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Building Excellence from the Ground Up with Matt Bell
Description
In this episode of Born Scrappy I sit down with Matt Bell, President of OmniSource and VP of Steel Dynamics, Inc., to talk about what it actually takes to lead at scale in the metal recycling business - and why the real answers are always found on the floor, not in the boardroom.
Matt didn't start in scrap. He became a licensed EMT out of high school, worked as an industrial medic at a Texas steel mill, and ended up at a Saturday morning breakfast that changed the course of his career. He came up through the commercial side at Commercial Metals Company, turned around troubled yards across the Midwest, and eventually became president of one of the largest metal recyclers in North America - OmniSource, with 3,500-plus employees and 70-plus locations across the US and Mexico.
This isn't a conversation about strategy from 30,000 feet. It's about how operations actually work, where the real margin is made, how great leaders stay connected to the people doing the work, and what it takes to build a culture that outlasts any one person at the top.
In this episode, we talk about:
👉 Management by walking around
👉 Building a zero-accident culture
👉 Where the margin really lives
👉 What smart buyers look for
👉 Turning a broken yard fast
👉 And more!
Whether you're running one yard or a hundred, this episode will sharpen how you think about operations, people, and where the real competitive edge in this industry lives.
Born Scrappy.
Brought to you by Buddy.
One platform to manage end-to-end trades. We call it Sell-Side Software.
Built for scrappies, by scrappies.
https://www.tradebuddy.io/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/tradewithbuddy/
WHO IS STU KAGAN ANYWAYS?
28 years in the metal recycling game and still learning and growing…
I learnt from the best and worked my way up from yard labourer to Executive Director of Trading and Operations for the largest metal recycler in sub-Saharan Africa. Responsible for 4,500 employees, 85 sites, and the overall profitability of a multi-billion dollar operation.
I brought my breadth and depth of knowledge to bear and co-founded the fastest growing, most-loved, and most awarded metal recycling company in New Zealand.
I thought it was time that tech worked for our industry, so I built THE killer scrap app, Buddy - built for scrappies, by scrappies.
Father of two crazy-awesome boys. Husband to Lisa. Kids rugby coach. YPO member. Founder. Lifelong learner. Mentee. Mentor. Committed Stoic. Aspiring cowboy.
COME SAY HI ON LINKEDIN
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stukagan/