Co-Inventor of GALVALUME Makes Life-long Impression on Metal Construction Industry Colleagues
Fifty-six years ago, Angelo Borzillo was an employee of Bethlehem Steel, an American steelmaking company in Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, Bethlehem Steel was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. Borzillo and his manager, Jim Horton wished to find a better way to combat corrosion of sheet metal than the industry’s standard of galvanizing with 100% zinc.
They conducted a series of steel coating tests. Ultimately, they combined 55% aluminum with 43.5% zinc (by weight), and, to improve the coating’s adherence to substrates, 1.5% silicon. That marked the invention of “GALVALUME®,”[1] a coated sheet steel product ideally suited for most types of roofing with an expected service life at least double of (pure zinc) galvanized-coated components. It was a game changer for the metal construction industry.