North Star Plating history

Besides a new presence in the waste disposal, metals processing, and beef and salt production markets, Cargill also sought a place in the steel industry, and in February 1974 it acquired North Star and its thriving minimill business.

The Wilton mill came on line in 1976 and was soon producing 150,000 tons of rebars and structural flats annually and employing 250.

A metallurgical engineer who began working in steel mills at age 18, Garvey gave fair warning of his career's promise in 1978 when he was promoted to general manager of North Star's St Paul mill less than a year after joining the company.

North Star nevertheless acquired a wire rod steel mill in Beaumont, Texas, from Korf Industries in 1983 and announced the appointment of a new executive vice president, Robert A. Garvey, a fast-rising manager who had begun his North Star career as the St Paul plant's melt shop superintendent.

His first addition was the rolling mill of the bankrupt Ohio River Steel in Calvert City, Ohio, which he followed in April 1985 with the acquisition of the inactive Hunt Steel Co. minimill of Youngstown, Ohio.

In 1990 North Star and Cleveland Cliffs Inc. of Ohio formed a joint venture to explore the technical and commercial feasibility of producing iron carbide to replace scrap in the steelmaking process.

In 1993, North Star announced it would double the production capacity of its St Paul mill to 650,000 tons and won Cargill's final approval for the construction of a new $140 million minimill in Kingman, Arizona.

After Garvey won an unprecedented concession from Arizona power utilities in early 1994 to allow North Star to buy electricity from any utility it chose, construction of the new plant began in May.

In June 1995, North Star finally broke ground for its Ohio mill, and in September Garvey announced North Star would infuse another $1.3 million into its St Paul mill to optimize its ability to generate scrap from car bodies and appliances.