Steel industry executive John Correnti dies

John Correnti, CEO of Big River Steel, Osceola, Arkansas, has reportedly died at the age of 68. Correnti was found dead in Chicago, where he had been on a business-related trip, according to an online report from KATV Channel 7 of Little Rock, Arkansas.

Correnti was an executive with Charlotte, North Carolina-based Nucor Corp. in the 1990s, where he helped expand the company’s presence in the scrap-fed electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking sector.

After leaving Nucor, Correnti co-founded another EAF steelmaking firm that was eventually bought out by financial partner and Russian steelmaker Severstal. (Severstal sold off the two EAF mills in 2014.)

Correnti spent much of the current decade establishing Big River Steel, another EAF steelmaker that is constructing a $1.3 billion mill in Osceola. The mill is scheduled to come online in the summer of 2016.

On Aug. 21, steel industry analyst and consultant Peter Marcus of World Steel Dynamics, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, e-mailed a tribute to Correnti, who he called “one of the pioneers of the USA steel industry.”

Marcus also referred to Correnti as “a relentless, opportunistic and successful expansionist” who “never deviated far from the principals of Ken Iverson, the [long-time CEO] of Nucor and its driving force for so many years.”

Added Marcus, “Nucor produced a group of entrepreneurs—John Correnti, Dan DiMicco, Keith Busse, John Ferriola, Mark Millet, Dick Teets, Rodney Mott and many others—who have made the domestic steel industry far more competitive. Try to imagine the condition of the domestic steel industry today without them.

“John Correnti always seemed to find the best people to work with him,” Marcus continued. “His happy laugh when he said hello to everyone, and anyone, will be missed. Condolences to the steel industry, to his wife, Dawn, and to his son. Let's keep John immortal by carrying forward his spirit.”