Meet Walter Gretz - Senior Manager

Mr. Gretz earned a BS in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 1957. In 1962 he was certified as a Registered Professional Engineer by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Upon graduation Walter first joined the Universal Cyclops Steel Corporation. He later served for twenty-three years in the Quality Assurance Department at the Duquesne, Pennsylvania, plant of U.S. Steel Corporation. While at the Duquesne Plant of U.S. Steel, he established and taught a 16 hour night course entitled, “Practical Metallurgy of Iron and Steel” for 10 years. This course was for young graduate engineers who did not have metallurgical degrees. He was transferred to the Clairton, Pennsylvania, plant where he was responsible for all quality control functions involved in the rolling, inspection and testing of light structural steel. Subsequent to this, he was transferred to the Homestead, Pennsylvania, plant where he was involved in the inspection and physical testing of steel plates up to 100 inches wide, and heavy structural steel beams and pilings.

His experience includes Blast Furnace iron making, Open Hearth steel melting, and vacuum degassing, carbon deoxidization and argon rinsing. Mr. Gretz also has experience in the provisioning, pouring, heating and rolling of steel ingots to billets, blooms, slabs and rounds in various grades of carbon steel, alloy steel, silicon steel and stainless steel. His steel finishing experience includes conditioning of steel, rolling of steel to bars, inspection, ultrasonic testing and heat treatment of steel in electric, gas-fired and induction furnaces as well as air, oil and water quenching.

Upon retirement from U.S. Steel, he joined Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory as a Senior Metallurgical Engineer. P.T.L. later merged with Professional Service Industries, Inc. where he served in the Metallurgical and Physical Testing Departments and in Business Development. His experience includes failure analysis, metallurgical process evaluation, physical testing, quality control evaluation, and corrosion analysis. He has extensive experience in evaluation of construction materials damaged by fire or by corrosion. Since his second retirement (from PSI) in 1994, he joined MATCO, where he serves as Senior Manager.

Mr. Gretz has been a member of the American Society of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers since 1956 and has been designated a Senior Member. In addition, he holds a 25 Year Certificate from the American Society for Metals. He has served as lecturer for seminars on metallurgy, failure analysis and heat treatment of steels. During his career, he has co-authored papers involving heat treatment of stainless steel, the pouring of steel, slag control, corrosion, failure analysis and metallurgy.

Mr. Gretz became an Extra Class Amateur Radio Operator in 1968. He has been active in the US Coast Guard for many years.