June 2013
| Business World Magazine | 167
STAHLWARTLY STEADFAST
Glen Stahl established Stahl Specialty in
1946 when he began operating from a small,
rented workshop in Kingsville, Missouri. He
initially stayed busy by producing sanding
drums and lathe faceplates, but his business
was soon boosted when the owner of Good-
all Manufacturing (a producer of lawnmow-
ers) asked Stahl to cast a “G” insignia which
could be applied to his line of lawnmow-
ers. As this professional relationship grew,
Goodall would later ask Stahl the feasibil-
ity of casting a lawn mower deck for a new
type of rotary mower, but in this era, the
general industry consensus was that these
decks were too large for casting in a perma-
nent mold. Stahl, however, went on to create
the tooling and over the next few years, these
casting would account for almost all of pro-
duction by the foundry. By the 1960’s, Stahl
had branched out into an extensive range
of castings which included housing for gas
grills, pans, truck parts, playground equip-
ment and more. Stahl didn’t turn-away from
challenges, or opportunities, for that matter.
Seeing the potential in value-added services,
his became one of the first aluminum found-
ries to include in-house heat treating, and
by 1965, the enterprise had its own tool &
die facility as well as another facility for steel
fabrication and machining, making it one of
the first one-source-of-solutions within the
