March/April 2002
Charles “Cricket” Williams Jr. has been steadily ascending the association ladder for 30 years—first in ISIS, then in ISRI. This March, he’ll reach the top rung when he becomes the next ReMA chair.
By Kent Kiser
Kent Kiser is Editor and Associate Publisher of Scrap.
Thirty years might seem like a long time to climb anything. For Charles “Cricket” Williams Jr., though, three decades has been just the right amount of time to ascend the association ladder. And come March, he’ll reach the top when he becomes the new chair of ISRI.
Reaching this pinnacle is the fitting culmination of Cricket’s 30-plus-year involvement in the scrap industry and its associations, which began with the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel (ISIS)—an ReMA predecessor—and continues with ISRI.
Cricket, who will assume ISRI’s highest elected office March 14 at the association’s annual convention in Las Vegas, already has his hopes, dreams, and aspirations in order for his two-year administration. Scrap caught up with him in late January to review his career in the scrap industry, his association involvement, the challenges facing ReMA and the industry, and his priorities as ReMA chair.
First Things First
Before addressing the serious issues, however, Cricket takes a moment to answer the burning question on everyone’s mind: How exactly did he get his unusual nickname?
“That’s an age-old question that everybody asks me,” he answers good-naturedly. “The story that was related to me by my parents was that the doctor called me Cricket because I was a very active baby, not only in the womb but after I was born. My mother picked up on it and gave me that nickname.”
Though Cricket embraced the name through high school, he planned to lose it when he went to college. Unfortunately, he attended college with friends who continued to call him Cricket. Then he thought the name would disappear when he left graduate school and went to work. As fate would have it, his employer sent him to Virginia Beach, Va., where—you guessed it—everybody knew him as Cricket.
By the time Cricket joined his father’s scrap brokerage business, there was no longer any reason to get rid of the name. “In fact, it worked in our favor,” Cricket explains, “because my customers knew me as Cricket and dad’s customers knew him as Charles.” And there you have it—the story of why Cricket has been called Cricket for all of his 60 years. Today, he says, “I don’t know how to answer to Charles. When people call me Charles, I look around for my father.” His father, of course, is Charles Williams Sr. To understand how his son, Charles “Cricket” Williams Jr., ended up in the scrap business, you have to know a little about the senior Williams.
Charles Sr. began his scrap career in Philadelphia, working as a scrap buyer for Luria Brothers. In the mid-1940s, Williams moved his family to Richmond, Va., to open a new office for the company. He continued to work for Luria Brothers until the 1960s when the federal government brought an antitrust action against the firm, requiring it to close or sell off many of its operations. One of those was the Richmond office, which Williams took over and continued as Charles Williams Co., a ferrous scrap brokerage proprietorship.
That’s how it remained until the early 1970s when Williams developed a worrisome heart condition. At that time, Cricket was working for Sperry Gyroscope, putting his physics degree to good use as an engineer. He abandoned that career, though, and returned to Richmond to help his father with the business because, Cricket says, “we quite frankly didn’t know how long dad was going to be around.”
Thus, in 1972, Charles Williams Co. became a partnership named Charles Williams & Son and later a corporation called Charles Williams & Son Inc. Fortunately, Charles Sr.’s heart condition wasn’t life-threatening after all. “As it turns out,” Cricket says, “he’s 86 years old now and still kicking.”
Today, Cricket is the sole overseer of Charles Williams & Son while also serving as an officer of Davis Industries Inc., a scrap recycling company based in Lorton, Va. How that latter position came about is a story in itself.
For years, Charles Williams & Son had helped broker Davis Industries’ scrap, so Cricket was good friends with the company’s principals—Ben Ettleman, CEO, and Fred Bonnett, president. Four years ago, they approached Cricket at a Seaboard Chapter meeting about becoming an officer of the company with responsibility for marketing its scrap and consulting on other issues.
Cricket accepted their offer and now serves as the firm’s vice president. This new role, he says, has not only enabled him to work closely with his good friends, it has also expanded his expertise beyond scrap brokerage to include scrap plant operations—knowledge that has helped him in his association work. (At this point, Cricket takes a moment to offer sincere thanks to Ettleman, Bonnett, and Bill Bukevicz, executive vice president of Davis Industries. Without their patience and generosity, he states, he wouldn’t be able to pursue his time-consuming association work.)
A Life of Association
Cricket inherited a dedication to association work from his father, who served on several ISIS committees as well as a director-at-large and as president of the ISIS Seaboard Chapter.
Following his father’s example, Cricket got involved in ISIS immediately after joining the business, starting at the chapter level then climbing to the committee level and beyond. And what a climb it’s been. Here, for instance, are just a few highlights from Cricket’s long association résumé: vice president and president of the ISIS Seaboard Chapter; two terms as an ISIS national director-at-large; cochair of the ISIS energy committee and the joint legislative/environmental committee; chair of ISRI’s ad hoc committee on regulation that produced the Environmental Operating Guidelines; and member of the ReMA planning committee.
All of this—and more—led to Cricket’s election in 1998 to the national ReMA office of second vice president under then-chair Shelley Padnos of Louis Padnos Iron & Metal Co. He moved up the national ranks in 2000, becoming chair-elect in the administration of outgoing chair Sam Hummelstein of Hummelstein Iron & Metal Inc. And in March, Cricket will reach the top of the ReMA ladder when he becomes the association’s eighth national leader.
Assessing the Industry’s Problems
Cricket is assuming ISRI’s highest office at a difficult time.
The U.S. economy, the scrap industry, and the major scrap-consuming sectors are all trying to rebound from the recent recession. Plus, he’ll be leading a scrap industry that has changed significantly in recent years and that continues to face a host of challenges. These challenges, Cricket says, include:
Greater Aggregate Debt—Scrap recyclers have had to increase their debt to meet environmental requirements, keep up with technological changes, remain competitive against ever-larger competitors, and more. “All those costs have dramatically changed the debt structure of the industry, which in turn has affected how scrap is marketed today,” he says. Recyclers with considerable debt, for example, must focus on cash flow and servicing that debt. Such concerns force recyclers to “sell into markets that they might not have chosen to sell into had they not had that debt,” Cricket explains, adding that “it’s very difficult to hold material in anticipation of a better market when you have commitments at your lending institutions.”
Different Global Flows of Material—When Cricket entered the scrap business in 1972, the industry was highly regional and scrap consumers rarely purchased material outside their market territory, except for an occasional “quiet” deal. Today, “scrap moves all over the place,” he notes. To be sure, inexpensive freight rates and the continued globalization of everything have caused major scrap shifts. As Cricket states, “The broadening of the market area of scrap and finished product from a national basis to a global market area is a force that’s changing the industry.”
Consolidation—The merger-and-acquisition frenzy among scrap companies in recent years conglomerated the industry, changed regional dynamics, shifted market shares, and more. Though this consolidation trend “isn’t over with yet,” Cricket says, “it will done differently than it was done five or so years ago.”
There’s also the issue of consolidation and rationalization among scrap consumers, particularly the U.S. steel industry. These changes can’t help but affect the scrap industry, Cricket says. If there’s less scrap-based steel made in the United States, for instance, that will have a direct impact on the domestic generation of and demand for scrap—“and that concerns me,” he states.
Focusing on the Bottom Line
These problems—as well as others such as greater government interference, less reliable market cycles, and the recent recession—affect not only the scrap industry but also its trade association. Cricket knows this only too well. ISRI’s membership base has felt the double-whammy of consolidation and the exit of companies from the industry without the reentry of new businesses. “In short,” he states, “our membership base seems to be getting smaller and smaller.” Fewer member companies means a smaller pool of individuals to serve as volunteer leaders. It also reduces ISRI’s lobbying strength on Capitol Hill. “Instead of being able to point to 1,800 member firms, we can only point to about 1,300 member firms,” Cricket says.
Also, as the industry has changed, so have the needs of scrap companies and ReMA members. “All of these market forces change what the trade association should be offering to its membership,” Cricket says.
Some traditional ReMA services continue to have value, including the various insurance programs. “Those are valid whether you’ve got globalization in the marketplace or not,” Cricket asserts. “Any program we can offer our member firms that will reduce their insurance costs or ensure that they get coverage is a valuable program.” Another valuable ReMA service is its government affairs effort, which “has value to the members regardless of what forces are going on in the industry.”
Beyond traditional services, ReMA is “always looking at ways to return value to members by helping them react to the new forces in the marketplace,” Cricket says, adding that “those forces require different services that I’m not so sure we’re providing yet, though I think we’re on the right track to begin to provide them.”
Old programs and services or new, ISRI’s bottom line remains the same, Cricket says, and that is to “ensure not just the survival but the profitability of our members. Without the industry being profitable, there is no trade association. So, everything we do at the trade association should be aimed at increasing the profitability of our members, period.”
Building Strong Chapters
As Cricket ponders his term as ReMA chair—and the priorities of his administration—he first gives a nod to his fellow officers and the progress achieved during their terms.
“I’ve been fortunate,” he says, “to serve under two dynamic chairs—Shelley Padnos and Sam Hummelstein—who have shed light on the operations of the trade association.” In particular, Cricket notes, they “reinstated the responsibility of the board of directors and put the responsibility of running the trade association squarely on the board’s shoulders, which is where it should be.” And he has every intention of carrying on their work in many areas “without any changes whatsoever.”
That doesn’t mean, though, that Cricket doesn’t have his own plans as ReMA chair. His main priority can be expressed in three words—enhancing the chapters. This priority makes sense if you know Cricket. Since he entered the business, he has been involved in his regional chapter and credits the success of his company, in large part, to the relationships he developed through the chapter. That explains why he views the chapters as the strength of the association.
That also explains why Cricket plans to devote much of his term to strengthening ISRI’s chapters and encouraging them to be more active. Some of this work has already started, he says, noting that ReMA recently shifted the responsibility for membership recruitment and retention to the chapter level.
Cricket also wants to revive interest in serving in chapter officer positions. “Quite frankly,” he says, “I’m sick and tired of seeing nonchallenged elections. I think that the healthiest way would be if we had 10 candidates for each office. I’d like to help return that type of enthusiasm to the chapters.”
Among other plans, Cricket and his fellow national officers are considering creating an officer candidate school for chapter leaders. Such a school would help develop ReMA volunteer leaders and expand the attendees’ contacts.
Cricket also mentions ideas such as establishing phone trees to help connect the chapter presidents, encouraging strong chapters to mentor smaller ones, and standardizing the chapter accounting systems. “I want the chapter system to be as strong as it can possibly be,” he says, “and I want to have as many volunteers as possible clamoring for positions within the trade association. I’m willing to invest whatever it takes to get there because, with a stronger chapter system and more members, the association’s financial health will be assured.”
March 14 is approaching fast. On that day, ISRI’s board of directors will elect its new slate of national officers, with Charles “Cricket” Williams Jr. at the helm. Despite the inevitable hard work ahead, he’s ready. In fact, he’s more than ready. “It’s something I want to do,” Cricket says. “I’m not intimidated in the least by the prospect of becoming ReMA chair.”
How can he be so calm? Because, he says, “I have great reliance in ISRI’s professional staff. I have great reliance in ISRI’s board of directors, my fellow officers and committee chairs, and the membership as a whole. They’re going to make job very, very easy.”
Though he’s confident, he’s not unrealistic. “Will there be some difficult times? Sure. Will we continue to wrestle with budget problems? Sure. Is there the potential for further government regulations that will make it harder for the industry? Sure. All those challenges are out there. But,” he concludes, “I’m not frightened of them because I know there’s a good team behind me to help solve the problems.” •
Charles “Cricket” Williams Jr. has been steadily ascending the association ladder for 30 years—first in ISIS, then in ISRI. This March, he’ll reach the top rung when he becomes the next ReMA chair.