NORTH BRADDOCK, Pennsylvania — Scott Buckiso is beaming the way you do when an underdog accomplishes something everyone around them predicted was never going to happen.

Buckiso, along with thousands of steelworkers, their family members, and members of the community, is walking around the gravel parking lot that sits along the banks of the Monongahela River. All around him are dozens of massive industrial buildings that house blast furnaces, a slab caster, two top-blown basic oxygen process vessels, a vacuum degasser, and a ladle metallurgy facility.