Bethlehem Steel structural rolling

Bethlehem became the second-largest steel company in the world by learning to roll structural I-beams, enabling 100-story buildings (vs the previous 10-story limit with riveted construction). Tom's first employer.

Remember I said there are structural materials and functional materials. Structural materials are made in very large volumes. You're not going to make steel I-beams by additive manufacturing. You can make them by rolling. That's how Bethlehem Steel — now defunct, that was the first company that hired me — became the second largest steel company in the world, because they learned how to roll I-beams, and they built New York City. The tallest building before Bethlehem could roll I-beams was about ten stories, because you had to make riveted I-beams. When they learned to roll them on the mill, all of a sudden, a cheap process to make I-beams, efficient use of steel — you can go up 100 stories. Some people consider that rolling of structural shapes was the technology that built the second largest steel company in the world. Bethlehem had two technologies. One was structural rolling. The other, they came up with a type of tool steel that machined better than anything else, very high hardness, and they got a patent on that.