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Steel Dynamics CEO Mark Millett, 63, co-founded the company and is navigating it through supply chain snarls. (Steel Dynamics)

Steel Dynamics CEO Mark Millett co-founded the company, now one of the largest domestic steel producers and metals recyclers in the United States. But just four decades ago, he was a self-described "ski bum" in Aspen, Colo.

He still remembers spending his days skiing and his nights washing dishes at a resort restaurant. "I washed more dishes than anyone on the planet during those nine months," he recalled.

He probably skied more slopes, too.

Then, he vividly recalls, he had an epiphany. "Fate has guided my life more than anything else," he said. "I woke up one day thinking I needed to be responsible and get a real job."

That's, when, out of the blue, the British-born young man with a bachelor's degree in metallurgy, applied for a job at — and was hired by — a then-small steel mill R&D facility in South Carolina owned by Nucor (NUE). He stayed at Nucor for the next 12 years. There, Millett says, the steel experience seeped into his bones. Steel became the core part of who he is.

"I didn't know it at the time, but that was my tipping point," he said. "As a young kid, they gave me the reins to play with all of these (technologies) around me and I had an incredible technical pioneering experience there."

Fast forward four decades or so, and Millett is still pioneering. He serves as chairman of the Steel Manufacturers Association. And during 2022, he was named Steelmaker of the Year by the Association of Iron and Steel Technology.

Steel Dynamics (STLD) had just three employees when Millett co-founded the company in 1993. It now has more than 11,000. Between 2012 (when he was named CEO) and 2021, the company's steel shipments rocketed 93% from 5.8 million tons to 11.2 million. Its net income has jumped more than 1,000% from $164 million to $3.2 billion, during that period. And its average market cap jumped 290% from $3 billion to nearly $12 billion, during that time.

But Millett doesn't count success in dollars and cents. He counts it in the people he's helped — and who have helped him along the way. That's why, for example, he says the company's "owners" aren't just its 11,000 employees but also the 26,000 "family members" of these employees who he considers to be part of the company, too.

That's why the company offers $5,000 college scholarships per year for four years to every employee's child. And that's why the company distributed $365 million in profit-sharing to its employees last year.

"Our people know that we're a premier employer," said Millett.

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Real success with employees doesn't just relate to how you pay them — but how you engage them in decision-making, says Millett. At Steel Dynamics, employees at all levels are encouraged to constantly make autonomous decisions at work — and then be held accountable for those decisions. "Otherwise they won't be engaged and feel this is really their job," said Millett.

For example, division managers and general managers at Steel Dynamics essentially act as mini-CEOs not only in their decision-making but in profit and loss responsibility for those divisions, says Millett. "He or she will take on the whole responsibility not just of making money but in the need to inspire people," he said. "I want people to feel as if they are in control and not suffocate them with bureaucracy that slows them down."

Perhaps this is where leadership — real leadership — sets Millett apart from so many others in his industry. More than anything else, he says, truly great leaders must genuinely show great humility — and even be humble. Arrogance, he says, is an instant sign of failed leadership to employees. "One has to build an intuitive trust and loyalty with individuals and you don't do that with the slightest sign of arrogance," he said.

That can be as simple as regular one-to-one engagement with workers on the shop floor. During the construction of a facility in Minnesota, for example, Millett made frequent visits to the site and the field around it.

During one visit, recalls David Bednarz, who was formerly vice president of ferrous resources at Steel Dynamics, Millett literally flagged down an operating haul truck driver. The truck driver got out of the truck unsure what was up. Millett told him that he simply wanted to shake his hand — and thank him — for his efforts to get the plant started up. "The impression that left on the individual was long-lasting," said Bednarz.

Along with that humility, however, must be the vision and drive to encourage people to do great things that employees might not otherwise believe can be accomplished. "You inspire a team with high expectations and then give them the tools and resources to achieve that vision," he said.

Even in those areas that might seem to have the biggest challenges.

Sustainability and steel, for example, are not two words that commonly are used in the same sentence. But under Millett's leadership, the company developed sustainability milestones for 2025 and 2030 to provide transparency, measurability, and accountability, says Theresa Wagler, chief financial officer at Steel Dynamics. "Mark is driving us to be innovators and leaders in the area of greenhouse gas emissions reduction and supporting technologies," she said.

Millett certainly has had to put on his creativity cap, most recently, during the supply chain shortage.

Pig iron is an important raw material used in the scrap steel process. But, as fate would have it, 70% of the merchant pig iron is sourced from Russia and Ukraine.

Supply is virtually unobtainable and prices soared for whatever is available. Pig iron prices went from $650 per ton to $1,100 per ton, he says. So the company devised an innovative way to use less pig iron. Previously, to help purify its scrap metal it mixed 22% pig iron with 78% scrap. Now, he says, by changing the way it melts the steel scrap, it devised a way to still purify the scrap, but with only 14% pig iron.

"You just have to become more innovative," said Millett. "You have to adapt to change."

Perhaps his greatest challenge — which is also the industry's greatest challenge — is attracting young talent into the world of steel. After all, Millett says, there is a legacy that steel is a dirty and boring industry. But he sees it very differently.

"The technology involved in steel is phenomenal," he said. "To be able to take a big chunk of metal and turn it into a perfect raw sheet within one-ten-thousandth of an inch of thickness over a 40-ton surface is amazing."

There is far more hands-on technology involved in making and recycling steel than you'll ever find working at Facebook (META) or at Amazon (AMZN), he said. "And you're actually producing something that the world needs."

Even then, at age 63, Millett has learned about the need for life balance. He says that he comes from a generation that always lived to work — a lifestyle which he says he no longer supports. "As I reflect back, that's not a good way to be," he said. "Living to work at the end of one's life doesn't get you to that ultimate sense of satisfaction. There needs to be a life balance."

His legacy, he hopes, is about all the people who he has helped along the way.

"Remember, it's people who will drive your success," said Millett. "Never think that you're the smartest person in the room. Always think that you're the dumbest and listen and understand."

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