Man of Steel: Kappa Sigma Brother Named President of Major Company
5/23/2003
John Surma feels honored to have recently been named president of U.S. Steel Corporation. John, a 1976 Penn State graduate with a degree in accounting, says, “The timing was a welcome surprise at this stage in my career.”
He took the presidential reins for the Pittsburgh-based industrial mega-company in March 2003. In his new role, he oversees the day-to-day management of the organization. The operating, commercial, financial and legal staff report to him.
“All the major operations are within my responsibility,” he explains. U.S. Steel employs about 40,000 people worldwide, predominantly in North America and central Europe. “I’m focusing on serving in a new position that’s very challenging,” he says.
John was promoted from vice chairman and chief financial officer, and reports to the chairman/CEO. Previously, he had held senior management roles at a number of large companies, particularly in natural resources, mining and manufacturing.
Among other professional affiliations, John is a member of the Pennsylvania Business Roundtable and Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business’s Board of Visitors.
During his fraternity years at Penn State, John honed his leadership qualities as chapter treasurer. “It was good preparation for my career,” he says. “I got the job as treasurer because I was studying accounting, and it was pretty good experience for the future.” John also served on the IFC.
He joined Kappa Sigma along with a longtime friend, Steve Russell ’76. “Steve and I started off school together in grade school, and we played Little League together. His father was the coach; in fact, I still call him Coach Russell,” says John. “At Penn State, I was at first living in the dorm, in East Halls if I recall correctly. Geoff Wright ’74 was in the fraternity and got Steve interested, then Steve got me interested.”
John and Steve remain good friends to this day. “We play golf together from time to time,” John says. “He lives not too far from here.”
When asked how his fraternity years have influenced his life since graduation, John says, “My life and career as I look at them now have been largely of one leadership position after another. It’s all about leadership and forming a team and being a member of a team – and that’s what a fraternity is all about. The fraternity is where I learned to be part of a team and to fit into an organization. The fraternity was made up of individuals who were all different and with different views but who came together as a group.”
He adds: “Being a member was also a lot of fun.”
In addition to Steve Russell and Geoff Wright, John stays in touch with his old roommate, Ernie Kline ’75, as well as several others. “It’s not the degree or the frequency of contact that’s important,” he says. “The people I was close to then, I’ve remained close to today. If someone calls that I haven’t heard from in awhile, I’ll call him back and it’s just like we’d been in touch all along. Time and space have not changed the relationships.”
When asked if there is anyone in particular with whom he wants to renew contact, he says he’d like to get back in touch with all the guys he knew during his time at the fraternity.
What he remembers most from his Kappa Sigma years are the people. “It’s the individuals I had the chance to be involved with, the closeness and the friendships, that are really the enduring things,” he says. “More than that, it was a place and a time in life – our late teens and early twenties – that are such an important, formative period when you learn to be a part of something.”
Of the current members of the undergraduate chapter, John says, “They really seem to have set themselves to the task of rejuvenating the organization. They’re a much more studious group than we were. They’re more academically oriented. I’d like to see the chapter achieve for the current members the same thing it achieved for me: helping a vibrant group of young men develop as individuals and move on to careers and find their way through life.”
On the personal front, John and his wife, Becky, have three sons – Brendan (16), Jack (14) and Eric (12). John enjoys golf, bicycling and playing amateur hockey in an adult league. He also coaches his sons’ respective youth hockey teams – “All three of them,” he says.
In conclusion, “I enjoyed my time in the fraternity,” John says. “I met a lot of great people and had a lot of great times. I would like to see that perpetuated for future members of the chapter.”