Richard Veitch comes to USSK

From June 1st Scott Pape leaves for the USA after three years here in Kosice. "I appreciate his hard work for the company and all that he has done for the Kosice plant during his three years' service," says President Dave Lohr about Scott, who came to Slovakia in 2003 and later, in the position of Vice-president Operations, was involved in a period of the company when great capital investment projects were implemented. At the workshops he was well known for his "Ako sa mas?" and other Slovak sentences.
His new appointment is Director - Operations & Business Planning, where he wants also to make use of his experience from Slovakia. Scott is most pleased by the 75% reduction in the number of occupational injuries at USSK during his time here, but still thinks we have far to go. He especially urges all employees to study the Cardinal Rules and remember the goal - All injuries are preventable. Scott Pape will be replaced by Richard Veitch (1962), currently Plant Manager, Irvin Operations. Richard has great experience at National Steel and USS Gary prior to 2003. He re-joined U. S. Steel in 2003 at the Midwest Plant as Sheet Division Manager. In the same year he was promoted to Plant Manager in Mon Valley Works, where he worked until 2006 at the Irvin Operation. Rich comes to USSK with much experience in Hot Dip Galvanziing construction and operations. "I want to continue where Scott left off in Safety and in all of our business drivers," says Rich about his assignmnent in Kosice. Richard is a native of Pittsburgh, and earned both bachelor's and master's degrees at Purdue University, West Lafayette, In.

How managers are born

For the best part of the last eight months the American operations of the U. S. Steel Corporation have been the workplace of six young managers from the Kosice steelworks. They have been taking part in a pilot project there called SMATP (Slovak Management Associates Training Program), aiming to perfect their management skills. From the original number of young applicants from the ranks of USSK employees, six candidates sucessfully completed the selection procedures. Technical University graduates Michal Vyrostko, Martin Konopasek and Ladislav Petrik have been gaining experience at Gary Works, while Bohus Pavlik, Marek Dranga and Jan Juhas have been at Mon Valley Works. Ocel Vychodu is publishing an interview with these young managers about their experience from the USS Corporation's operations in America.

World Championships will be at Steel Arena

From the venue of this year's World Ice-Hockey Championships, Riga in Latvia, some excellent news reached Slovakia last Friday. In the year 2011 Slovakia, more precisely Bratislava and Kosice's Steel Arena, will be hosting these very same championships for the first time in history. Slovakia received votes from as many as 70 IIHF delegates, and unexpectedly in the first round of voting, thus gaining an excellent chance to show up in a good light as the organizers in front of ice-hockey fans from all over the world.

Environmental competition winners

Encouraging young people to have a positive attitude towards the environment was the principal goal of two environmental competitions named "Where and how we are going to live" and "What we never knew till now", put on last year for elementary school pupils and secondary school students in Kosice and the surrounding area by U. S. Steel Kosice. Last Friday, May 19th, the Slovan cinema was the venue for the official judging and prize-giving ceremony, which was also attended by U. S. Steel Kosice President David H. Lohr.