John Surma, executive chairman of United States Steel Corporation, will present “Steel: The Material of Modern Society and an American Company That Makes it,” at West Virginia University on Thursday, Sept. 19.
The lecture, which is at 2 p.m. in room G102 of the Engineering Sciences Building, Evansdale campus, is part of the Glen H. Hiner Distinguished Lecture Series in the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources.
Surma, who earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Pennsylvania State University, joined Price Waterhouse LLP in 1976, and in 1981 he served in the Manchester, England, office of the Price Waterhouse United Kingdom firm. In 1987, he was admitted to the partnership.
In 1983, Surma participated in the President’s Executive Exchange Program in Washington, D.C., where he served as executive staff assistant to the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
He joined Marathon Oil Company, a division of USX Corporation, in 1997 as senior vice president for finance and accounting. He was appointed president, Speedway SuperAmerica LLC in 1998, and senior vice president, supply and transportation, for Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC in 2000. He was named president of MAP on Jan. 1, 2001.
Effective with the separation of Marathon Oil from USX, Surma became vice chairman and chief financial officer of United States Steel Corporation on Jan. 1, 2002. He was named president in March 2003, and president and chief operating officer in June 2003. He was elected president and chief executive officer in 2004, and chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer in February 2006. Surma retired as CEO in August 2013.
A native of Pittsburgh, Surma is a member of the board of directors of Marathon Petroleum Corporation, Ingersoll Rand and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. He was appointed by President Barack Obama to the president’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations and currently serves as vice chairman. He serves on the board of directors of the World Steel Association, the American Iron and Steel Institute and the National Safety Council. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors and executive committee of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.
The Glen H. Hiner Distinguished Lecture Series is named in honor of the outstanding alumnus who, in 2005, established an endowment to support the deanship of the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources at WVU.
Glen H. Hiner graduated from WVU’s Department of Electrical Engineering in 1957, and then embarked on an outstanding 35-year career with General Electric. In 1992, he became chief executive officer of Owens Corning. He has served on several Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources’ advisory committees, as a visiting professor in the WVU College of Business and Economics and as a member of the WVU Foundation Board of Directors.
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CONTACT: Mary C. Dillon, Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
304.293.4086; mary.dillon@mail.wvu.edu
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