Nucor Steel Auburn Prepares to Celebrate 50 in Central New York

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Nucor is one of the few steel manufacturers in the region. Located in Auburn, it is one of the largest companies in Cayuga County.

The company is preparing to celebrate 50 years in Central New York.

Like many companies, Nucor is poised for significant growth as a results of the government’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Buy America program).

What’s new at Nucor?

“Our team! Of our roughly 275 teammates, more than half of them have been with the company less than 10 years. Having so much new talent is a new situation for us,” said Blake Turner, head of human resources.

Also new is the plant’s general manager.

Metka Kolm has served as GM of Nucor Steel Auburn since November 2023.

She began her career with Nucor in 2010 as an accountant at the company’s bar mill division located in Norfolk, Nebraska. Metka has held multiple roles over the 13 years in Nucor — from accounting, technology and business process teams. The last six years she’s been controller in the Nebraska division.

Metka and her husband, Allen, are the parents of two children.

“My vision for the team is a future where every teammate goes home safe every day and our division meets and exceeds its financial goals, while being a partner in the Auburn community and New York,” Kolm said. “That’s the vision we’re striving for. We’re building a culture where safety is the foundation of our success, driving innovation and efficiency that leads to sustainable profitability.”

Turner said, “Our big focus at this point is setting up our business for the next generation. We are a multi-generational facility.”

In May 2025, Nucor will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Auburn mill and many of their teammates who had spent multiple decades at the mill have recently hit retirement age, he added.

“As a result, we have needed to bring in a lot of new talent at Nucor Steel Auburn. With so many new teammates, we have been challenging ourselves to look at our operations from a new perspective,” he said.

For example, they have asked the new teammates to use their fresh eyes to see where and how Nucor can improve on the safety front. At Nucor, safety is the No. 1 priority, “because we work in an industry where any incident can shatter lives.”

“That is why we have worked to create a culture where working safely is the most important thing we can do. Our main focus each day is to send our team home to their families and loved ones in the same way they came in,” he said.

They are also working on doing a better job at telling Nucor’s sustainability story.

“At our Auburn mill, 97% of the inputs we use to make our steel is recycled content, which results in some of the cleanest steel being made anywhere in the world today. The recycled content we use comes from scrap metal that is sourced locally — so instead of this material being dumped in a landfill, we are able to take it and turn it into new steel that goes into the everyday world around us,” Turner explained. “And when those products hit their end of their useful life — whether it’s a highrise, a bridge or a highway — we will reclaim the scrap and do it all over again.”

Nationwide, Nucor recycles more than 20 million tons of steel across 26 mills and turns it into new steel. This method of steelmaking has made Nucor the largest recycler of any type of material in North America and one of the top five recyclers in the world.

“Recycling has also made us one of the most sustainable steel producers in the world. Our Nucor steel mills produce less than 1% of the particulate emissions and are only one-third as carbon-intensive compared to traditional extractive steelmaking methods that use a blast furnace and require coking coal,” Turner said. “And our Auburn bar is even cleaner! Because we produce our bar steel using nearly 100% recycled content and clean hydroelectric electricity to power our furnace, Nucor Steel Auburn’s greenhouse gas intensity is only 4%-5% of the average extractive steelmaker using a blast furnace.”

What the future holds

Local officials are excited about the future as the expected growth and changes to the area provide a huge opportunity and need for steel.

“With a renewed interest in manufacturing and bringing good manufacturing jobs back to the United States — and specifically to Central New York — we are excited for the future of our region and all it has to offer,” he said. “In addition, large investments are being made in education, specifically in skilled trades and we believe that these investments will continue to produce new opportunities and new teammates for our facility for many years to come. We are also excited to be rolling out a new partnership with the MOST [Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology in Syracuse], which we will use to strengthen our commitment the local community and to educate students and others about our modern steelmaking operations.”

They also see some challenges on the horizon, he added.

The steel industry in this area competes in the global marketplace and not only does Nucor have competition from domestic steel manufactures, “we also have to compete with international steel manufacturers that do not have the same high standards compared to the U.S. with regard to safety and sustainability,” Turner said.

“As we look to the future, we are looking at what is coming from a regulation and energy standpoint. Operationally, we rely heavily on our ability to procure reliable and affordable baseload power and so far have benefited from having access to a robust and clean electric grid. With new pending regulations and changes to how the state views energy use, we find ourselves navigating some new challenges, but we are confident that we can find a solution that benefits both the state of New York and Nucor,” Turner said.

Schumer supports US steel

During a stop at Nucor in Auburn on May 20, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D–NY) called on the federal government to stop China and other countries from sending steel through Mexico to avoid tariffs.

When cheap, Chinese-made steel products flood the market through Mexico, it hurts Central New York steel producers like Nucor in Auburn, Crucible Steel in Geddes and Novelis in Oswego, which cannot compete with this “unfair dumping,” Schumer said.

“The Biden administration’s just-announced actions to hit back against China’s continued rule-breaking are a big step in the right direction. But more needs to be done now to address the Mexico steel dumping loophole,” Schumer said in his announcement. “That’s why I am calling on the feds to level the playing field for American-made steel and prevent Chinese exports from exploiting loopholes to gain access to U.S. markets.”

The Trump administration negotiated the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and left loopholes when it comes to Chinese exports entering the U.S. market via Mexico, the senator said.

To support American manufacturers, President Biden has committed to tripling the existing section 301 tariff rate on Chinese steel and aluminum from 7.5% to 25%.

 Courtesy: www.oswegocountybusiness.com