ELLWOOD welcomed college students from the Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) on May 3 for an immersive, behind-the-scenes tour of its manufacturing operations as part of the Steel to Students program during the AISTech 2026 Pittsburgh Conference.
The visit included tours of ELLWOOD Quality Steels, ELLWOOD City Forge – New Castle, and North American Forgemasters, giving students direct exposure to advanced steelmaking and forging processes and the opportunity to see classroom concepts applied in an industrial setting.
Throughout the day, students engaged with ELLWOOD team members and explored career pathways into careers in metallurgy, engineering, and advanced manufacturing through in-depth tours on the plant floors.
“Coming into manufacturing you have to want to learn every day, get out on the plant floor, and ask questions,” said Ben O’Donnell, Metallurgist at ELLWOOD City Forge, “Being an ELLWOOD Metallurgy Scholarship winner, I had the opportunity to go on a tour and knew this was the kind of environment I would thrive in.”
Rose Sharga, a current Metallurgical Engineering Development Program candidate at ELLWOOD Materials Technologies, emphasized the importance of connecting academic learning with industry experience.
“The classroom is very different from the real world. It is important to get students on the plant floors so they can experience everything they have talked about in theory and see how it all comes together in practice,” said Sharga.
The Steel to Students Program, in partnership with AIST, is designed to strengthen the pipeline between education and industry by providing students with early exposure to careers in steel and manufacturing.
This visit reflects ELLWOOD’s continued commitment to workforce development, education partnerships, and building future leaders in the manufacturing industry.
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