Obama and My US Experience

Flashback in spring 1986. I was with a group of 13 engineers who were sent by our company, National Steel Corporation (NSC) to undergo training on 5Std. Tandem Cold Rolling Mill Operations and Quality Assurance at Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Burns Harbor Plant in Portage, Indiana, just over an hour’s drive from Chicago. Our company bought this facility described then as both old and new. Old because it was designed and built in the 1970’s. New because , though completed and ready for commission, it was never installed and put into operation. Mothballed before it could even produce its first coil, it just lay there in the warehouse, a stark symbol of the US steel industry recession and decline. And with it came the inevitable; worker displacement, something Barack Obama took concern of at that time.

At the parking lots of street-side grocery halls, we would then see car stickers proclaiming “ Foreign steel steal jobs “. At the shop floor and workplace, we would always be reminded to speak English. The workers were wary, insecure and felt threatened every time we converse in our native language concluding that the more we know, the more their chances of losing their jobs. They learned their lessons from the Japanese who came much earlier than us. The Japanese, they said, were silent and never talked but were busy copying, taking down notes, taking photos and gather whatever information they could obtain. The result? Japan indeed overtook the US in steel technology and production.

In the succeeding years, NSC bought more facilities from US steel companies- 2 Std Temper Mill, Continuous Pickling Line, Electrolytic Tinning Line , among them. US steel was never the same again.

In between our training, we would then take leisurely walks along Lakeshore Drive, view Chicago at the Sears Tower, enjoy the great rides of Great America and much more. Though aware, we were oblivious of the plight of displaced steelmen. Now we knew, during that time, Obama, then a young human rights lawyer was a helping hand to them.

Will Obama therefore finished what he has started before if by the grace of the American people themselves chose him to be their next president?