ALL FOR ONE

One of the most important aspects of having a vibrant, healthy, productive and satisfying workforce is to ensure its diversity: diversity of background, diversity of thought, diversity of experience and diversity of ability.

Companies across the country are paying greater attention than ever to the makeup of their labor force, motivated by a combination of public relations, a response to the increased labor shortage, and customer demands.

At Nucor Steel Arkansas and Nucor-Yamato Steel (NYS), the production floor and offices are populated by men and women of various ages, races, ethnic backgrounds and countries of origin. In short, they reflect the communities of which they’re so proud to be a part. Their common denominator – what binds them all together – is a desire to build a career, look out for the safety of their fellow teammates, and support the company that makes it possible.

“As far as diversity goes, I see a lot of people of color here,” said Tyrone Dodd, who joined Nucor-Yamato Steel right out of high school last summer. “We all want to do a job and be safe doing it. It doesn’t really matter where you come from or what you look like -we’re all just one team.”

Nucor’s success in recruiting from a diversity of backgrounds has become almost self-sustaining, with members of our vibrant Arkansas community attracted to the company based on what they see in the faces of Nucor teammates.

“I think it’s like the old saying, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see,’” said Randy

Henderson, Safety Coordinator with Nucor Steel Arkansas. “When I think about the dynamics in this area, I think about leadership. You’ve got to have people of all backgrounds in leadership positions, which I’m proud to say we do. That way, students and people in the community see these people and know there’s a pathway for them.”

Nucor teammates know, once a new teammate joins the company, they will have an incredibly broad range of people in varying departments stepping up as mentors to assist in fulfilling career goals.

“I was blessed with the way things worked out for me here,” said James Jones, a lab crew leader who has worked at Nucor-Yamato Steel for 13 years. “Nucor runs on the abilities of its teammates more than anything. We have people who have worked here a long time, people who helped me move up at an accelerated rate. I was always well-received and was taken under someone’s wing to teach me how to be part of the Nucor leadership team.”

Almost everyone at a Nucor mill has a story about how the working environment and all-for-one mentality elevated their work life and inspired them to want to move past a job into a career. Despite being on the job less than a year, Mayra Gonzalez, a single mother of two originally from Mexico, has one such story. “I am a coil wrapper and handler; I prep the coils according to their packaging code and ship them out either by rail or truck,” she said. “My advice for others is to never give up. Everything is possible if you set your mind to it. I never really had a role model, so I became one to my daughters.”

FRENZEL MORALES

PC Tech, Nucor Steel Arkansas

Country of Origin: The Philippines

Age: 27

Tenure with Nucor: 9 months

BLUEPRINT: How did you get interested in your career field?

FRENZEL MORALES: Growing up, I leaned toward technology, and I was a very curious person. Any toy I had, I broke it apart just to see how it functioned and how it worked. I took my first phone apart to see how it worked.

BP: What would surprise people about the level of technology at work in the steel plant?

FM: At Nucor, our biggest thing is safety. Some of the technology we’ve engineered works to take a person out of a dangerous position. Some of what we do is baseline work, but there’s a lot that’s more complicated. Last week I had to work on a computer that had specialty software just for that specific manufacturing area.

BP: Is all your work on PCs or do you work with the manufacturing equipment?

FM: We do a lot of what’s in-between, depending on where the equipment is out at the mill. It could be a computer, it could also be a printer, it could be a label printer that we print out labels to put on finished coils. If any of this equipment isn’t working, we swap it out and change it. And we have to work fast to get back up and running so it doesn’t stop production.

BP: What do you like about working at Nucor?

FM: Where do I start? I have a great team and my team always has my back. We’re working in an environment where there’s a lot of hot metal, and it can be somewhat dangerous. But at the same time, it’s all well thought out.