June 27, 2000
CITAC Seminar, Washington D.C.
Speaker Biographies


KIMBERLY KORBEL is the Executive Director of the American Wire Producers Association (AWPA), and has been with the organization since 1984 when she began her career in association management. In 1991, she was promoted to Executive Director, by an overwhelming majority of the Board of Directors, in response to her dedication to the industry and the association programs.

The AWPA is an international trade association representing 80 - 90% of the production of carbon, alloy and stainless steel wire and wire products in the United States. The 109 member companies of the Association employ more than 76,000 workers in over 220 plants and facilities located in 37 states in 138 Congressional Districts and in Canada and Mexico. The member companies are entrepreneurial and maintain their competitive market positions against a constant heavy penetration of foreign-made products. They pride themselves on their high productivity and constant reinvestment in latest technology and equipment, keeping the North American wire industry one of the most competitive segments of the steel industry.

Ms. Korbel has been instrumental in leading the AWPA through almost a decade of trade cases filed against the imports of wire rod – the raw material in the production of wire and wire products. AWPA strongly opposed the antidumping and countervailing duty cases filed in 1992-94 against both stainless and carbon wire rod imports and again in 1996-98. Recently, the AWPA also opposed the Section 201 case on carbon wire rod imports.

Ms. Korbel has served a number of association clients, both trade associations and professional societies and in 1999, opened her own Association Management firm, at which AWPA is one of the inaugural clients. She is a member of the American Society of Association Executives, Women in International Trade, and the Associations Council of the National Association of Manufacturers.