Dave Stickler inducted into Arkansas Business Hall of Fame

Stickler was CEO of Osceola-based Big River Steel, the high-tech ‘learning mill’ that brought smart manufacturing into the foreground back in 2017. The company has since been acquired by US Steel (which itself has now been acquired by Nippon Steel) and is fronting the long-established steelmaker’s ‘best of both worlds’ strategy (offering traditional BF steelmaking and greener and leaner EAF steel production.

Stickler has claimed that his earliest career aspiration was to be a garbage man, a job that would have brought him into contact with trash cans made from EAF-produced steel (which, back in the day, critics claimed was all the ‘new-fangled’ technology was good for). However, instead of hanging off the back of a dumpster Stickler helped reshape the future of steel and is today widely regarded as a figurehead for high tech steelmaking.

Using EAF technology and scrap metal, Stickler furthered the development of electric steelmaking to such an extent that it is only a matter of time before exposed steel grades can be produced in an EAF if they’re not already.

At Hybar, Stickler heads up ‘a technologically advanced mini mill powered by renewable energy to produce low-cost, energy-efficient, tomorrow-friendly rebar’. It is claimed that ‘when the sun is shining, [Hybar produces] rebar using 100% renewable energy through a direct connection to an adjacent, behind-the-meter solar installation’. The company says it is proud to be the first steel producer in North America (and likely the world) to be able to do this. ‘We’ve found a way to cut the cord to the electrical grid!’ the company says.

For Dave it’s all about fostering a ‘can-do’ culture. His achievements are immense. He was part of the team that financed Steel Dynamics, a major US electric steelmaker itself pushing the technological boundaries and showing the world that the North American steel industry is as green as it gets; he co-founded Big River Steel and now he’s launched and is running Hybar Steel. What he does next is anybody’s guess, but it looks as if Dave Stickler is (and always will be) at the top of his game and certainly a worthy inductee of the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame.

On a personal level, Dave is what us Brits call ‘a great bloke’.