Man of Aluminum

Among the industry’s many aluminum brokers, Stanton Moss stands out as a veteran who has helped advance the business for more than two decades.

By Si Wakesberg

Si Wakesberg is New York bureau chief for Scrap Processing and Recycling.

We all know who the Man of Steel is-the inimitable Superman-but who qualifies as the Man of Aluminum?

One of the best candidates might be Stanton Aaron Moss, a 37-year scrap veteran who entered the scrap aluminum brokerage business when it was barely a business. Since then, the industry has grown dramatically and faced numerous challenges. Yet his independent brokerage company--Stanton A. Moss Inc. (Bryn Mawr, Pa.)--still stands, entering its 21st year of operation, and Stanton looks forward to the challenges to come.

Taking the Plunge

Stanton was introduced to the business world early on. His father was a manufacturer of sweaters and, as a youngster, Stanton picked up a few business basics by spending some of his free time at his father's plant and by selling some of those sweaters to his school chums.

His interest and facility at business continued into his college years--spent as a finance major at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and Finance--though he took a short detour from this path when he contemplated pursuing a law career, going so far as to attend a year of law school. But economics and finance still enticed him, so he cast his lot instead in the business realm, where he soon found himself in the aluminum industry. "It was no accident that I ended up in aluminum brokerage," Stanton explains. "My education and my initial work at an aluminum plant steered me in that direction--and I've never been sorry."

So if the legal profession lost a potential star, the aluminum scrap industry gained a trailblazer and articulate spokesman. "Today, law and aluminum brokerage have one thing in common," says Stanton with a smile, "they've both become overcrowded professions."

It wasn't that way, of course, in 1957, when Stanton secured his first job with George Sall Metals Co. in Philadelphia. At that time, aluminum was still a relatively new and untapped market, just beginning to compete with the much older copper, so the promise in this new field was enormous. "I started out working in the plant," Stanton recalls, "becoming familiar with the various grades of scrap aluminum and the different sorting procedures. I also spent time in the laboratory getting acquainted with aluminum's chemistry and characteristics. Before long, I had a pretty good feel for the business." Indeed, in those early days with George Sall, he received an all-around education in nonferrous metals--including copper, brass, and bronze--through the company's smelting operations.

The workplace wasn't the only place Stanton learned about the business. In 1959--and Stanton remembers this year vividly--he attended the first management development metal seminar offered by the National Association of Waste Material Dealers (NAWMD)--a predecessor of the National Association of Recycling Industries (NARI), one of the two groups that merged to form the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) (Washington, D.C.)--which was held at Michigan State University. "The friendships I made at that seminar with students like Dick Galamba [now president of Galamet Inc. (Kansas City, Mo.)], Warren Gelman [now head of Kataman Metals Inc. (St. Louis)], and others have remained steadfast throughout my career," Stanton says. The seminar was also invaluable in what it taught him about metals, he recalls. "Its effect was incalculable."

As with most veterans in the scrap industry, Stanton also learned some of his best lessons in the school of experience. Early in his career with George Sall, for instance, he was sent to inspect 15 large ship propellers that were being sold and sample them for manganese bronze. Fourteen of the propellers showed manganese bronze, Stanton recalls, but one showed high-grade G metal, which didn't make sense because G metal is a high-copper/high-tin alloy much more valuable than manganese bronze. Based on Stanton's inspection, the firm shipped the 14 good propellers to a foundry and brought the questionable one back to the plant for further testing. And what did the company find? Evidently, the propeller in question had been chipped during World War 11 and, in fixing it, the repairmen had brazed G metal onto it. "It was something unexpected for a novice like me," he says, "and I learned that you have to be very careful every time you inspect material."

In the 1960s, Stanton moved up to a sales position at George Sall, offering metal to die casters and foundries throughout the East and South. He did so well at this that in 1969 he became sales manager and two years later general manager. His escalating career with George Sall ended, however, when the company was liquidated in 1973 due to unresolvable labor problems.

In 1973, with 15 years of industry experience on his resume, Stanton decided to go into business for himself, at first trading both aluminum and brass and bronze scrap and ingots, but later specializing in aluminum. "At that time, there were maybe a half dozen aluminum brokers in the United States," he says. "In a sense, we were the pioneers of the aluminum brokerage business, sailing into uncharted waters."

A History of Leadership

Stanton's experience at the 1959 NAWMD seminar convinced him that industry members should be active in their trade associations, and he has certainly put that belief into action throughout his career. For starters, he occupied some of the most prestigious positions in NARI, including elected posts on the association's executive committee and board of directors, as well as the chairmanship of its eastern division and membership committee.

Since then, Stanton has assumed a leading role in ISRI, serving as chairman of the aluminum committee, chairman of the nonferrous division, and now as a nonferrous division board representative. What has he experienced in return for these services'? "Thinking back," he says, "I find that my most satisfying moments in trade association activities were in setting up the roundtables and seminars, and working on the specifications."

In other association activities, Stanton helped found Chapter 8 of the Society of Die Casting Engineers (now the North American Die Casting Association [Detroit]) and has been active in the Philadelphia Metals Association, with past service as the group's president and as a co-chairman of its Phoenix Award committee. And on the local level, he's been active in the United Jewish Appeal and has chaired the citywide Country Club Day for that group. He explains his years as an industry "activist" this way: "I like to give something back, and I hope I can inspire others to get involved too. You have to participate to make these groups effective and viable."

All of these many years of service to the industry and his community, on top of his years in the business, have earned Stanton not only respect, but friends wherever he goes. The scrap industry, he says, is a kind of "cousins club" in that no matter where you go, you can always find someone else in the business to say hello to. "When my kids travel to a strange town," he says, "I always tell them to look up the scrap dealer and they're sure to get a warm welcome.”

Living Through the Changes

Looking back on his two decades as an independent aluminum broker, Stanton sees four radical changes that have shaken the aluminum business and made it vastly different today.

First and foremost has been the rapid rise and important role of all-aluminum used beverage cans as a scrap source. "Today's fantastic volume contrasts dramatically with the 'peanut' business it was 20 years ago," Stanton notes. Next, he points out, "there's the growing use of scrap by the primary aluminum companies, which now competes with consumption by secondary smelters. That certainly wasn't a major factor when I first entered the business." The practice of trading aluminum on the London Metal Exchange, which began in the mid-1980s, has also radically altered the nature of the business, Stanton says. "From being a producer-oriented market centered in the United States, it's become a sensitive international market," he explains. And finally, he points to the proliferation of aluminum brokers today, a change that's "remarkable," he says, "when one recalls the handful of brokers at the time I founded my company."

In his career, Stanton has also seen the nonferrous industry as a whole undergo major transformations. As an example, he recalls a time when his native Philadelphia was the hub of the Northeastern scrap industry--a time when prime producers, secondary smelters, and brass and bronze ingot manufacturers were crowded into the Philadelphia--New Jersey corridor. Today those businesses are scarce in that area.

A Future of Promise

Not everything has changed, of course. "While the scrap industry has changed dramatically over the years, in most instances, our relations with our customers are still based on a symbolic handshake," Stanton says reflectively. "If the customer says OK over the phone, that's a contract."

He concedes, however, that opportunities today in the aluminum scrap business are more limited than they were when he first started out. "There's too much competition," which has resulted in "an intensive battle to get one's share of the available scrap supply," he says. "The bottom line is a narrowing of profit margins." In addition, the proliferation of regulations has placed a heavy responsibility on everyone in the business, he emphasizes.

Still, Stanton believes there's room in the aluminum industry for ambitious young men and women, as industry veterans move on. But he offers this advice: Before entering the business, learn it physically by working in a scrap plant. Get to know the inner workings of the business and find out what the processors' problems are, as well as what consumers want. "Don't just be a telephone jockey," he warns. "If you're truly interested, you're sure to have a future in the scrap business."

And how about him? Would he, if he had the opportunity to start all over, still pick aluminum? The answer to that is an emphatic yes. "Aluminum, of all metals, is still the most exciting and still has the greatest growth potential," Stanton asserts, underscoring the industry's promise by noting the increased use of aluminum in the automotive and packaging markets.

And as you listen to Stanton's enthusiasm for the aluminum industry--to which he has devoted much of his life--you begin to see that this dapper, young-looking veteran, on the verge of his 60th birthday, still exudes a fair measure of promise himself.