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AK Steel Celebrates Being Named GM Supplier of the Year

27 July 2000

AK Steel Celebrates Being Named GM Supplier of the Year

    MIDDLETOWN, Ohio - AK Steel celebrated being named General Motors Supplier 
of the Year for the second consecutive year here today.  Ronald R. Schuster, 
General Motors director, worldwide purchasing, steel and metal forming, and 
several other GM officials were greeted in Middletown today by hundreds of AK 
Steel employees wearing shirts and ball caps proclaiming the steel company's 
honor.
    
    GM is AK Steel's largest customer, supplying about one million of the
6.2 million tons of steel GM purchases annually.  AK Steel supplies steel for
more than 30 different GM model vehicles.

    Under a tent in front of the company's corporate office, and with several
GM model vehicles as a backdrop, AK Steel chairman and chief executive officer
Richard M. Wardrop, Jr. credited the company's employees with unparalleled
commitment in achieving the prestigious honor for the second year in a row.

    "We're here today because you want to be the best and you are the best,"
Mr. Wardrop told the gathered crowd.  Mr. Wardrop also noted that the
company's Middletown Works would celebrate 100 years of continuous operation
later this year, an event few steel communities ever witness.

    "In fact, in 1910, our predecessors here in Middletown began experimenting
with steel sheets for use in automobile bodies for General Motors," he said.
"So here we are, 90 years later, and we're still helping each other grow.  But
let's not lose sight of the fact that we have earned this honor because we've
been a part of helping our largest customer be successful," Mr. Wardrop said.

    "We are extremely proud of the job AK Steel has done in serving GM," said
Mr. Schuster.  "As we said last year, becoming a repeat award winner is even
more difficult than being a first-time honoree.  Only 46 of this year's 181
Supplier of the Year companies are two-time winners," he said.

    AK Steel supplies a variety of flat-rolled steel products to a number of
General Motors facilities in North America.  The company produces flat-rolled
carbon, stainless and electrical steel products for automotive, appliance,
construction and manufacturing markets, as well as standard pipe and tubular
steel products.  AK Steel is headquartered in Middletown, Ohio.  It employs
about 11,000 men and women in plants and offices in Middletown, Coshocton,
Mansfield, Warren and Zanesville, Ohio; Ashland, Kentucky; Rockport, Indiana;
and Butler, Sharon and Wheatland, Pennsylvania.  AK Steel also produces snow
and ice control products, and operates a major industrial park on the Houston,
Texas ship channel.