Barry Schneider (left) presented the 2024 AIST William T. Hogan, S.J. Memorial Lecture Award to Máximo Vedoya (right).

AIST William T. Hogan, S.J. Memorial Lecture Award

►Nomination Form
►Award Recipients

The Hogan Steel Archive at Fordham University contains invaluable steel information assembled by William T. Hogan, S.J. during his life’s work as a teacher and internationally known steel industry economist. The 130-foot archive transforms this information into a uniquely comprehensive learning facility for use by students, researchers, scholars, and all those seeking knowledge about the technology and economics of the iron and steel industry. The archive’s content, spanning more than 150 years of steel’s history, includes 4,823 document files, 1,114 photos and slides and 390 book and reference titles pertaining to steel production and consumption on a worldwide basis. The archive’s Father Hogan Files section contains his many speeches and congressional testimony, his hundreds of steel publications and his papers and many awards, including the AIST William T. Hogan S.J. Lecture Award, presented each year to the keynote speaker at AISTech.

History and Purpose

The AIST William T. Hogan, S.J. Memorial Lecture Award was established in 1990 in memory of the late Rev. William T. Hogan, S.J., director of Fordham University’s Industrial Economics Research Institute and internationally known steel industry economist. This honorary lecturer is selected in recognition of individual outstanding leadership to the iron and steel industry with selected lectures covering trade, economics, steel industry operations, developments or forecasts. This lecture award is given in appreciation of the keynote lecture presented during the President’s Award Breakfast at AISTech, representing the annual gathering of the AIST membership.

Nomination Process

Nominations shall be made by completing Sections 1–3 of the AIST Award Nomination Form.

Qualifications

This honorary lecturer is selected in recognition of individual outstanding leadership to the iron and steel industry. Lecture topics shall cover trade, economics, steel industry operations, developments or forecasts.

Selection Process

The AIST Executive Committee shall select a final candidate.

About William T. Hogan

Born in the South Bronx, N.Y., USA, in 1919, William Thomas Hogan attended Fordham University, where he would graduate college cum laude and eventually earn an M.A. in economics and, after becoming a member of the Society of Jesus, a Ph.D.
In the late 1940s, his doctoral studies took him to Pittsburgh, Pa., where he lived at Duquesne University and worked at United States Steel Corporation while researching his dissertation on steel productivity. It was the first in-depth study on the subject ever made, and his methods of productivity measurement were detailed in his first book, Productivity in the Blast-Furnace and Open-Hearth Segments of the Steel Industry. Published in 1950, the book would forever identify Father Hogan with steel.
Also in 1950, he founded Fordham’s Industrial Economics Research Institute. The innovative curriculum he developed served as a model that in time was integrated into the economics courses of 112 colleges and universities. Over the years, he taught about the interdependence of the steel, automobile, railroad, petroleum and utility industries, and kept his course content current by means of research conducted by the Industrial Economics Research Institute. Throughout his career, Father Hogan worked tirelessly to foster international cooperation and understanding in the steel business, gaining his worldwide reputation as the “Steel Priest.”
From the late 1950s through the early 1970s, Father Hogan devoted time and effort to studying the economic impact of the depreciation-tax laws on steel, emphasizing the need for reforms to spur capital investment. He was instrumental in achieving passage of the investment-tax credit and other reforms proposed by President Kennedy. In the late 1960s, he served as a member of President Nixon’s Task Force on Business Taxation and was a consultant to the Council of Economic Advisors to the President. In all, he counseled five U.S. presidents on tax and steel matters.
In 1971, Father Hogan’s landmark five-volume work on the American steel industry was published. Having been in preparation for more than 15 years, his Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States examines industry developments from 1860 to 1971. Father Hogan periodically updated his five volumes with a series of companion books. Father Hogan’s last two books were The Steel Industry of China: Its Present Status and Future Potential, published in 1999, and The POSCO Strategy: A Blueprint for World Steel’s Future, published in 2001 within months of his passing.
In 1985, the American Iron and Steel Institute awarded him the Gary Memorial Medal, the industry’s highest honor, otherwise given only to top steel executives.
In 1987, Father Hogan was made a Distinguished Life Member of the American Society of Metals, and in 1990, the Association of Iron and Steel Engineers established the William T. Hogan Annual Lecture Series in his honor. In 1992, Korea’s President Roh Tae-woo presented him with the prestigious Gold Tower of the Order of Industrial Merit, the highest business award the Korean government bestows. And finally, in 1996, he received his most recent degree, an honorary Doctorate of Laws from his beloved alma mater, Fordham.