Alcoa

This article is about the company. For other uses, see Alcoa (disambiguation).

Alcoa
Missing image AlcoaLogo.png Alcoa logo
Type	Public
Founded	1894
Location	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Key people	Alain J. P. Belda, Chairman/CEO
Industry	Aluminium
Products	Aluminium products and components
Revenue	$23.5 Billion (2004)
Website	www.alcoa.com

Alcoa (NYSE: AA) is an American company and one of the largest producers of aluminum.

In 1894, The Pittsburgh Reduction Company was established. This company changed its name to Aluminum Company of America in 1907. By 1929, the name Alcoa had become a popular abbreviation—from the name of a company town set up in East Tennessee—but it was not until January of 1999 that Alcoa became the company's official name. The company's non-aluminum products include consumer products, fiber-optic cables, food service and flexible packaging products, and plastic closures. Major markets include the aerospace, automotive, construction, and packaging industries. Alcoa owned Thiokol Corporation, a producer of solid rocket motors (for example, for the Space Shuttle) until 2001, when it was sold to Allied Technologies. Alcoa has gained presence in China's aluminum market by forming a strategic alliance with Aluminum Corporation of China (Chalco), (NYSE: ACH).

Paul O'Neill was chairman and CEO of Alcoa from 1987 to 1999, and retired as chairman at the end of 2000. In the early years of his chairmanship, O'Neill disbanded the Alcoa political action committee and fired many of the top level executives. O'Neill then instituted policies requiring all executives to post their weekly schedules publicly. Nearly all interoffice memos became available to all employees and staff meetings began to take place in lunchrooms. In 1990, when the United States Chamber of Commerce was critical of president George H. W. Bush's stance on increasing taxes, O'Neill pulled Alcoa out of the Chamber.

Alan Greenspan was on the board of directors in the mid-1980s.

The shares of Alcoa are listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average of the New York Stock Exchange.

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