Dale Gubbels

Mr. Gubbels brings over 35 years in recycling and environmental consulting to Firstar Fiber’s management team. A native Nebraskan and graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he was the first executive director of the Nebraska State Recycling Association. He headed the organization for eight years before moving his family to Connecticut to help open a Toronto based recycling consulting firm’s first U.S. office. He later started his own firm to specialize in assisting businesses to capitalize on the country’s developing interest in recycling and on behalf of state and local governments to expand their municipal recycling programs. The family returned in 1999 to Nebraska where he assumed the role of CEO at Firstar Fiber, the company he co-founded two years prior.

Approaching its 20^th year anniversary, Firstar Fiber employs over 110 people at its Omaha and Lincoln recycling operations. It provides a variety of recycling and consulting services for businesses and communities throughout the Midwest. It ships and markets close to 100,000 tons annually to markets throughout the country and internationally. The company has processed the City of Omaha’s recyclables since 2006, becoming the state’s first mechanical sorting process, which has recently incorporated first of its kind robotic system.

With the support of Dow Chemical, Conagra Foods and Reynolds Brands, Firstar Fiber also launched the Hefty Energy Bag in the fall of 2016, making it the first MRF in the country to permanently adopt this unique program that enables residents to place currently unrecyclable plastics in the special bags for energy recovery.