Curtis”Hank”Barnette will speak on The Steel Industry: Strategies in the 21st Century at 5 p.m., Friday, Oct. 20, at the West Virginia University College of Business and Economics Building in Room 458.

Barnette is chairman emeritus of Bethlehem Steel Corp. and served as chairman and CEO of Bethlehem from 1992 until his retirement this year. Before this, he was the companys senior vice president, general counsel and secretary. He joined Bethlehem as an attorney in 1967. Barnette is now of counsel for the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher&Flom LLP .

A native of West Virginia, Barnette graduated from WVU in 1956. He was a Fulbright Scholar in International Law at the University of Manchester in England and is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard University Business School. He has received honorary LL.D. degrees from WVU , Allentown College, the University of Charleston and Lehigh University.

Bethlehem Steel Corp. is the second largest integrated steel producer in the United States, earning $4.5 billion in revenues and producing 9 million tons of steel per year. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher&Flom LLP is one of the largest law firms in the world. It provides a broad range of legal services to the corporate, industrial and financial communities, representing a broad spectrum of clients, from small high_technology start_up companies to nearly half of the Fortune 250 industrial and service corporations, as well as many financial and governmental entities.

Barnetts lecture is part of the Acordia/Royal&SunAlliance Distinguished Lecture Series. The College of Business and Economics has offered this lecture series since 1984. Known for 15 years as the McDonough Caperton Distinguished Lecture Series, it was renamed the Acordia/Orion Capital Series in 1999 in response to changes in sponsorship.

Admission is free and open to the public. For information, call 304-293-7804.