The Brazil California Chamber of Commerce is pleased to announce a panel discussion on Building a Sustainable Business in California on February 16th from 9am-12pm. Please join us in an opportunity to hear from Mark Olson, Vice President at Gerdau Long Steel North America, Jeanalee Obergfell, Sustainability Analyst at Los Angeles Mayor’s Office, and Adrian Tylim, Chief Technology Officer at Shift Energy.

Gerdau is the leading company in the production of long steel in the Americas and one of the major suppliers of specialty long steel in the world. The company has 45,000 employees at industrial locations in 14 countries of the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

In North America, Gerdau is a leader in mini-mill steel production and is the second largest recycler in the nation. Through a vertically integrated network of mini-mills, scrap recycling facilities and downstream operations, the company serves customers throughout the U.S. and Canada, offering a diverse and balanced product mix of merchant steel, rebar, structural shapes, fabricated steel and wire rod.

The Rancho Cucamonga mill began production in 1956, and Gerdau acquired the mill in 2010. More than 265 people are employed at the mill, and most employees are members of the United Steelworkers of America. The Rancho Cucamonga mill recycles ferrous scrap metal into rebar used in the construction of buildings, freeways, bridges, parking garages and other concrete structures throughout the Western United States. The mill is capable of recycling more than 550,000 tons of ferrous scrap a year and is likely the largest recycler, by weight, in the state of California.

Gerdau has a total of six locations in California, five of which are reinforcing steel facilities, located in Napa, Fairfield, Santa Fe Springs, San Bernardino, and San Diego. The company fabricates and installs reinforcing steel for a mixture of project types, including dams, bridges, large engineering projects and major commercial concrete projects throughout the West Coast.

Jeanalee Obergfell is a Policy Analyst for Mayor Eric Garcetti's Office of Sustainability. She played a key role developing the City of Los Angeles' first Sustainable City pLAn. She leads and supports the implementation of city initiatives around air quality, livable neighborhoods, and environmental justice. Notably, she was the Mayor's Office lead on the Clean Up Green Up policy combats adverse health effects related to concentrations of industrial uses and freight traffic in three L.A. pilot communities — Boyle Heights, Pacoima/Sun Valley and Wilmington. She is a proud University of California Los Angeles graduate having earned both her BA in Political Science and a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from there. She is an alumna of the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs.



At this event, Olson will present Gerdau’s sustainability projects and discuss with Jeanalee Obergfell, and Adrian Tylim the development and implementation of these projects.