Nucor traces its origins to auto manufacturer Ransom E. Olds, who founded Oldsmobile and then, in 1905, REO Motor Car Company. The new company was an innovator, producing the first commercial cars with electric lights, an electric starter, and pneumatic tires. Through a series of transactions, the company Olds founded eventually became, in 1955, Nuclear Corporation of America. By that time, the company was involved in the nuclear instrument and electronics business. Nuclear bought several companies over the next few years, including a South Carolina maker of steel joists and joist girders called Vulcraft Corp. that would soon provide the spark for the company's remarkable evolution. Nuclear Corp. suffered through several money-losing years and was facing bankruptcy in 1965, when it installed Vulcraft's top executive, Ken Iverson, as president, and Nuclear Corp's controller, Sam Siegel, as financial vice president. The new management quickly sold many of the company's wide-ranging operations to focus on profitable Vulcraft. The company moved its corporate office from Phoenix to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1966. The high cost of steel soon led Iverson to believe that the company would be more profitable if it supplied its own bar steel. Borrowing an idea that was already gaining popularity in Europe, the company decided to build an electric arc furnace mill, one that made steel from scrap metal. Since these mills were much smaller and less expensive to build than traditional iron ore mills, they were known as minimills. The bar mill opened in Darlington, South Carolina, in 1969. The first of several regional bar mills, it became the prototype for today's vast minimill industry and launched Nuclear Corp. into a wide range of steel businesses. In 1972, the company officially adopted the Nucor Corporation name, which was proposed by Sam Siegel. Today, Vulcraft is the nation's largest producer of steel joists and steel deck, standard building components in non-residential construction. Nucor's tireless workers and modern techniques can make steel and steel products at a cost that is competitive anywhere in the world. Nucor and affiliates are manufacturers of steel products, with operating facilities primarily in the U.S. and Canada. Products produced include: carbon and alloy steel --in bars, beams, sheet, and plate; steel joists and joist girders; steel deck; fabricated concrete reinforcing steel; cold finished steel; steel fasteners; metal building systems; light gauge steel framing; steel grating and expanded metal; and wire and wire mesh. Nucor is North America's largest recycler.