NFF Gold Medal Recipients
Biography
A native of Pittsburgh, Speer attended Widener College, formerly Pennsylvania Military College, where he played football. He also went to the University of Pennsylvania, and the advanced management program conducted by the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
Speer joined U.S. Steel in 1938 as a metallurgical observer in Youngstown, Ohio, and from that time he went step-by-step through the organization until 1967, when he became executive vice president and a member of the Board of Directors. In March 1973, he became Chairman of the Board.
A director of the American Iron and Steel Institute and the International Iron and Steel Institute, he held memberships in the Business Council, the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Boy Scouts of America. He was also a trustee of Widener and Waynesburg Colleges and Magee Women’s Hospital. Speer was a member of the Fox Chapel Golf Club and a director of the Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania. He passed away Oct. 13, 1979 at the age of 63.
