The Associated Press

MIDDLETOWN - A former federal workplace safety official hired by AK Steel Corp. in 1996 to improve safety in its plants is retiring on March 1, the company announced on Monday.

The company created a new position specifically for James W. Stanley, vice president for safety and health, when he joined AK Steel in January 1996. He had previously worked 25 years for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and had risen to become the second-ranking official with OSHA, part of the U.S. Department of Labor.

AK Steel credited Stanley, 59, with improvements that reduced accident rates and earned the company industry and government safety recognition at its steel mills including in Butler, Pa., Rockport, Ind., and Middletown.

AK Steel plans to continue the work that Stanley began, said James Wainscott, the company's president and CEO.

Just before Stanley's arrival at AK Steel, OSHA officials had said in December 1995 that the Middletown plant had more fatal accidents during the prior two years than any other steel mill in the nation. At that time, there had been 13 deaths at the plant since 1981 and nine since April 1994.

There have been fatal accidents since then. In December, OSHA fined AK Steel the maximum $7,125 for an accident that killed a worker at its Middletown mill on July 10. Ralph E. Jones, 41, of Waynesville, died when a 2,000-pound crane block fell on him while he was operating a forklift.

A worker at the company's Butler, Pa., plant died in an October 2002 accident.

Ed Shelley, president of the Armco Employees Independent Federation union at Middletown Works, said Monday that the union appreciated Stanley's introduction of safety coordinators among the ranks of hourly employees.

AK Steel has steel operations in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. The company employs 9,400 people at the plants and non-steelmaking operations in Tennessee, Texas, Maine and Wisconsin.