J&L is one of America's largest steel companies. We make a complete line of different steel products that find their way into automobiles, trucks, ships, homes, office buildings, tools, machines, sporting goods, appliances and countless other familiar manufactured items. We ship millions of tons of steel every year. It's a good bet that many of the things you own or use each day contain J&L steel.
J&L is a fully integrated steelmaker. This means that we produce our steel products from scratch. We get much of the raw materials we need (coal, iron ore and limestone) from our own mines. We make iron, and then steel, in our own furnaces. And we manufacture a diversified assortment of steel products: sheet, strip, bars and wire, to name a few, in our own mills.
We've prepared this booklet to help answer some of the questions you may have about steel, about steelmaking and about J&L. Steelmaking is a complex business and we've tried to uncomplicate the steelmaking process throughout this booklet by using language understandable for all of our readers. We think you will be fascinated by the variety of things we do. Making quality steel involves a host of activities, an extensive array of facilities and the skills of thousands of workers.
Some J&Lers work in our raw materials operations; others make iron, steel and semi-finished steel products in our basic and specialty steel plants; some can be found in our administrative offices and research facilities; still others are responsible for selling J&L's products to customers all across the country and for ensuring customer satisfaction.
We've invited two of the best-known J&Lers-Jake and Looey -to accompany you through some of our facilities. Jake and Looey have been with J&L since 1974. They are the creations of Lee Sokol, whose full-time job is stove tender on a blast furnace at our Pittsburgh Works. Lee, a self-taught cartoonist, joined J&L in 1935. He has drawn hundreds of Jake & Looey cartoons for J&L employee publications.
Keep in mind as you read this booklet that you are seeing only part of our overall operations. In December, 1978, the Lykes Corporation, parent company of Youngstown Sheet & Tube, was merged into The LTV Corporation, parent firm of J&L. J&L and YS&T are now being operated as a single steel business. We have plants, mines, offices and other facilities in 21 states and Canada. Because it is impossible to show you everything, we have focused on the activities that will help all of our readers, employees and their families, students and members of our plant communities to better understand steelmaking technology.