Smeal Alum Named Chairman Of U.S. Steel
United States Steel Corporation announced that its board of directors has elected Smeal alumnus John P. Surma Jr. as chairman of the board, effective February 1, 2006. He will continue to serve as president and chief executive officer of the company.
Smeal Alum Named Chairman Of U.S. Steel
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (November 29, 2005)—United States Steel Corporation announced that its board of directors has elected Smeal alumnus John P. Surma Jr. as chairman of the board, effective February 1, 2006. He will continue to serve as president and chief executive officer of the company.
Surma graduated from Penn State's Smeal College of Business in 1976 with a bachelor's degree in accounting. He remains an involved supporter of the college, serving on the Board of Visitors and actively investing in the Nittany Lion Fund, Smeal's student-managed investment portfolio.
Upon his graduation from Smeal, Surma joined Price Waterhouse LLP in 1976 where he served a number of major companies in the steel, oil and gas, chemicals, mining and manufactured products industries. In 1997, Surma joined Marathon Oil Company as senior vice president, finance and accounting. He was appointed president, Speedway SuperAmerica LLC in 1998, and senior vice president, supply and transportation for Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC (MAP) in 2000. He was named president of MAP on January 1, 2001, and assumed the position of assistant to the chairman of USX on September 1, 2001.
Surma joined U. S. Steel in January 2002 as vice chairman and chief financial officer immediately following the company's spinoff from USX Corporation. He was elected president in March 2003, president and chief operating officer in June of the same year, and president and chief executive officer in October 2004.
He currently serves as chairman of the American Iron and Steel Institute, vice chairman of the International Iron and Steel Institute, and as a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Manufacturers.
When founded in 1901, U.S. Steel was the largest business enterprise ever launched, with an authorized capitalization of $1.4 billion. Today, the company manufactures a wide variety of steel sheet, tubular and tin products; coke, and taconite pellets; and has a worldwide annual raw steel capability of 26.8 million net tons. U.S. Steel is based in Pittsburgh.
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
