* Herbert Ziegler; Founder of Steel Company

Herbert Ziegler, 79, a five-decade veteran of the steel industry whose Ziegler Steel Co. has been a longtime fixture on Bandini Boulevard, next to the Santa Ana Freeway in the City of Commerce. He founded the Los Angeles firm in 1945 and in 1959 became the first mainland steel distributor to open in Hawaii. He had come to California from the Midwest in 1942 for treatment of his tuberculosis at the City of Hope in Duarte. During World War II he handled steel prices for the Office of Price Administration. During the postwar years his companies opened offices in Wichita, Kan., North Hollywood and the San Francisco Bay Area. In Los Angeles on Dec. 9, apparently of a heart attack.