“RC”, as Richard Charles Smith was called, walked into the dark and cavernous building from the bright August sunshine.

“Hey, kid, what do you want?” challenged the voice in the gloom.

RC’s eyes sought and found the man calling to him. You can always tell who’s in charge. RC looked at the man, khaki slacks that had started the morning crisp but now stained and soiled with rust dust, the crease wandering off at the knees to regain its profile near the cuff, blue oxford shirt open at the collar and sweat stained across the chest. Still, he did have a clipboard in one hand, a ballpoint in the other.

“I want a job,” said RC.

“What can you do?” asked the foreman. He looked at the skinny kid – jeans and t-shirt, sneakers.

“Anything,” RC responded.

“Have you ever worked in steel before?” the foreman asked, knowing that the answer, truth or lie, would be wrong.

“Mister, I need a job. I’ll do anything that needs to be done. I’m a quick learner.” RC held his gaze as he looked into the other man’s eyes.

“I can use you as day labor. Maybe I can find something for you later. For right now, go find the maintenance shed and ask for Mr. Anderson.”

RC began his career at Walkertown Steel at the roots, literally. Mr. Anderson put him to work on the grounds crew, mowing the small patch of green around the company’s entrance gate and flag pole, pulling the Bermuda grass from the flower beds. Once his mower quit, and he took the carburetor apart and blew the trash from the fuel jet, and resumed mowing. Mr. Anderson noticed, and at the beginning of the next season, hired him full time, and put him in charge of maintaining the grounds equipment.

RC’s next job was to purchase replacements for to older equipment, and then tools, and then plumbing supplies, and then plant maintenance equipment.

It had been exciting for RC. He loved the plant, he loved the thrill of working around the basic elements of fire and steel and danger and big heavy powerful equipment.

He became known and trusted by everyone who knew him, from the new guys on the loading dock to upper management and the owners. He took an immediate view when it was called for, a long view always. He thought in terms of what needed to be done now, tomorrow, next week, next year and 20 years from now.

He was very happy, married Emily, his high school sweetheart, settled in and started a family. Emily gave him a new son every couple of years, and a daughter was the last to round out the family.

RC’s three boys came into the steel mill for summer jobs, and went to college one at a time, and they, in turn settled in and repeated the generation.

Rose went to medical school and worked nearby at a community medical center.

Early on, RC wasn’t too worried about global affairs, he was just happy to have a job. Later he learned about production and market forces, and the effect not only of local and national competition. He was convinced his plant could out produce any other American steel plant, in quality, production and price. In the late ’00s’ (oh,oh) new customers were becoming scarce, and old customers were buying their steel at lower prices from overseas plants. Steel is heavy, and RC just could not understand how it could be made over there, and shipped all the way over here, and sold to the washing machine plant over in the next county, for less that they could make it and deliver it from Walkertown Steel.

RC worked hard, learned the business well and joined the board of directors quite young, in his 50s still, and at home in the board room, on the plant floor, and increasingly, on the floors of the State Capitol building in Columbia, and in offices in Washington, DC.

If there was a competitive edge being offered to any of his competition by the states they were in, RC worked hard to make sure South Carolina did the same. Sometimes he was able to get concessions on taxes, employee job recruiting and training, special rates for water and electricity and gas, and lately he was able to negotiate ‘special use’ permits for things like discharge basins for liquid waste, special exemptions and ‘grandfather’ clauses for the amount of particulate matter his steel mill emptied into the air.

There seemed to be a never-ending stream of regulations and restrictions on the way he did business. What was once OK began to be seen as harmful to the air and water, and he began to see that it was true, that the supposed harm being done was not imaginary, but real. Already the forests in the state’s mountains were dying from acid rain, fishing in the Walkertown River had vanished, and down along the coast, where the used water from Walkertown Steel found its way into the sound, lack of oxygen and the increasing presence of heavy metals had greatly diminished the fish and shellfish harvest.

“How much is it going to cost us to correct these problems we have with our water discharge, the particulate matter in the air, and the carbon dioxide emissions?” was constantly on his mind.

“How long is the payback period if we do comply?” demanded the board, so RC set to work doing the analysis, considering the time value of money, the costs of compliance and implementation and the cost to monitor and report.

He knew the answer, it was too much. The board knew the answer, too, because there had been continuous negotiation by representatives from foreign countries assuring them they could do business pretty much as they wanted – if there were any local regulations, a little judicious spreading of money around would make sure that they would not be troublesome.

It would cost almost a billion US dollars to come into full compliance. It would cost just about the same to abandon Walkertown altogether and purchase all new equipment and set up shop on the Kamchatka Peninsula just across from Alaska. And the heavy mill equipment being produced in China cost a lot less, and was better in lots of ways, than that made in the states.

The payback period in the US was about 15 years, in the new plant it could be as little as 5.

He was near retirement, he had enjoyed a lifetime of challenge, but all in all he looked forward to the opportunity to walk away from all the problems of management and regulations, and looked forward to spending time playing with his grandchildren. He was lucky, he could retire. The board had been generous, too, with its upper management and staff, offering buyout packages to all, and stock options in the new operations overseas. His children would do well.

Because there was a weak union, negotiations for severance packages for the millworkers had not been good, and most were simply let go with three month’s salary and no prospects.

Walkertown Steel walked – just abandoned the plant – to let the state worry about it.

It was no surprise to anyone that you cannot produce steel for 100 years and walk away without leaving a mess behind.

“Daddy,” his daughter sobbed into the telephone one hot August day, “It’s Susie, she’s got tumors on her spine. It’s too late to do anything about them. Can you come to the hospital?”

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