Pacific Steel & Recycling-Butte
5 River Drive South, Great Falls, Montana, United States

The founders of Pacific Steel & Recycling decided the best way to retain hard-working, service-oriented employees was to give them a stake in the company – an idea that endures to this day. That means you, our valued customer, are working with employees who have a wealth of knowledge and a vested interest in your success – because your success is ultimately our success.

We also hire employees with industry experience, and then we work to keep them. Your steel, recycling and ag needs are better served with more efficient solutions due to our employees’ dedication and skill.

History :

Pacific’s road to becoming a steel and recycling giant began as a one-man operation in Spokane, Wash. Joe Thiebes emigrated from Germany in the 1880s and followed his family’s business tradition of trading hides and furs. Soon, Thiebes sent his son, also named Joe, to the wilds of Montana. And in the early 1920s, the younger Thiebes officially founded Pacific Hide & Fur Depot in Great Falls.

During World War I, the company expanded beyond furs and hides into collecting ferrous and nonferrous scrap. And this scrap metals venture eventually led the firm to branch out in the 1950s into sales of new steel products. The Thiebes family business continued into the third generation, with another son – again named Joe – joining forces with his father as the company steadily opened additional locations under the Pacific Hide & Fur name.

The Thiebes family owned the company and the senior Joe Thiebes continued to serve as chairman of the board until his death in 1988, though he wasn’t involved in Pacific’s day-to-day management. The end of daily family involvement in the business came with the death of the younger Joe Thiebes in 1982. However, Pacific is dedicated to carrying on the Thiebes family tradition of “shooting straight”.