20th century mergers and acquisitions In 1939, the merger of Allegheny Steel of Pittsburgh and Ludlum Steel of
Watervliet, New York created Allegheny Ludlum Corporation; prior to the merger, the companies had manufactured steel for the
Chrysler Building and
Empire State Building in
New York City. Allegheny Steel had produced stainless steel brightwork for the
Model A Ford starting in 1930. Through the 1970s, Allegheny Ludlum periodically cooperated with Ford to build several one-off promotional cars with stainless steel bodies. Three such cars are on display in the
Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum. In 1978, the company acquired
Wilkinson Sword and
Scripto. A year later, Allegheny Ludlum acquired
Kennedy Company, a maker of magnetic tape products for large computer systems for an undisclosed sum. In 1984, Allegheny Ludlum sold off Scripto to the Tokai Corporation of Japan. In 1986, the company suffered a $198 million operating loss and chairman Robert Buckley, stepped down amid accusations of mismanagement. In 1987, Wilkinson Sword was sold to
Swedish Match for $230 million. In 1987, Allegheny Ludlum became a public company via an
initial public offering under chief executive
Dick Simmons In 1993, the company acquired Jessop Steel.
ATI Technologies born 1996 In 1996, it merged with
Teledyne to form Allegheny Technologies. In 1998 ATI bought
Teledyne Wah Chang Albany, as well as
Oregon Metallurgical Corporation (
Oremet). Both companies had plants in the
Albany, Oregon area, such as the ATI Specialty Alloys and Components (Wah Chang) zirconium operation in
Millersburg, Oregon. In 2005, the company sold its World Minerals subsidiary to French company
Imerys. At the time, it racked up $3.5 billion in sales. In May 2008 the company invested $260 million in a new plant located in
Monroe. In 2010, the company acquired Ladish for $778 million. Allegheny Technologies debuted its
ATI 425 Titanium Alloy on June 14, 2010, at the land and air-land defense and security exhibition
Eurosatory in Paris, France. In 2012 ATI announced a $325 million investment in a new plant located in Rowley UT. As of August 2016, the firm employed roughly 1,500 people in its Albany region plants. The latter plant was idled because other global suppliers, who had entered the market recently, could undercut the Rowley titanium sponge. The Albany plant, which produced mainly for Boeing, was shuttered because of poor demand. In 2019 the firm sold its ATI Cast Products plant in Albany OR to a
Cleveland OH company. At the time, the firm employed some 900 people in three plants in the Albany area. The plant had been subject to a
United Steel Workers certification drive in March 2019. In March 2021, about 1,300 workers at nine facilities in the northern United States, all members of the
United Steelworkers,
went on strike over proposed changes to their health care plans. The strike ended in July with the company rejecting its proposed changes. In June 2022, the company was officially renamed from Allegheny Technologies Incorporated to ATI. Alongside this, the company's domain was changed from ATImetals.com to ATImaterials.com. In December 2022 the company closed its Albany plant. As of September 2023 ATI was "a $3.8 billion company" with more than 6,000 workers in more than 30 locations in the United States and more than a dozen in Europe and Asia. In June 2023 ATI announced a $28 million expansion of its
Richland WA plant, located in the
Horn Rapids Industrial Park. At the same time it announced it would re-start its Albany OR operations. The Richland plant has a furnace, which liquefies the metal with electron beams. The liquid metal flows into hearths where defects are removed. The finished products are billets that weigh up to 44,000 pounds. It also has a vacuum arc remelting process. == Products ==