Dan Sterling

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Direct Metals Recycling

September 9, 2008

Picture a Wharton MBA graduate in a high-priced men’s suit, driving around in a pickup truck with nearly $200,000 in cash and purchasing used car parts for his burgeoning business. Sounds like a bad episode of “The Apprentice,” but this is a chapter in the life of local entrepreneur Dan Sterling. The year was 2005, and this true scenario was how Direct Metals Recycling was born.

After a 10-year career with Arthur Andersen and four years with NCR, Sterling decided to take the plunge and start his own business. In 2005, he and his business partner, also a Wharton grad, purchased a junkyard with the intention of buying and selling used car parts.

Today, Direct Metals Recycling processes, grades and sorts automobile parts – averaging 600 cars a month – and resells the catalytic converters and scrap metal in an environmentally safe manner. In August, his company moved into a new facility with four bays that can increase productivity.

“My family has been entrepreneurial since my great-grandfather started a company to support the family during the late 1920s,” he says. “That company served the family for over 70 years. I love everything about being entrepreneurial – the self-reliance, the educated risk taking, the flexibility, financial rewards, and other rewards. Everyone should take charge of their life and actively pursue their dreams. That is the essence of entrepreneurism.”

» Dan’s “At Bat” Song? “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz.

Click here to watch 5 Questions With Dan Sterling to hear more about his road to entrepreneurial success.

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