January/Febraury 2009
Family unity and community service are what Saul Gordon's scrap career and life are about—a legacy he received from his father and grandfather and one that he expects his family will continue.
By Jim Fowler
The Gordon family's path to the scrap business may have started with an accident, but it's no accident that Saul Gordon continues his family's legacy. "It's my intent to continue at the company as long as I am physically able," the 80-year-old says. "If I'm in town, I'll probably be at the yard—I have to stick my nose in it."
He owes his lifelong career with L. Gordon Iron & Metal Co. (Statesville, N.C.), in part, to his grandfather Harry's misfortune. Harry, who was born in Russia in 1874 and immigrated to the United States through Ellis Island as a young man, worked for a short time in a cigar factory on New York's Lower East Side. One day, Saul Gordon says, a piece of tobacco leaf flew into his grandfather's eye. In pain, he begged his boss for help but was ignored. As a result, he lost his eye. Not wanting to lose his other eye, he decided to get out of the cigar business and become a scrap peddler.
Going South for Sun and Scrap
Barely making a living and taking no comfort in the cold and rainy winters of New York, Harry decided in 1900 to head south with his wife, Annie, and then-1-year-old son Louis, Saul's father. A religious man, Harry was attracted to a brick synagogue in High Point, N.C., and he decided that was the city to call home. He peddled scrap metal, bottles, and dried bones. Rags also became a mainstay of his business, given the regional prominence of the furniture industry. He would buy discarded clothing, Saul says, cut off the buttons, bundle the "wipers," and sell them to hand-rub furniture. At age 11, Louis left the sixth grade to help his father support the family, which grew to include three sisters and a brother. Six years later, after seeing his father's business take hold, Louis ventured out on his own. In 1917, he traveled 60 miles to Statesville, N.C., where he established L. Gordon Iron & Metal. Settling in Statesville, Louis eventually married his wife, Charlotte, and raised five sons—Melvin, Ellis, Saul, Alfred, and Kalman—each of whom worked in the family businesses, which grew to include retail furniture and farming.
The idea for the furniture business came from an empty storefront on the property his father leased in 1917, Saul says. A furniture manufacturer he purchased scrap from suggested that he take furniture on consignment and sell it in the empty space. "This was the beginning of the ‘Don't go with an empty wagon' philosophy," Saul says. "When he'd sell a piece of furniture, usually to people out in the country, he'd load it on his wagon to deliver it. While there, he'd pick up a load of scrap metal for a profitable backhaul. Every farm had scrap to sell." His main scrap consumer was the manufacturer of brick-making machinery, Saul says. "They had a foundry to cast the parts, and plow points, because of their chemistry, were the scrap charge of choice."
As Saul got older, he helped his father with the 80-acre farm. "We had Black Angus cows, corn, small grain, hay, and a tenant farmer who raised cotton. Dad particularly enjoyed buying and selling Black Angus cows," Saul recalls. "We also had chickens, horses, and cows in our backyard, where I milked two cows a day. Mother and the maid would make cottage cheese, farmer's cheese, butter, and buttermilk—gosh, that was good stuff." The farmland has been idle since his father's sudden death in 1964, he notes.
"My father and grandfather thought of themselves as gentlemen scrap dealers," Saul says. "My grandfather wore a suit, vest, and tie every day—all day—and he never shaved himself. He went to the barbershop every morning for a shave. When we'd go to the beach in the summer, my father would put on his bathing suit and play with us in the water and the sand. But when he went back to the house, he'd have a shower, and the suit, vest, and tie [went] back on—even at the beach—can you imagine? There were no shlumpers in our family!"
Building the Family Business
From the time he could walk and talk, Saul remembers being a part of the family scrap business. "I'd go in the warehouse and see a guy knocking off steel handles from aluminum pans, and I tried to do that. The sorters taught me how to identify one metal from another. In the beginning, our only equipment was torches; but in 1938, when I was 10, we installed our first alligator shear—I wasn't allowed to go near it," he adds.
The Gordon household had many guests, he recalls. "I can always remember consumers—ferrous and nonferrous—coming to town looking to buy metal, and they usually spent the night at our house," Saul says. "My brothers and I would sit and listen to how business was being done and deals were made. It was fascinating, and [it was] how we learned."
When Saul was in high school and able to drive, he would spend weeks during the summer working for his grandfather in High Point. "He'd send me out driving a pickup truck with an employee to collect scrap he'd bought. One day I drove behind the Packard dealership and spotted a pile of eight-cylinder motor blocks," he recalls. "I saw the service manager and told him I'd like to buy them. He asked how much I was going to pay him for them, and that stopped me. I didn't know pricing, so I told him I'd have to go ask my grandpa. Grandpa gave me a price, and I went back and made the deal." Saul says he loved the time he spent with his grandparents. "In fact, I liked it better than working in my dad's scrapyard, but I didn't tell him that. He thought it was great and was proud of me for doing it."
After high school, Saul attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and majored in commerce. "I met my future wife, Gene Lester, as a freshman," he says. "It was a wonderful four years in courtship and education." Saul was accepted to law school, but "after lengthy conversations with my father and wife-to-be, I decided my place was back in Statesville in the family business I knew and loved. I didn't want to work in the furniture store—I never sold a piece of furniture in my life. I went right into the scrap business and never looked back." His brothers Ellis, who died in August 1993, and Alfred, who died in March 2006, ran the furniture business, which grew into a 62,000-square-foot space on another site and was sold in 2004. Alfred then joined his brothers in the scrapyard until his death.
The afternoon Saul returned home from his June 1950 graduation, he found a yellow sheet of paper on his dresser: a list of things his father wanted him to do at the scrapyard beginning at 8 the next morning.
"He was tough in that respect, but awfully good to us," Saul says. "He was my boss, my friend, and my teacher. He didn't run a classroom; he used the look-and-see approach. He knew how he wanted it done, and we did it his way. He taught us to treat all people the same—with respect and fair dealings—and to honor all commitments."
Today, two third-generation, four fourth-generation, and one fifth-generation Gordon run the company that continues the business philosophy first espoused by Harry and then by Louis—a philosophy to which Saul attributes the company's success: "Treat your fellow man the way you want to be treated. Help those [who are] less fortunate. Make every day count." Saul says these life lessons shaped him.
Sticking Together
The family rule for disagreements was—and continues to be—that they work through them before they leave the office at the end of the day, Saul says. "We settled any disagreements before leaving work, and [we] never took our problems home to our spouses. We got along well together—[my] brothers and dad—and we never left the office with any misunderstanding." His father also taught his children the importance of sticking together, Saul says. "One day he had the five of us sit down in the office. [He] handed Melvin, the oldest, five pencils and told him to break them. Melvin thought it was curious that his father wanted him to break five perfectly good pencils, but he gave it his best shot. The pencils didn't break. Then dad took four of the pencils back and told Melvin to break the one. Melvin, still looking curious, snapped it easily. Dad said, 'Let that be a lesson to you. Together you'll be strong. One at a time, you can break just like a pencil. Remember that, boys: You've got to stick together.'
We always have, and the same is true of our sons, and I believe it will be true of their children as well."
That's why Saul believes L. Gordon Iron & Metal will remain a family business, even though interested buyers have approached them. "We see ourselves as maintaining that family identity. With all of the consolidations and bankruptcies that have gone on, we want to stay where we are right now. We have our own niche here, and with decent markets, we'll do well. We don't need anyone to tell us how to run our business. All of our children have ownership in the company, whether they work for the company or not. Dad gave each of his grandchildren stock in the company—he set it up that way—that's how he wanted it. And I think he meant for us to keep running this business as long as we could."
Saul had looked forward to working with his son Craig, who joined the company's management team after receiving his MBA in the early 1980s, but Craig, who has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, is on indefinite sick leave. Although saddened by this turn of events, Saul remains optimistic about the company's future. "With all of the knowledge and experience that has been absorbed by the fourth and fifth generations," he says, "the company will continue to grow."
Would his grandfather Harry be impressed with the company he helped his son Louis start 91 years ago? "He was lucky to ship a carload of scrap a week," Saul calculates. "We ship 40 trailerloads and eight carloads of scrap in one day. I think he would be." Saul attributes the company's growth to new markets, domestic and foreign; improved equipment and facilities; and the acquisition of feeder yards. "Our nonferrous business has grown tremendously over the previous 10 years," he adds. "We do more dollar volume in nonferrous than ferrous these days."
Through the years, Saul was active in the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel, one of ReMA's predecessor organizations, serving on the board and as vice president and president of the association's Southern Chapter. He was also a national director-at-large. He is probably best known, however, as co-moderator of ISIS and ReMA's popular shredder maintenance seminar. In 1974, Saul says, he was serving on the ISIS national education and training committee, and his friend Ted Lipman of Tennessee Valley Recycling (Pulaski, Tenn.), who had been running a shredder for years, asked him to help moderate a seminar. "That was the beginning of a 26-year run, and we had a great time doing it," Saul says.
More than Just a Company
Saul and his brothers learned the importance of community involvement from their grandfather and father. "We want to give back to the community," Saul says, "and community involvement is important to all of us in the company. Charity is godliness—that's what we were taught, and that's what we believe." Saul remembers how his father would arrange a Christmas party annually for the children at the nearby Thomasville orphanage. "He would send buses to bring all of the children to Statesville, feed them a big dinner, and have a wrapped present for each child. There was also a nice check for the superintendent to take back for the children's home.
"In advance, dad would call the other company presidents in town [and] tell them he was planning the party and would be sending a driver by to pick up their checks. He also let them know what the amount of the check should be. No one ever turned him down because they knew he gave and did so much for other people. What he did was important, and it was important to us, so we've tried to continue his legacy through the years."
Continue they have. For the past 20 years, the company has been a major sponsor of the Fifth Street Ministry, where a full-time minister and his wife direct care for the homeless, including providing three meals a day, seven days a week. In 2003, the family initiated the Gordon Hospice House. "We needed a place where people could spend the last days of their lives in dignity, since a lot of people don't have or can't afford caregivers," he says. "It's a beautiful facility—like walking into a hotel." Now the company is underwriting a gymnasium for the Statesville Boys and Girls Club.
The family's good deeds have not gone unnoticed by the town. Shortly after his father's death, the city council renamed one of the streets where the company is located Gordon Avenue in his memory, Saul says. "We thought that was great." The company also is good to its employees, which today number about 100. They have never laid off an employee due to poor economic conditions, Saul says. And since 1965, 15 percent of an employee's gross wages are invested in a profit-sharing plan. "We have very little turnover," Saul adds. "We like our employees, and they like us." It's little wonder that Gordon Industries received the Family Business of the Year award for North Carolina and then went on to be named the 1999 National Family Business of the Year, an award sponsored by MassMutual. The company was cited as "one of America's finest family businesses" in the medium category (50 to 250 employees).
Although he's 80, Saul is not contemplating retirement. "I should retire; however, that's not my nature. If I retire, I'll never have a day off because I'll be doing something else." You can hear the sadness in his voice when he says how much he and his youngest brother Kalman miss their three other brothers. Melvin died in September 2007. "We miss them tremendously. It's hard. All of a sudden, I'm the eldest Gordon, and it's not always a good feeling."
Saul says his title, president, does not mean a thing in the family company. "We probably don't operate the way most people do. We run the company as a committee. In reality, I'm the resident emeritus. I'm there for my son, my nephews, and grand-nephew to pick my brain. They ask questions about how I'd handle certain aspects of the business, and we talk about it and reach a conclusion. These young men are all close to one another; they are a bright, well-educated, dynamite group. They are all good at their jobs, and I'm so proud of them. As a result, I'm thoroughly enjoying this stage of my life." •
Jim Fowler is retired publisher and editorial director of Scrap.
Family unity and community service are what Saul Gordon's scrap career and life are about—a legacy he received from his father and grandfather and one that he expects his family will continue.