Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. is proof that the U.S. steel industry didn’t grow up solely in the Rust Belt. Reliance was founded in 1939 in Los Angeles as a fabricator of rebar — the kind of steel used in concrete and masonry structures. Today the company is a Fortune 500 operator of metals service centers, which essentially buy raw metals, process them and resell those finished or semi-finished materials all over the globe. Over the past 40 years, Reliance has accomplished much of its growth from buying out smaller, family-owned companies that specialized in specific metals like aluminum, stainless steel, copper and brass. Today it owns more than 200 service centers in the United States and other locations around the world. Its 2008 revenues were $8.7 billion.
THE QUICK BIO
Kay Rustand joined Reliance in January 2001, the first time the company had an inside general counsel position since going public in 1994. Rustand wasn’t a stranger to the company, though. She had worked at Reliance’s outside counsel — Lawler, Felix & Hall, later combining with Arter & Hadden — during the ’80s and ’90s, and was the lead attorney that helped take the company public. As an undergrad at UCLA, she studied linguistics and holds a degree in elementary education from San Diego State. Though she dreamed of being a lawyer in her youth, “I didn’t know of any women who had actually done it and I had never wanted to be a litigator, so I took another path.” By the time she had finished her education degree, she realized she could take a variety of paths, so she enrolled at UCLA School of Law, earning her J.D. in 1978.
