January/February 1999
Edward Arnold Scrap Processors Inc. may be the corporate child of Ed Arnold and wife Daryln, but it’s more than a mom-and-pop operation. With three of their children also involved, the firm is a genuine scrap family affair.
By Eileen Zagone
Eileen Zagone is an associate editor of Scrap.
When Daryln Arnold was in high school, she wrote in her yearbook that she wanted to marry a scrap dealer. While she was sort of joking, she says—because her boyfriend Ed Arnold was just starting out in the scrap business—her yearbook wish turned out to be much more than a joke.
Little did she know then that not only would she marry this budding recycling entrepreneur, but that she and Ed would grow their business to today’s company, which operates state-of-the-art scrap processing equipment and is managed by the couple and three of their four children.
The 35-acre plant in Corfu, N.Y., that’s home to Edward Arnold Scrap Processors Inc. is a far cry from the firm’s formative days when Ed, armed with a pickup truck and a will to get out of his family’s farming business, cruised around western New York loading his truck with mufflers, tail pipes—basically any scrap he could get his hands on. “When I started out, I’d get $9 a ton for sheet iron, $15 a ton for steel, $18 a ton for hard steel, and 25 cents a pound for copper,” he recalls.
In 1956, he purchased the lot that the firm still sits on today, which at the time was a farm—like much of the surrounding area still is today. The site was planted in buckwheat and corn, and a barn with cows, horses, and a hay loft sat where the firm’s offices are today, Ed says.
From these humble beginnings, Ed and Daryln carved out a niche for themselves and their fledgling scrap business, never dreaming that they’d grow their company to its current size. Was it luck, or a love of scrap recycling? Or could it have been the need to make the business succeed to care for their growing family? It was probably all that and a lot more.
Who’d have thought that something written off-the-cuff in a high school yearbook would turn out to be so prophetic?
Growing the Business
Ed and Daryln passed their ardor for the scrap industry on to their two sons, Ed Jr. and Eugene, and later to their daughter Denise, who together run the firm’s ferrous, nonferrous, and office operations, respectively. In fact, the company is so clearly a part of the family that none of them can imagine doing anything else.
While they were growing up, all of the Arnold children had to work at the plant on weekends and after school. In fact, it’s not an overstatement to say that they grew up, quite literally, in the family business because their home was right across the street. (Ed and Daryln still live across the street from the plant but in another house, while Ed Jr., Eugene, and Denise all live within a 10- to 15-minute drive of the plant.)
“There’s nowhere we could have gone to get a better education in the business than working here while we were growing up,” says Eugene, who like his brother Ed Jr. came to work full-time in the company right after graduating from high school. Ed Jr. adds, “As a kid, working here was sort of a chore, but now it’s an adventure we all enjoy each day.” As for Denise, one of the two Arnold daughters, she worked her way up to the management level at another local firm, but returned to her family’s scrap business so she could work hard for something that would someday belong to her and her brothers.
All three echo the sentiments of their parents when they talk about the business: Words like commitment, pride, service, and obligation are common refrains, and the dedication that all five family members give to the business is demonstrated in their 12-hour-plus days, six days a week. “Our kids aren’t forced to work here,” says Ed. “They love it as much as we do, and we’re lucky to have our family working here because there are a lot easier jobs out there with much shorter hours.” If their children hadn’t wanted to enter the business, Daryln and Ed say, the company would likely have remained small.
The firm’s growth could have also been restricted by the steady dwindling of the industrial base in its area. Whereas there once were 15 to 20 steel mills in the Buffalo area, today there are only a few, Ed says. As a result, the Arnolds had the choice to remain small and focus on the shrinking number of local customers or extend their reach beyond western New York.
Their decision? “We determined that we just had to go farther,” says Ed Jr., noting that today the firm ships scrap to mills in Canada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, throughout the Northeast, and beyond, backhauling scrap to its plant whenever possible. The company’s closest steel mill consumer, he says, is 100 miles away—a distance that some processors in scrap-intensive areas would consider a prohibitive distance. “It’s just a matter of doing business for us,” Ed says. The firm’s optimistic response to its region’s industrial exodus is typical, say Ed Jr. and Eugene. “Dad says, ‘Part of the loaf is better than none of it,’” Ed Jr. quotes.
The shrinking steel industry in the region has prompted the company to expand its nonferrous operations and find ways to add value to the scrap it still receives. “We upgrade the pants off everything we buy, and we do a tremendous amount of sorting,” says Eugene, who notes that such upgrading has always been a key to the firm’s success. “Our whole focus is on processing, and we want to make a better, more profitable scrap package that our consumers will pay more for.”
Equipping for Success
Focusing on processing and upgrading material means investing in equipment that will get the job done well and quickly.
Toward this end, a few years ago Edward Arnold Scrap Processors purchased a used 800-ton Harris shear to replace a 300-ton Harris shear it had outgrown. “We needed a larger shear to process more material but couldn’t justify the expense of a new shear,” says Ed Jr. As he recalls, it was a hard sell convincing his dad that the large capital investment in a used shear was needed—and forget about the even larger cost of a new unit. After so many years of processing scrap without laying out a lot of money for equipment, Ed was skeptical. But finally his sons convinced him that a higher-capacity shear was necessary to enable the firm to grow.
So Ed Jr. set out to find a good used shear. The search led him to Philadelphia, where he found just the right one. Ed Jr. and his plant foreman, Carl Stone, a 27-year veteran of the company, led a crew from the plant that spent more than a week disassembling the shear in Philadelphia before moving it to Corfu. Then the team spent the better part of the next year rebuilding the shear piece by piece, with Stone and Ed Jr. leading the project. In October 1996, the shear began operating. Currently, it processes about 80 to 100 tons a day and can do more if needed, Ed Jr. says.
“I think we did better to buy a used machine,” he states. For one, working together to assemble the shear gave everyone a sense of pride that the shear is their creation. “I think we all take a greater pride in it than we would if we’d bought a new shear” and have more of a sense of ownership of the shear, Ed Jr. says. Further, the reconstruction project gave the staff an invaluable, collective knowledge of the shear inside and out, which enables them to perform maintenance and troubleshooting when needed, he notes.
Edward Arnold Scrap Processors has also been in the car flattening business for quite some time, and its Al-jon mobile car flattener makes quick work of the veritable parking lot of retired cars on the periphery of the company’s plant.
The firm also recently bought a 2,500-pound-capacity aluminum sweat furnace to replace a smaller one that just wasn’t large enough to handle its growing aluminum business. “We were simply buying more aluminum than we could process,” Eugene explains, adding that he saw a lot of potential in operating a larger furnace because it’s not something that most of the firm’s competitors do.
The new furnace is helping make a dent in the stock of aluminum that was building up faster than the company could melt it, Eugene says. But now that its customers know about its new furnace, more aluminum scrap is flowing into the plant.
The Cornerstone Of the Company
Despite the many changes Edward Arnold Scrap Processors has undergone in the past few years, there’s one thing, says Ed, that has remained constant in his more than 40 years operating his business: customer service. To make sure the company stays competitive no matter what changes come along, it has to continue to offer superior service to both its scrap suppliers and consumers.
This service, which Ed calls the “cornerstone of the company,” is reflected in small gestures the Arnolds and their employees make naturally when interacting with their customers. For example, they greet nearly all of their estimated 200 suppliers by name, says Denise, and it’s common for any Arnold who happens to be around the office to interrupt what he or she is doing to visit with a customer. “We want to make sure our customers know how much they’re appreciated every time they come here,” says Ed. “We realize that when a customer loads his vehicle, he doesn’t have to choose our company to sell to.” But if the person receives good service and is treated “like gold,” he or she will want to come back, he reasons.
The family extends this good treatment to its more than 40 employees. The Arnolds think of their employees as an extension of their family, and this isn’t just lip service—employees gush about the company’s excellent relationships and work atmosphere even when an Arnold is not within earshot. In addition to health insurance, employees enjoy a 401(k) plan, generous overtime nearly every week, and a record of no layoffs throughout its history. This generous treatment has helped create a loyal work force, with a number of employees boasting long service with the company.
And even though Edward Arnold Scrap Processors is owned by the family, employees are also given the opportunity to move up through the ranks through hard work. The same is expected of the family members who join the business. Each, in fact, must perform even the most undesirable tasks in the facility to not only learn about the different aspects of the plant, but also demonstrate that everyone—family or not—has to earn their stripes.
But perhaps most important is that the employees are encouraged to participate in the business, with Ed stating, “I listen to my employees.” Employees have the chance to speak up every morning when the entire staff gathers for a few minutes to discuss any concerns as well as during the firm’s monthly education and training
sessions.
By treating employees well, Ed’s philosophy goes, they’re “on-board” with the same goals of quality and service that he has for the business. “Moving up the ladder, you never move alone and as you go up you bring your people with you,” he says.
And speaking of moving up the ladder, the firm is fairly progressive in terms of offering equal opportunities for women—a growing trend in the male-dominated scrap industry. In addition to Daryln and Denise, the company employs a number of women and has been delighted with the results, says Eugene, who counts among his nonferrous staff Sandy Eveland, sweat furnace manager, and Sarah Lange, who is his right hand in making sure the nonferrous department runs smoothly.
A Family Future
While friendly, conscientious service keeps Edward Arnold Scrap Processors’ image polished among its customers, its efforts to keep its image physically polished have helped too.
Basically, Ed explains, everyone in the scrap industry has an image problem, and to help improve its own image, the firm has made significant investments to keep its trucks and containers looking good. For instance, every truck is washed at the end of every workday, and all the containers are kept as clean and freshly painted as possible.
It may seem like an extraneous concern, but Ed Jr. says the investment has paid off by attracting new business from companies that prefer to work with a scrap firm that’s clean and takes care of its property.
Small things like this mean big things in the long run, the Arnolds believe, and their company has certainly proven its flexibility and staying power over the years. In the past 10 to 15 years, the scrap recycling industry has changed dramatically, observes Ed. To stay afloat, processors have had to be more savvy, operate more sophisticated equipment, and move more tons of material to keep up with the competition, he says.
Fortunately, in addition to passing on a love for the scrap industry to their children, Ed and Daryln have handed down the desire to continue growing the business—as it makes sense, of course. The Arnolds have set a goal to increase sales 10 percent a year. “That may sound modest,” says Eugene, but with the markets up and down, the family figures that’s a realistic, attainable goal. “When we grow, we look for the right way to do it.”
In any case, even with Ed and Daryln cutting back their involvement in the business, theirs is a young company with a “lot of energy and vision for its future,” says Ed. “It’s a dream of every mom and dad to be able to give something like this to their children and, best of all, to have them enjoy it.”
And while it’s too early to tell whether the third generation of Arnolds—Ed and Daryln’s grandchildren—will take a shine to the plant and continue the Arnolds’ scrap family affair, the prospects are promising: Already, Ed Jr. and Eugene have sons that love to come to the plant. •
Edward Arnold Scrap Processors Inc. may be the corporate child of Ed Arnold and wife Daryln, but it’s more than a mom-and-pop operation. With three of their children also involved, the firm is a genuine scrap family affair.