe they are being treated unfairly.

Nucor employees don't need a memo to get going.  They spot little problems and solve them on their own, before they become big problems.  "Go to one of our plants," another executive says.  "Watch our workers.  You'll say, 'They're crazy.  They're nuts.  Nobody works that hard.'" 

Nucor's lean management supports strong employee relations.  Workers know if they have a suggestion, their idea won't get buried in bureaucracy.  When a complaint does come up, Nucor has a straightforward way of handling it:  Nucor allows any employee to ask for a review of the complaint if he or she feels the supervisor has not provided a fair hearing.  The employee can move the appeal quickly to the general manager and then to the corporate office for consideration.

Innovation

Nucor's rebirth was sparked by innovation -- making steel from recycled scrap on a larger scale than had ever been tried.  Since then, Nucor has thrived on intelligent risk-taking.

Based on the success of its bar mills, in the late 1980s, Nucor adopted a technology developed in West Germany to make sheet steel starting from a slab much thinner than standard mills were making.  Rivals wrote lengthy reports explaining why the technology would never work. 

But in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Nucor built the world's first thin-slab cast mill.  The mill changed the industry in two ways:

1.  It showed that sheet-steel mills could be built much smaller, and with a much smaller investment, than the giant mills that had dominated the business
2.  It demonstrated that minimills could become significant players in the large sheet-steel business.

Crawfordsville was the first of several Nucor thin-slab sheet mills.

Nucor has continued to explore new technologies.  These include strip-casting, a process to make ultra-thin sheet steel using a minimum of rolling stands; HIsmelt, a process that converts iron ore to liquid metal through the injection of non-coking coal and iron ore into a molten iron bath and load-bearing light gauge steel faming.  Nucor's NUCONSTEEL unit make s steel floor joists, wall panels, and roof trusses.  Nucor also introduced the world's first integrated DC power supply arrangement in the manufacture of steel plate.

Locations

One of the lesser-known ingredients in Nucor's success has been its commitment to locate its diverse facilities in rural locations across America.  Nucor has traditionally avoided building its manufacturing sites in major cities.  Instead, Nucor has preferred smaller, lesser-known towns such as Brigham City, Utah; Grapeland, Texas; and Waterloo, Indiana.

By selecting non-urban locations, Nucor has been able to establish strong ties to its local communities and its work force.  In each location, Nucor is often one of the community's largest and highest-paying employers, providing rewarding careers to employees in their own local communities.  That helps Nucor attract the hard-working, dedicated employees that make it one of the world's most productive manufacturers.

Since Nucor brings large numbers of high-paying jobs to areas often ignored by other employers, many states have been eager to recruit the company.  This has allowed Nucor to develop long-term relationships with states that are hospitable to Nucor's desire to remain union-free and committed to maintaining a climate conducive to business growth through reasonable tax structures.  Nucor frequently builds multiple sites throughout a state.

See Products & Locations for Nucor division contact information and website links.

Environmental Stewardship

Nucor has long been an environmental pioneer in its industry.  The Darlington, South Carolina, facility became the forerunner of the steel minimill, which has made steel the world's most recycled material.  By the turn of the century, electric arc furnaces were producing more than half the nation's steel output.  U.S. steelmakers were recycling more than 65 million tons of steel a year.  Nucor alone recycles one ton of steel every two seconds, making it the largest recycler of any material in America--more than the nation's entire aluminum can industry.

Nucor's commitment to the environment goes beyond recycling.  Today, Nucor has ingrained into its culture the understanding that environmental stewardship is equal with all other businesses critical functions, and that environmental protection is the individual obligation of every Nucor employee.  Environmental impact is alongside safety, quality, and cost in every strategic decision.

Nucor has participated in elite environmental programs, such as the Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Performance Track program.  It also has sponsored construction of a regional butterfly aviary, launched a waterfowl protection project, and helped preserve wetlands.  Several divisions have environmental management systems that conform to ISO 14001 standards.

Many Nucor innovations, including HIsmelt and its pig iron joint venture with CVRD, have the potential to improve the environmental impact of key parts in the steelmaking process.  Nucor is proud of its track record in lifting the industry's environmental performance.

Employee Compensation

Nucor is proud of its employee compensation program and has witnessed companies across the nation embracing similarly structured systems over the years.  Nucor's compensation plan is a major reason its employees are among the highest-paid and most productive industrial workers.  Employees fall into one of the following compensation plans, each featuring incentives related to meeting specific goals and targets.

1.    Production:  Employees involved directly in manufacturing are paid weekly bonuses based on the production of their work groups.  Most Nucor employees are covered under this system.  Typically, these bonuses are based upon anticipated production time or tonnage produced, depending upon the type of facility.  The formulas are non-discretionary, based upon established production goals.  This plan creates peer pressure for everyone to perform well and, in some facilities, is tied to on-time attendance.  No bonus is paid if equipment is not operating, creating strong emphasis on maintaining equipment in top operational condition at all times.  Maintenance personnel are assigned to each shift, and they participate in the bonus along with the other bonus groups.  Production supervisors are part of the bonus group and receive the same bonus as the employees they supervise.  The bonus can average 80-170 percent of the base wage and has no set limit.

2.    Department Manager:  Department managers earn incentive bonuses paid annually based primarily on the return on investment of their facility.  These bonuses can be as much as 100 percent of base salary.  All facilities have a common and clear goal since these bonuses are based on easily understood plans.

3.    Non-Production and Non-Department Manager:  This group includes accountants, engineers, clerks, receptionists, and others.  Their bonus is based primarily on their facility's return on investment.  The bonus is based on a written plan that is clear and accessible to employees.  Each operation receives a monthly report showing its year-to-date return on investment.  This chart is posted in the employee cafeteria or break area together with a chart of the bonus payments.  This bonus can be as much as 28 percent of their salary.

4.    Senior Officer:  Nucor senior officers do not have employment contracts.  They receive no profit sharing pension or retirement plan.  Their base salaries are set at less than what executives at comparable companies receive.  A significant part of senior officer compensation is based on Nucor's return on stockholder's equity, above certain minimum earnings.  A portion of pre-tax earnings is placed into a pool that is divided among the officers in bonuses that are about 60 percent cash and 40 percent stock.  If Nucor does well, the officers' pay is well above average, as much as several times base salary.  If not, the officers' compensation is only base salary.

In addition to these established bonus plans, Nucor has periodically issued an extraordinary bonus to all employees, except officers, in years of particularly strong company performance.  This bonus has been as high as $2000 for each employee.

Egalitarian Benefits

Nucor takes an egalitarian approach in providing benefits to its employees.  Senior executives do not enjoy traditional perquisites such as company cars, executive dining rooms, or executive parking places.  In fact, certain benefits such as Nucor's Profit Sharing, Scholarship Program, Employee Stock Investment Plan, Extraordinary Bonus and Service Awards Program are not available to Nucor's officers.  All employees have the same holidays, vacation schedules, and insurance programs.  This equality in benefits is a key ingredient toward fostering the teamwork approach that is an essential part of Nucor's business.

Teamwork

Eliminating the distinctions between management and hourly employees as much as possible serves Nucor well.  Nucor's employees respond positively to Nucor's production incentives.  In return, Nucor remains committed to not laying off employees in slow periods.  Since its entry into the steel-making business, Nucor has not laid off a single worker due to lack of work.  The result is a committed team of Nucor employees and high-quality products.  Nucor builds quality into its processes through continuous improvement, innovation, consistent investment in modern equipment, customer focus, and a diligent commitment to safety. 

Just one example of fostering teamwork:  the annual employee dinners held at each facility.  General managers are responsible for holding annual dinners with every employee in groups of 25-100 at a time.  These meetings give employees a chance to discuss issues related to scheduling, equipment, organization, and production.  The ground rules for these meetings are simple:  Comments involve business, not personalities, and management responds quickly to all criticism.  The format is free and open.  Sessions sometimes last well beyond midnight.  In a similar manner, the general managers meet with corporate management in February, May, and November of each year to review each facility's performance and to plan for the months and years ahead.

Please see the Annual Report and News Releases for information on Nucor's current and future growth plans.

Board of Directors and Executive Management of Nucor Corporation