March/April 1998
By Si Wakesberg
In 1958, the National Association of Waste Material Dealers (NAWMD)—later renamed the National Association of Recycling Industries, or NARI—was one of the oldest scrap industry trade groups. But it was coming apart at the seams.
The association had been established with a strong base in waste paper—as it was then called—and rags. The cotton and wool rag trade was a small, elite group, whereas the waste paper sector had grown in strength and was now the dominant force—if not the largest group—in the association, particularly on its board of directors.
It seems paradoxical that metals, which had achieved such prominence in the postwar period, were still under-represented in NAWMD. By metals, I mean nonferrous scrap since iron and steel scrap had its own trade association in the Washington, D.C.-based Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel (ISIS).
Yet in 1958, the administrative reigns of NAWMD were still in the tight grip of the waste paper and rag dealers, much to the disgruntlement of the nonferrous members who represented a majority of the membership.
At the time, Clinton White was executive vice president of the association. He had been a federal government official in World War II, associated with one of the agencies handling controls on scrap materials. In addition to his knowledge of the scrap industry, he had a wide reputation as a bureaucrat who knew his way around Washington. It was no surprise therefore that when he left the government, he was offered the top post at NAWMD.
By 1958, however, the association's metal dealers had become dissatisfied with the way White was conducting the group's activities. In particular, they felt that NAWMD headquarters was paying little or no attention to their needs and that board decisions were being made without considering their views. The long-suppressed murmurs grew into open defiance. All that was needed was a leader to head the rebel cause.
Charles Rubenstein of Central Metal Co. Inc. (Plainville, Conn.), who had been elected president of NAWMD's metal dealers division, became the rebel leader. An aggressive, plain-speaking, and combative personality, Rubenstein soon found himself leading a band of disaffected metal dealers who were ready to follow him into no- man's-land, if necessary.
He called a meeting of the metal dealers division in Minneapolis to discuss what should be done. At that meeting, there was widespread sentiment to leave the association and establish a new nonferrous scrap organization. But within NAWMD, cooler heads prevailed. The existing leadership, seeing the writing on the wall, was willing to negotiate a compromise. The resulting decisions were to remove White pronto, hire a new administrator, employ—for the first time—a person to direct metals activities, and give metal processors parity on the board.
All this was accomplished in secrecy so that few outside the organization knew that these behind-the-scenes negotiations were going on. They were certainly kept from the press.
I should know because at the time I was editor of Waste Trade Journal, a weekly trade publication. In my position, I had attended both NAWMD and ISIS meetings and conventions, and I therefore knew many members of the scrap industry. One of the influential NAWMD members, Sidney Danziger, called me one day. "Could you come to my office tonight after work? I'd like to discuss something with you," he said.
Our meeting didn't seem anything special as I arrived that evening.
Danziger's office on Madison Avenue was directly across the street from the NAWMD headquarters, giving rise to many a snide rumor that he "controlled" the association. He opened the conversation by asking me, "Are you happy at the Waste Trade Journal?"
"In fact," I replied, "I've been looking around—"
"Good," he interjected. "How would you like to be in charge of metals activities for the national association?"
I was taken aback. That possibility had never crossed my mind. "Well ... ," I started.
"It's a new position," Danziger continued, outlining what had taken place. "The board is thinking of asking Manny Mighdoll to take over the administrative position and you would head the metals sector." At the time, Mighdoll was the association's public relations director.
It certainly sounded attractive, but I told him I had to talk it over with my family. "Well, say nothing yet to anyone else," Danziger advised, "not until the board votes on it. In the meantime, you should meet and talk to Charlie Rubenstein who will be coming into town tomorrow."
My head was swimming that evening as I called Rubenstein, who told me to meet him in Grand Central Station the next day at the information booth. We had never met and I didn't know what he looked like, but that—I later learned—was his offbeat way of doing things. Even when he became president of NARI later on, he never lost his individuality. For example, he made it a point never to stay at the hotel where a meeting was held. So if the meeting was at the Waldorf, he would stay at the Pierre. You never knew which way he'd go. But we met in Grand Central Station, as planned, and became friends immediately. (As an aside, he later ended up purchasing one of the oldest brass mills in the United States.)
It was two weeks before the board voted on its new administrative plan. As soon as it was approved, I notified Waste Trade Journal publisher Charles Lipsett that I would be leaving. Even though I gave him a month's notice, his reaction was surly and tight-lipped. But about a week before my departure, he thought it over and decided that maybe he should have a friend in the association, so he called me into his office and made up. One week later, he called to invite me to lunch at his club. In the 12 years I had worked for him, we had never had lunch together.
Manny Mighdoll did indeed become the association's administrator and later executive vice president. I had met Manny at NAWMD conventions but had never had an opportunity to talk with him. When we finally did get together, I found him to be a somewhat shy and unassuming person, quite willing to share his ideas of what the association's future should be like. He was genial and cooperative at the beginning, and we lunched almost daily, discussing plans for moving the association forward. Even though in later life he became solitary, introspective, and standoffish, his early years proved to be energizing and he was the progenitor of many of the association's fine and successful programs.
As it turned out, 1958 was a seminal year for me and NAWMD. Working together with the staff that later included Jerry Scharf and Ellie Roberts, we developed programs that activated participation, swelled attendance at meetings, and increased membership.
I became vice president of commodities and helped plan the first metals seminar at Michigan State University. We began to redraft the nonferrous scrap specifications. We conducted a big midyear meeting in Atlantic City at which I secured my first speakers—Irving Lipkowitz of Reynolds Metals Co. and Joseph Zimmerman, an old boss, then with Miles Metal Corp. Most important, on Sept. 17, 1958, I initiated the first issue of Metals Report. This newsletter was widely reproduced, quoted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and even found its way into a metals publication in Calcutta, as well as periodicals in Europe and South America. Metals Report was published weekly until NARI merged with ISIS to form ReMA in 1987. After the merger, the publication became ReMA's Commodities newsletter.
Many things have happened since 1958 in the world, the scrap industry, and its trade associations. There have been eight new U.S. presidents, a few bloody international conflicts, men on the moon, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to name but a few.
More industry-specific, the 1970s ushered in the concept of recycling, which has grown into a powerful industry and world force. NAWMD became first the National Association of Secondary Material Industries, then NARI, and finally merged with ISIS.
It sometimes seems as if all this happened ages ago in a period you can only find in history books. But at other times, it seems like yesterday that I first entered the NAWMD office on Madison Avenue and took my first steps down a road that would take me down the highways and byways of the scrap industry—a remarkable road that I wouldn't for the world have missed traveling. •
In 1958, the National Association of Waste Material Dealers (NAWMD)—later renamed the National Association of Recycling Industries, or NARI—was one of the oldest scrap industry trade groups. But it was coming apart at the seams.