March/April 2012
After proving his mettle in the 1990s Superfund battle, Jerry Simms ascended ISRI’s leadership ranks. Now he’s poised to become the association’s chair at what might be an equally challenging time in the industry’s history.
By Kent Kiser
Jerry Simms did not set out to be an association leader. Like many association members, he started out attending meetings, sitting in the back of the room, saying and contributing nothing. But when a situation emerged that had the potential to destroy his and other scrap companies, he took action. His initial step—writing a letter to ReMA in 1991 that made an impassioned plea for Superfund reform to protect scrap recycling companies—led him, first, to become a major force in the passage of the Superfund Recycling Equity Act in 1999 and, later, to become an equal force in ReMA leadership. Now, 30 years after he started attending association meetings and 21 years after he penned his Superfund letter, Jerry Simms is set to become ISRI’s next chair. His journey has taken him from the back to the front of the room, from follower to leader, from anonymity to prominence.
A Philosophical Peddler
Though Jerry Simms’ family was not in the scrap industry, he learned about it early from family friends in the business in the Cleveland area, where he spent his early years. Simms devoted his youth in University Heights, an eastside suburb of Cleveland, to three things: sports, sports, and sports. He played everything from football to baseball to wrestling. “I was a total jock,” he admits. He still found time in high school and during summer vacations to work for Miles Alloy, the family friend’s scrap company, which introduced him to the recycling trade.
Simms didn’t travel far for college, attending Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, about five hours southwest of Cleveland. His football talents as a strong safety earned him a full scholarship offer, but he declined because he didn’t want to live in the athletes’ dorm. He played through the end of his freshman season, then he decided to focus instead on his studies, graduating in 1973 with a degree in philosophy. Why that major? Simms says he took a philosophy class as a liberal arts prerequisite and ended up “loving the discourse.” He considered pursuing a graduate degree in that discipline, but he ultimately decided against it.
After graduating, Simms made a big life decision: He would move to Colorado. He had camped in the state several times during summer vacations and “just fell in love with it,” he says.
Logistically, it was an easy move for Simms, who at the time owned little more than “one pair of jeans and a dog, so it didn’t take very long to get up and go.” Emotionally, the move was more difficult because he had to leave his mother and two brothers. (His father had died a few years earlier, when Jerry was a senior in high school.) As it turned out, the rest of the family relocated to Colorado within the year.
Simms initially settled in Denver and later moved to nearby Boulder, where he continues to live. Without a “career vision” at the time of his arrival in Colorado, he spent his first couple of years working in restaurants as a cook and bartender. Though he enjoyed the work, he realized, ultimately, “that road wasn’t going to lead anywhere,” he says. That’s when he, his brother Bob, and a cousin decided to form a scrap company, Mile High Metals. “Three little peddlers is what we were,” he says. Using a flatbed truck, they would haul scrap back to their garage, sort it, then sell the material to larger scrapyards in the area, usually to Atlas Metal & Iron Corp. (Denver). One day, Simms recalls, Don Rosen, then Atlas’ president, said, “I like you guys a lot, but stop calling me every day for prices. I guarantee I’ll be fair and pay you the top price.”
That was the start of Mile High Metals’ and Simms’ “tremendous relationship with Atlas and the Rosen family,” Simms says. The relationship became so good, in fact, that Bob Simms went to work for Atlas at about the time Jerry decided to return to Cleveland and enroll in Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. Legal studies suited him, he says, and he did well, even making the school’s law review. He missed Colorado, however, so he applied and was accepted into the law school at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to continue his studies. He returned to Colorado in summer 1977 with a plan to work at Atlas through the summer to earn money for school. “Initially I thought it would be a part-time thing,” he says, but he never left, joining his brother as an Atlas employee in 1978.
Jerry says he learned the business from the ground up, spending the first few months in the warehouse identifying and sorting metals—“basic scrap stuff”—then progressing to buying at the scale, which he did for about a year. He moved on to trading and administration, brokering truckloads of scrap, organizing transportation, and negotiating export letters of credit. Around 1988, the manager of Atlas Metal Sales—the company’s nonferrous service center and new-metal sales division—fell ill, and Mike Rosen, then the firm’s secretary/treasurer, asked Simms to fill in. He knew nothing about that niche, but Rosen encouraged him to take on the new challenge. Though he says his heart was in scrap, Simms took the new-metal reins and has led the division ever since, now as executive vice president. “I’ve spent a lot of time learning that niche, and I’ve come to like it a lot,” he says. “I’ve been with the company for 35 years. The Rosens are a tremendous family. They run a fantastic scrap operation, and it’s a joy to work for them.” (Jerry’s brother, Bob Simms, is still with the company, too. He is currently vice president of Atlas Metal & Iron.)
Ascending the Association
In addition to his daily duties at Atlas, Simms took on the unofficial role of the company’s ambassador to the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel, an ReMA predecessor. When Simms started attending ISIS meetings in the early 1980s, “I wasn’t much of a participant, not much of a talker,” he says. That changed in 1991, when Atlas was named in three Superfund lawsuits. “We have to do something about this,” Simms said to Mike Rosen. “This is the kind of thing that will knock us out of business.” Rosen’s response: “Jerry, do what you have to do.”
Simms wrote a “lengthy, strongly worded, but very respectful” letter and sent it to Herschel Cutler, then ISRI’s executive director, as well as to other ReMA officers and staff. The letter encouraged ReMA and the industry to aggressively fight Superfund’s injustices. He argued that the law unfairly made scrap recycling companies liable for contamination that other companies caused. He called for rallying ReMA members at the grass-roots level and leveraging their political power to effect change on this critical issue. “I wanted us to be more active in controlling our destiny,” he says. “I’m sure the ReMA officers and staff were saying, ‘Who is this Simms guy? He comes out of nowhere and starts telling us how to run our [association] and solve this problem?’” In reality, the association welcomed Simms’ passion for the issue and enlisted him to help build its grass-roots political structure through a new group, the Grass Roots Implementation Team, or GRIT. “That was one good thing that came out of our Superfund battle,” Simms says.
The biggest “good thing,” of course, was the 1999 passage of the federal Superfund Recy cling Equity Act, which secured Superfund liability relief for scrap companies. Another good thing, however, was that the Superfund battle pushed Simms from the back of the room to the front in ReMA activities, and Atlas has been behind him all the way. “Atlas made the commitment to support ReMA and my involvement in the association for the long haul, and I think the company has made a stellar contribution over the past few decades,” he says.
In addition to his work on GRIT, Simms has filled a variety of other ReMA leadership positions, including chair of the government affairs committee, member of the stormwater steering committee, nonferrous division director, director-at-large, chair of the ReMA PAC Leadership Council, member of the national board of directors, and head of task forces that have addressed SREA, automotive mercury switches, and other issues. He also led the membership criteria subgroup, part of the industry image task force, which helped draft ISRI’s code of conduct. “Because of my involvement, my passion, and—to some degree—my clamoring, various ReMA chairs have honored me by asking me to play a role in ReMA governance,” he says.
His many years of association service made Simms a prime candidate for national ReMA office. The association first approached him with that idea about 12 years ago, Simms says, but it was not a good time for him to take on that commitment. Simms clearly recalls when ReMA came calling a second time: It was 2005, and he was driving near San Diego when he received a call from past ReMA Chair Cricket Williams, who asked him to run for national secretary/treasurer. The timing was much better for Simms this time, and he “knew right away” he wanted to do it, he says. He couldn’t accept the nomination, however, before discussing the offer with Mike Rosen. If elected, Simms knew he would be making a 10-year commitment—eight years in the four national officer positions and two years as immediate past chair. Rosen was more than supportive, Simms says—he “thought it would be a great honor for Atlas as a company and for me personally to follow in the footsteps of some truly leading, wonderful companies and individual leaders,” Simms says. “So we said yes.”
In a contested election against Manny Bodner of Bodner Metal & Iron Corp. (Houston), Simms won the secretary/treasurer position in 2006, at ISRI’s first convention at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. In April, ReMA returns to Mandalay Bay for the fourth time for its 2012 convention, and it seems fitting that Simms will become chair in the same place he started his national officer journey. “The bottom line is, I’ve gone from a peddler to [an industry] chairman, and I think that’s pretty cool,” Simms says. “I’m pretty proud of that. It’s an honor.”
Working Hard in the Big Chair
Simms was drawn into ReMA service by Superfund, which threatened the industry’s existence, and he is becoming chair when the industry faces a new threat that could be just as serious, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed new rule on the definition of solid waste. As Simms explains, the proposed rule “would redefine scrap as solid waste, if not hazardous waste,” making it subject to a wide range of onerous laws and regulations—a change that could put many scrap recycling companies out of business. The proposed rule is “completely antithetical to what we’re trying to do, which is to say scrap is not waste and recycling is not disposal,” he says. “It’s a 180-degree difference.”
Simms plans to make that issue a top priority during his administration, but it’s only one of many serious challenges the association and industry will face in the next two years. Superfund lawsuits are arising again, threatening scrap companies that have not met the due-diligence requirements of the SREA law. The scrap industry also continues to have an “image problem” related to the ongoing materials theft issue, which has resulted in numerous new laws and regulations imposing burdens on scrap operators. Part of the solution lies in educating the public, law enforcement officials, and elected leaders about the industry, Simms says. “We have to explain to outside parties that we’re good environmental stewards and good community citizens.” The resurgence of calls for export controls on various scrap materials is another priority on ISRI’s near-term agenda. Such political fights are “so critical to our members’ businesses,” he says. “There are so many pitfalls, so many bear traps, out there. Yes, we have to comply with all laws and regulations, but there can be over-regulation and unreasonably burdensome regulations.”
Though the above issues are daunting, Simms believes ReMA is well-equipped to face them. “ISRI has phenomenal resources, including its professional staff, which provides tremendous service to the members,” he says. “We’re doing the right things, but we’re up against a process that will take a while and continue on, so we just have to remain steadfast in these fights.”
While fighting those battles, Simms also plans to pursue goals such as expanding ISRI’s ranks of volunteer leaders. “That’s a challenge,” he acknowledges, “but we can’t give up on it.” One approach is to encourage the participation of a wider range of company leaders at a given ReMA member firm, not just the top executives. “Have your operations managers and your young executives play more of a role, not only in chapter governance but also at the national level,” he says. “It will help your business, our industry, and our trade association. I think it’s an important responsibility.” He understands that time limitations prevent many members from getting involved, but he firmly believes the pros outweigh the cons. “There are great rewards to this, great satisfaction that you’re helping members, the association, and your own company, even if it does take time,” he says. “That shouldn’t deter others from getting involved.”
Simms, a self-described fiscal conservative, also plans to keep a watchful eye on ISRI’s financial reserves. Though ISRI’s upcoming battles will require sizable expenditures, he wants to keep dues and assessments at a minimum. With roughly $12 million in the bank, ISRI’s reserves are “in a good position now, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them grow a little more. That’s our savings account for a true emergency.”
As he considers the tasks ahead, Simms says he’s “very confident” but “still a little nervous” about taking on the top ReMA leadership role. He compares his current feelings to how he felt before a football game—“you’ve got butterflies, but after the first hit, they usually go away.” With 21 years of active association involvement behind him, he’s confident in his grasp of the issues and in the solid working relationship he has established with the ReMA staff and national officers. “I’m following some great leadership, and I want to lead as well as they have,” he says.
In 2006, in the speech he made as a candidate for the secretary/treasurer position, Simms promised that, if elected, he would work as hard and as diligently as he could on behalf of ReMA and its members. “I’ve tried to do that over the past six years, and I’m certainly going to try to do that in the next two years,” he says. “When all is said and done, I hope people will look at me and say, ‘He worked really hard to get things done.’”
Kent Kiser is publisher of Scrap.
A Simms Summary
Born: Nov. 3, 1951, in University Heights, Ohio.
Education: Earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in 1973. He names René Descartes as a favorite philosopher.
Family: Wife Terry; four daughters, Ellen, Sara, Rachael, and Lauren; and one granddaughter.
Favorite movies: The original King Kong, as well as Legends of the Fall and Open Range.
Favorite drinks: Grey Goose vodka with a twist of lemon and a couple of olives, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine.
Favorite foods: Beef fillet and pizza. “I’m the world’s craziest pizza freak. In general, I like New York-style, thin-crust pizza with pepperoni. My favorite pizza place is Geraci’s in University Heights.”
Favorite places: Boulder, Colo. (where he lives), San Francisco, Amsterdam, and France.
Favorite music: “I love music of all kinds, except for rap. I’m mostly a classic rock guy, but I also love 1950s doo-wop songs.”
Favorite TV shows: “I don’t watch regular TV shows, but I do watch a lot of news.” On a related note, Simms says people often mistake him for actor/writer Larry David of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm fame. “It’s uncanny how many people say that to me,” he says, confessing that he didn’t even know who David was when people started approaching him about it. While at the 2009 ReMA fall board meeting in the Bahamas, he recalls, an elderly janitor approached him in the hotel men’s room and said, “You … David … Hollywood.” Simms knew exactly what he meant. “I couldn’t believe an old, Bahamian janitor would say that,” he says. “It’s sort of crazy.”
Last books read: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, One Second After by William Forstchen, and Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré.
My greatest personal achievements have been… “raising four wonderful daughters and being selected as a national ReMA officer.”
In my free time, I like to… bike and hike in the Boulder foothills.
I’d like to improve my… short-term memory. “Names are the worst for me. I hear a name, and it’s gone instantly.” He’d also like to improve his tee shots.
If I didn’t work in the scrap industry, I’d like to… own a jazz bar. “I’ve always loved the restaurant and bar business, and I love jazz.”
When my term as ReMA chair is over, I will… “look forward to serving my two years as immediate past chair, which includes some important responsibilities. After that, I’d still like to play a role and attend governance meetings for a long time. I’d also like to find some vacation time to visit Australia [where his daughter Ellen, her husband, and their daughter live] and Tahiti.”