STEBBINS history

The Yup'ik name for the village is "Tapraq," and the name Stebbins was first recorded in 1900.

Bigelow-Liptak Corporation was originally incorporated in 1927 with the merger of the Bigelow Arch Company of Detroit and Liptak Firebrick Arch Company of Minneapolis, as a direct subsidiary of A.P. Green Refractories Company.

Stebbins was educated at Harvard University, receiving a Ph.D. in biology in 1931.

Bigelow-Liptak of Canada was incorporated in Toronto in 1940, as a subsidiary of the Corporation.

When a technique was developed for doubling a plant’s chromosomal number artificially, Stebbins used it to produce polyploids from several species of wild grass, of which the new species Ehrharta erecta was established in a natural environment in 1944.

Commencing in the 1950’s, Bigelow-Liptak’s engineering activities and capabilities have gradually expanded.

Bigelow-Liptak pioneered the regenerative incinerator, providing one of the first such units in North America in 1964 to an R.J. Reynolds plant in North Carolina.

Stebbins wrote numerous books, including Processes of Organic Evolution (1966), as well as some 250 journal articles.

Genetic engineering based on recombination was pioneered in 1973 by American biochemists Stanley N. Cohen and Herbert W. Boyer, who were among the first to cut DNA into fragments, rejoin different fragments, and insert the new genes into E. coli bacteria, which then reproduced.

In 1985, A.P. Green, our parent company at the time, took the first step in divesting themselves of their engineering and construction offices, by selling this present group to certain key employees.