The defense city test: I/N Tek and I/N Kote in the federal contract record

Item 8 — USAspending / DLA record for the township's firms, run as an explicit test — MIXED: a thin return, printed as the finding

The township's two great firms are steel finishers for the automobile and appliance trades — and the public federal-contract record reached shows no defense business for either of them. What the firms are is documented at full strength. I/N Tek is the continuous cold-rolling mill east of town: a joint venture announced in March 1987 between Inland Steel and Nippon Steel, in commercial production from March 1990, turning hot-rolled coils from Indiana Harbor into cold-rolled sheet — by the county's own economic-development account, a 60/40 venture (ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal in the modern form) whose "principal customers of I/N Tek and I/N Kote are automotive and appliance markets." I/N Kote, the adjacent galvanizing venture (50/50 in the county's account; founded 1991), coats that sheet — hot-dip galvanized, galvannealed and electrogalvanized — for the same two markets. Neither firm's documented product line names a defense customer, a military specification program, or a government contract. The contract test was then run as instructed: web searches of the USAspending record and its mirrors for "I/N Tek," "I/N Kote" and New Carlisle as place of performance returned no federal award, no Defense Logistics Agency contract, and no recipient profile for either firm — the searches return the firms' industrial history and the county's development-area record, and nothing from the contract databases. The finding prints at exactly that strength: in the public contract record as reached (USAspending-indexed sources, November 2026), the defense share of the township's steel complex is zero shown — a thin, empty return, which is itself the answer to the defense-city test: New Carlisle is not a defense-contract city on the record. The item closes MIXED rather than DUG for one stated reason: USAspending's own advanced-search interface, queried directly by recipient name, is the settler that would raise this from a searched negative to a database-proven one, and that direct query was not executable from this seat; the negative stands on the indexed record, with the settler named.

Sources:

1. St. Joseph County, "New Carlisle Economic Development Area" (county record) — I/N Tek and I/N Kote ventures, products, acreage, and "principal customers … are automotive and appliance markets."
2. Indiana Business magazine (1990), "I/N Tek rolls" — venture announced March 1987 (Inland Steel / Nippon Steel); commercial production March 1990; I/N Kote galvanizing facility under construction adjacent.
3. USAspending / federal-contract searches for the recipient names "I/N Tek" and "I/N Kote" and for New Carlisle, Indiana as place of performance, November 2026 — no award or recipient record returned; named settler for full proof: USAspending.gov Advanced Search by recipient name.