Bethlehem Steel Corp

Inland Steel to raise pricesInland Steel Inc. said yesterday that it will raise prices on carbon and high-strength low-alloy steel plates by $10 a ton, effective July 4. The steelmaker also said it will raise prices for strip mill plates by $20 a ton in July.The announcement follows similar price increases last week by Bethlehem Steel Corp.

William H. Hoffman, a retired U.S. Food and Drug Administration official, died Monday from septic shock after kidney transplant surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The longtime Ellicott City resident was 81. William Harry Hoffman was born in Baltimore and raised on East Lanvale Street and his grandfather's Owings Mills farm. After graduating from Polytechnic Institute in 1950, he worked briefly as a carpenter's assistant and as a draftsman at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point plant, while attending the Johns Hopkins University at night.

An article in yesterday's edition of The Sun incorrectly reported that Bethlehem Steel Corp. owns and operates the Sparrows Point Country Club. The steel company sold the country club to private interests in 1985.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 5/25/96

Norbert Joseph Rottloff Sr., a retired Bethlehem Steel Corp. engineer, died of heart disease Saturday at Franklin Square Medical Center. The Timonium resident was 82. Born in Baltimore and raised on Franklin Street, he attended St. Bernardine's Parochial School and was a member of its drum and bugle corps. His studies at Polytechnic Institute were interrupted by service in the Navy during World War II. He later earned a diploma at City College and received a physics degree at Loyola College.

The Eastern Baltimore Area Chamber of Commerce named Janet L. Rafky of Franklin Square Hospital, president; George Wilbanks of R.J. Carpet Distributors, first vice president; Bobby Edmondson of C&P Telephone Co., second vice president; Joel B. Charkatz, CPA, KAWG & F, treasurer; Peter S. Saucier of Venable, Baetjer & Howard, attorney; Jane Navarria of Maryland National Bank, member-at-large and Sharon Snyder of Bethlehem Steel Corp., member-at-large.

Richard Hammonds, a former steel worker, died Monday of heart failure at his West Baltimore home. He was 70.The Baltimore native worked at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point plant from 1953 to 1980, and later as a security guard at Rite Aid pharmacies.He served in the Army in 1945 and 1946.A private service is planned.He is survived by his wife, the former Jennifer Wisley, whom he married in 1956; a son, Edward Hammonds of New York; a daughter, Sandra Wallace of Baltimore; and three grandchildren.

Norbert Joseph Rottloff Sr., a retired Bethlehem Steel Corp. engineer, died of heart disease Saturday at Franklin Square Medical Center. The Timonium resident was 82. Born in Baltimore and raised on Franklin Street, he attended St. Bernardine's Parochial School and was a member of its drum and bugle corps. His studies at Polytechnic Institute were interrupted by service in the Navy during World War II. He later earned a diploma at City College and received a physics degree at Loyola College.

Cardoza W. BarberRetired truck driverCardoza W. Barber, a retired truck driver and former steel worker, died Monday of kidney failure at Maryland General Hospital. The East Baltimore resident was 70.He retired about 10 years ago after driving a truck for the Newman Barrel Co. for about five years. Earlier, he worked at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point plant.Born in Chester, S.C., he moved to Baltimore in 1934, and was a graduate of Douglass High School. He served in the Navy during World War II.He sang in the sanctuary choir of Knox Presbyterian Church, 1300 N. Eden St., Baltimore, where services were planned for noon today.

A 59-year-old Bethlehem Steel Corp. foreman died yesterday afternoon after falling 16 feet from a raised concrete pad at the Sparrows Point mill, a company spokesman said.Fritz A. Schildt, of the 2300 block of Perry Ave. in Edgemere, died immediately after falling onto a basement floor about 1 p.m. yesterday, said G. Ted Baldwin, the company spokesman.Mr. Schildt, who had worked at Bethlehem for 37 years, was checking the motor on a piece of equipment before the fall, Mr. Baldwin said.The fatality -- the second in a month at the steel plant, Maryland's most dangerous workplace -- is being investigated by the company, the United Steel Workers of America officials, the state medical examiner and the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health office.

Charles Joseph Meninger Jr., a recently retired steel worker, died of cancer Sunday at his Eastwood home. He was 54. He worked at the Sparrows Point plant of Bethlehem Steel Corp. for 37 years, most recently in the rod mill. Born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown and Eastwood, he was a graduate of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parochial School and, in 1966, Dundalk High School. A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow at Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church, where he was a member.

The Maryland Science Center plans to announce today that a former Bethlehem Steel Corp. division president will be its new chief executive - part of a growing number of cultural institutions tapping new leadership from the business world to help their nonprofits survive. Van Reiner, who spent 29 years in management positions with Bethlehem Steel Corp. - most recently as president at the Sparrows Point mill - before it was bought in 2003 by International Steel Group Inc., has served as the science center's interim director since September.

Harrison E. Tucker, a retired Bethlehem Steel Corp. crane operator and longtime member of Zion Baptist Church, died of heart failure Wednesday at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 98. Mr. Tucker was born and raised in Dinwiddie County, Va., where he attended public schools. The son of a farmer, he left school to help support his family. He moved to Baltimore in 1929, working as a crane operator at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point plant. During his 42-year career, he missed only several days of work when he was briefly hospitalized in 1964 after suffering a heart attack.

When developers begin clearing a large brick warehouse on Key Highway later this month to make way for the Ritz Carlton condominiums, they won't be tearing down just another industrial building. They will be removing from the urban landscape the last building that remains from the Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s former 42-acre Key Highway Shipyard, once one of the region's largest employers and for decades a fixture of the Inner Harbor. Its replacement with luxury condos will be a dramatic sign of Baltimore's transformation from a gritty, blue-collar port city to an upscale urban destination where people will pay top dollar to live on the waterfront.

Elizabeth Shannahan McShane, a Baltimore artist and teacher who was known for her restoration work, died of heart failure Monday at the Pickersgill retirement community. She was 98. Mrs. McShane was born Elizabeth Shannahan in Baltimore and raised in Sparrows Point, where her father worked at Bethlehem Steel Corp. Her interest in art began as a child when she began drawing with crayons. "I never thought about talent. I thought I was having fun," she said in a 1995 interview in The Sun. After graduating from Sparrows Point High School, she enrolled at what is now Maryland Institute College of Art and commuted to school aboard a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train that had earlier in the day brought workers to the steel mill.

About 80 workers at Baltimore Marine Industries Inc.'s shipyard at Sparrows Point were laid off yesterday after finishing maintenance work on a U.S. Navy ship, leaving about 30 employees at the yard and casting further doubt on the future of the company. BMI, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection June 11, received court approval this month to meet payroll obligations so that workers could complete work on the USNS Dahl, a company official said. The company, which is owned by Veritas Capital, a New York private equity investment firm, filed for bankruptcy after seeing business decline more than 30 percent this year.

A flurry of faxes, a few strokes of the pen in a Manhattan law office and the swift electronic shift of hundreds of millions of dollars yesterday ended the 99-year life of Bethlehem Steel Corp., an industrial giant emblematic of American economic power for much of the 20th century. At Sparrows Point in Baltimore County, in Burns Harbor, Ind., and in four other Bethlehem plants across the country, handfuls of survivors surrounded by banks of high-tech, automated steel-manufacturing equipment mourned the company's demise.

Services for Oscar Hughes, a retired steel worker who was active in his church, will be held at noon Monday at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1300 Druid Hill Ave.Mr. Hughes, who was 80 and lived on Arunah Avenue, died of heart failure Thursday at the Liberty Medical Center.He retired in 1975 as a wire drawer after working at the Sparrows Point plant of the Bethlehem Steel Corp. for 46 years.Born and educated in Alton, Va., he came to Baltimore in 1929 and served in the Army in Europe during World War II.At Bethel A.M.E.

Evangelo Agelopas, who retired as general open-hearth foreman at the Sparrows Point plant of the Bethlehem Steel Corp., died Sunday at North Arundel Hospital, where he was taken after having a heart attack while returning from the Eastern Shore.Services for Mr. Agelopas, who was 68 and lived on Portship Road in Dundalk, were being held today at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, 520 S. Ponca St.He retired in 1983, with the title of general foreman-steelmaking, after working for more than 32 years at the steel mill.

WASHINGTON - The nation's top steel executives and the leader of the steelworkers' union urged members of a joint congressional caucus yesterday to support steel tariffs for two more years, despite the World Trade Organization's ruling last month that the U.S. tariffs are illegal. The top executives from International Steel Group Inc., U.S. Steel Corp., Nucor Corp. and Weirton Steel Corp. said President Bush's tariff program, which began in March last year, helped boost steel prices and gave the troubled domestic steel industry time to consolidate after enduring years of illegal dumping of cheaper steel from foreign countries.

A year after President Bush imposed tariffs on imported steel, the controversial move continues to evoke sharp criticism as well as unwavering support from steelmakers, manufacturers and industry experts. Steelmakers applaud the tariffs for helping to shore up domestic steel prices over the past year, encourage consolidation in a troubled industry, and dissuade foreign nations from flooding the U.S. market with cheaper steel. But many steel consumers argue that the tariffs have caused economic hardship among manufacturers, and forced them to pay higher prices for steel that goes into their products.