March/April 2001
By Si Wakesberg
Si Wakesberg is New York bureau chief for Scrap.
As someone interested in the progress of women in American society, I’ve noticed over the years a stunning increase in feminine participation in the scrap business. There was a time—and not that many years ago—when a woman who was president of a scrap company was refused admission to an association meeting because it was “for businessmen only.”
Fortunately, times have changed for the better. It’s now common, in fact, to find women in top positions in scrap companies as well as ISRI. Robin Wiener, for instance, was named executive director of ReMA in 1997. The following year, Shelley Padnos of Louis Padnos Iron & Metal Co. (Holland, Mich.) became president of ISRI—another major step forward for the association, which had never elected a woman to that position.
Times were certainly different when I entered this business more than 50 years ago. Here and there, in isolated instances, you could find a woman working for a scrap company, though rarely in anything but an administrative position.
There were, however, a few pioneering women in the scrap business. They brought with them a richness of experience and depth of knowledge that helped pave the way for future generations of women.
Rose Pashelinsky. Years ago, as a reporter for Waste Trade Journal, I’d attend the banquets hosted by the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel (ISIS), an ReMA predecessor. At those events, I couldn’t help noticing a tall, elegant woman dressed in designer clothes who’d enter the ballroom like some celebrity. “That’s Rose Pashelinsky,” someone told me. “She always dresses to the hilt.”
Rose Pashelinsky was more than her elegant banquet persona, of course. She was also a canny businesswoman, one of the officers of the well-known M. Pashelinsky & Sons (Jersey City, N.J.) company that handled nickel, cobalt, and related alloys and metals.
Her brother, Meyer, was known throughout the industry as an expert in those metals. His 1961 pamphlet The Coballoys, which covered cobalt and scrap, survives in my library to this day. While Meyer was a spokesman for the company, Rose was one of its star attractions. In those days, women who actually traded scrap were a rarity. You just didn’t meet many who could converse about metals. But Rose Pashelinsky was one woman who knew the ins and outs of the scrap business.
Rena Karchmer. At a seminar held by the National Association of Recycling Industries (NARI)—another ReMA predecessor—at the University of Wisconsin, I met a middle-aged woman whose husband had recently died and who had taken over the reins of running the family scrap business. The woman was Rena Karchmer of A. Karchmer & Son (Memphis, Tenn.). At the seminar, she was a kind of grandmotherly presence as the only woman among 100 young male students.
She sat in one class after another, absorbing reams of information about the concepts and techniques of the scrap industry. The young men in the class treated her with utmost care and respect. And when she returned to Memphis, she sent NARI a lovely letter about how much she appreciated the seminar.
Marsha Serlin. Speaking of seminars, I remember when Marsha Serlin introduced herself to me, immediately conveying her enthusiasm for the scrap industry. At that moment, I could have predicted that she’d carve out a career for herself in the business. I had, of course, heard many young men talk about the industry with excitement, but I hadn’t heard such words from a woman. Well, Marsha was among the first “modern” young women to enter the scrap business and talk its language.
I was hardly surprised, therefore, to learn years later that she’d founded and built a successful scrap company—United Scrap Metal Inc. (Cicero, Ill.)—through her hard work and perseverance. In November 1999, I picked up a copy of the AARP Bulletin and found Marsha on its front page, an older Marsha but one whose image still exuded the exuberance I remember from our first meeting. The cover headline—“Women on the Rise?”—bore out my early positive feeling about this talented woman.
That article was just one recognition of many for Marsha. Among the many awards and honors recognizing her accomplishments as a businesswoman, she received the National Small Business Subcontractor of the Year award in 1996 from the U.S. Small Business Administration, making her the first woman to earn that award.
Charlotte Cohen. One of the most impressive scrap-industry women I’ve ever met is Charlotte Cohen. I met Charlotte through various NARI meetings and got to know her at one of the association’s Wisconsin seminars. Those who knew Charlotte could attest about her close relationship with husband Sidney. When Sidney established Balco Metals Inc. (Milwaukee)—a nonferrous operation—in 1961, he asked Charlotte to be his partner in the venture.
“My only experience was a crash course in accounting,” she recalls. “I was fortunate to learn about metals from my husband and other experienced men in the nonferrous industry.” She also ascribes some of her business knowledge to the “excellent NARI seminars and training programs.”
The most difficult hurdle, she says, was being accepted as a peer in a man’s industry. “Many times,” she states, “I was told, ‘I won’t do business with a woman.’” She was also often told by men that they wouldn’t work for a woman.
As it turned out, Charlotte was eventually accepted in that man’s world. Ultimately, she was named to NARI’s board of directors, a tremendous privilege in those days, and became secretary of the association’s Midwestern division. Everywhere she went, she was accorded respect and honor because of her knowledge and interest in the industry.
Martha Light. Of all these early scrap women, one who stands out clearly in my memory is Martha Light, one of the most popular brokers in the scrap trade at a time when it was rare for a woman to be engaged in the business. Harry Turkel of Atlantic Copper Co. Inc. (Somers, N.Y.), himself a veteran of the industry, says that the most apt phrase for Martha is gnädige Frau, German for “gracious woman.” People who know Martha or who did business with her definitely know her as a lady.
Early in her career, Martha went into business with her brother, Arthur Schloss, a broker. Years later, she branched out on her own, establishing M. Light Metal Brokerage (Jamaica, N.Y.). According to traders in the East, she worked with every broker in the business. It was her job to bring the scrap dealer (her customer) together with the best highest-paying buyer available, domestic or export. For her work, Martha received an eighth of a cent commission. “Martha always had an excellent reputation and it was a pleasure to do business with her,” one broker says.
An endearing figure at the Copper Club, NARI, and ISIS meetings, Martha was always a role model for younger members of the industry. She retired from her busy life about a year or so ago and was recently confined to a nursing home because of illness. But nothing will ever erase the memory of a younger Martha Light, enthusiastically discussing the copper market at industry meetings.
Frances Brody. One of the most interesting of the pioneering scrap women was Frances Brody, who rose to be president of Alpert & Alpert Iron & Metal Inc. (Los Angeles), one of the West Coast’s most prestigious scrap firms.
In 1930, when Herman Alpert established Alpert & Alpert, Frances Brody—Herman’s sister-in-law—was hired as its bookkeeper. She became a partner in the firm when it reorganized in 1948. Then, in 1968, she was elected president, succeeding retiring president Mandel Alpert.
“Women weren’t accepted in the scrap business in those days,” says Frances. One time, she was invited to London to attend the LME dinner. Upon arriving, she realized that she was the only woman among the 2,000 participants. As she recounts, “Everyone had to undergo a body check that year before entering the hall. When I approached, the guard didn’t know what to do with me. I opened my evening bag quickly to demonstrate that I wasn’t concealing a gun or an IRA bomb. The look on the guard’s face was priceless. Then he gave up and let me in.”
“How things have changed,” Frances says, thinking back. “When I first came into this business, we couldn’t sell directly to mills. We had to go through brokers. But over time, everything changed—methods of doing business, techniques of separating scrap, types of equipment, and certainly attitudes toward women in the scrap business.”
The change in those attitudes is thanks in large measure to the six women noted above. There were other brave, charismatic women, of course. All of them were the beacons of change for today’s scrap women, who carry on their tradition and bring invaluable leadership to the industry in the new millennium. •
As someone interested in the progress of women in American society, I’ve noticed over the years a stunning increase in feminine participation in the scrap business. There was a time—and not that many years ago—when a woman who was president of a scrap company was refused admission to an association meeting because it was “for businessmen only.”