May/June 2005
Englishman Peter Mason covered two continents in pursuit of his life’s work in recycling.
By Si Wakesberg
The history of the U.S. scrap industry tells of many individuals who crossed the Atlantic and fought the odds to find a place to live and do business in America. Some of them came from various parts of continental Europe—from Germany, Holland, Russia. This is the odyssey of an Englishman who left his native land and became one of the pillars of the U.S. scrap industry.
Our story begins in 1951 when a young Royal Air Force (RAF) airman named Peter Mason left the military and returned to his home city of Newcastle Upon Tyne in the north of England. He resumed his old job as a junior clerk at the Tyne Improvement Commission, a public-sector group that managed shipping traffic on the Tyne River. He also began taking college classes at night. There, he learned the law of supply and demand, which convinced him that the way to make money was through buying and selling.
So, in 1952, he decided to pursue such a job in the private sector, accepting a position in the Newcastle office of Marple & Gillet Ltd., a Sheffield-based ferrous and nonferrous scrap firm. News of the young Mason’s newfound employment did not exactly thrill his father, a wine and spirits merchant. As Mason recounts: “When I came home and told my father that I had been offered a job in scrap, he looked at me queerly and said: ‘Are you going to be a junkman and sit in one of those horse carts wearing a peakie cap?’ In those days, that was the unfortunate view people had of the scrap industry.”
That same year, Mason met Roland Robinson—managing director of Ellis Metals, a Newcastle scrap company—and asked if he could work there. Robinson told Mason to call back in five years when he had some experience under his belt.
Try, Try Again
Five years later, in 1957, Mason did indeed call Robinson and again asked for a job. This time he was hired, and he ended up working for that company until 1966.
While there, Mason learned about demolition—an Ellis specialty—and he began to trade scrap in larger volumes. Seeking to expand the company’s business, Mason visited Ensidesa, Spain’s national iron and steel company. To this day, he recalls the occasion with a smile and remembers it this way:
At that time, British scrap firms still expected buyers and sellers to come to them—after all, they were the British Empire! But things were changing in the post-World War II world, and Mason got a taste of that change on the visit to Ensidesa when he and another Ellis rep were kept waiting and waiting and waiting by the company’s executives.
“I understood what was going on,” Mason says. “I told the Spanish executives that we were a younger generation who didn’t expect to get business just because we were English. We knew that we had to go out and fight for it. I think we convinced them. But, sad to say, we didn’t sell them a cargo lot. However, an English company heard about this incident and entered into a swap deal with us—pig iron for scrap—so some good came out of all this.”
Back in his RAF days, Mason had met many Americans, some of whom regaled him with tales of a place called Texas, which began to loom large in his imagination. Once in the scrap trade, he also heard that U.S. scrap dealers were using advanced technology, so he was anxious to see the new types of equipment.
In 1963, he read a small advertisement in the London Metal Bulletin about a job opening at a company named Commercial Metals Co., which happened to be based in Texas. He applied for the job and was asked to come for an interview in London.
Felix Levy, whom Mason knew from his work at Ellis, was the interviewer. After talking, Levy offered Mason the position. But Ellis Metals, not wanting to lose Mason, named him managing director, prompting him to “reluctantly” turn down Commercial Metals’ offer.
Time changes everything, however. Three years later, Commercial Metals once again offered Mason a job, and this time he accepted.
Mason remembers calling his wife and announcing, “Edna, we’re going to America.” After that momentous news, she replied simply, “OK. When are you coming home for dinner?”
The reason for her calm response was that Mason had told her long ago that “in order for me to make my way in this industry, I would probably have to travel, move from place to place, and she agreed to come along with me wherever I went,” he explains. “America was just another place to go to.”
A Transatlantic Shift
Moving to Beaumont, Texas, about 80 miles east of Houston, in 1967 was both a physical and cultural journey for Mason, but he soon became adjusted to life in his new home as well as work in the United States.
As plant manager for Commercial Metals’ Beaumont facility, he brought his experience to bear, made new friends, and learned how Texans lived and worked. He stayed with Commercial Metals for five years, after which he joined Luria Brothers as Midwest division operations manager in Burns Harbor, Ind. (at a plant located within a Bethlehem Steel facility), with responsibility for purchasing and selling scrap. Thus, Mason quickly gained experience with two giants of the U.S. scrap industry.
His next career move led him to a position with Ireland Alloys Inc. in Houston. Back in his days with Ellis Metals, Mason had been sent to Scotland for a period. While there, he met Austin Merrills, chairman of Scotland-based Ireland Alloys Ltd., known worldwide for its leadership position in stainless and alloy scrap.
Years later, in 1981, Mason called Merrills to ask if he could join the company’s Texas operations, where he eventually became executive vice president and gained a reputation for trading with companies all over the world. He sold stainless scrap to Germany, Holland, Japan, South Korea, India, and others before retiring from Ireland Alloys in 1997 when Merrills sold the company to ELG Metals Inc. (McKeesport, Pa.). What an odyssey it had been for this British kid from Newcastle who never finished college, yet who rose to become a prominent member of the U.S. scrap industry.
The Changing World of Scrap
Looking back, Peter Mason recalls some of the dramatic changes he witnessed during his lifetime in the scrap business. For instance, at the start of his career in England, the way stainless scrap was handled “would hardly be called sophisticated,” he notes. Over the years, the international scrap industry has greatly improved the quality of its products thanks to “radical advances” in technology, Mason remarks, noting that new handheld and laboratory-scale analyzing equipment has made it easier and faster to test and accurately identify various alloys.
Regarding mergers and consolidations in the scrap industry, Mason comments: “I believe that competition makes the world go round. I know that large companies offer the industry greater liquidity but unless there’s real competition, the industry will not progress.”
Throughout the changes in the industry as well as his own career, Mason found guidance and inspiration from several key individuals. His mentor in England was Roland Robinson of Ellis Metals, who taught him to be confident in what he was doing. In addition to Austin Merrills, other important figures in Mason’s career included Denis Oliver of Ireland Alloys, Ray Friedman of Commercial Metals, and Charlie Merritt, another Commercial Metals executive who gave him perhaps the wisest advice in his career. When confronted with moving to America, Mason had wanted to have a “tryout” period of six months with Commercial Metals before bringing over his wife and two children. But Merritt told him: “No, bring your wife and children with you. Have them around you when you need them. And bring sufficient funds to bank for a return ticket to England.”
Mason followed Merritt’s suggestion, and despite traveling around the globe for business and pleasure, his return tickets always brought him back to his adopted home in the United States.
Pride and Associations
During his career in England, Mason was active in the British Scrap Federation, working closely with the local chapter on export and foreign trade activities. So when he came to the United States, he was quick to join the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel—an ReMA predecessor—then ISRI. He also became a member of the Bureau of International Recycling.
While not an aggressive participant in any of these organizations, Mason nonetheless feels that association membership is a necessity.
“A trade association like ISRI,” he notes, “is important for the industry because it is a means of relaying the message of recycling to the community and eventually to the entire country. Despite our talking and writing about it, most people still don’t know how valuable recycled materials are to the economic system. They have to be taught.”
Looking ahead, Mason believes there will always be a need for industry associations just as there will always be a need for a scrap industry because there simply aren’t enough natural resources to meet the world’s raw-material needs. Thus, a professional scrap industry that makes positive use of secondary materials “has become a significant part of world trade,” he stresses.
So what would he tell young people coming into the industry?
“The most important thing is to be proud to belong to an industry that’s recovering valuable resources that would be lost to the world if we didn’t do our job,” he answers. “Recycling is like being on a mission—people must be made to understand the value of the industry’s work and its economic impact on world trade.”
Peter’s Portfolio
Background: Born Dec. 17, 1930, in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England.
Education: For high school, Mason attended Dame Allans, the Church of England Cathedral School for Newcastle. “Going there was a privilege,” he recalls. After service in the Royal Air Force, he went to college at night for a few semesters.
Military Service: Entered the Royal Air Force in 1949 and was discharged in 1951.
Family: Mason met Edna Boyd at a dance in 1951. They courted for three years before marrying in 1954. She died in 1997. Two sons: Peter, who also works in the scrap industry for Keywell L.L.C., and Alistair, who has a career in the restaurant business.
Career: First job after high school was as a junior clerk with the Tyne Improvement Commission, which managed shipping traffic on the Tyne River. After his military service, he joined the Newcastle office of Marple & Gillet Ltd., a Sheffield-based ferrous and nonferrous scrap company. Next was Ellis Metals, a Newcastle scrap firm where he rose to managing director before moving to Commercial Metals Co. in Beaumont, Texas. After Commercial Metals, he worked in the Indiana operations of Luria Brothers before returning to Texas and eventually joining Ireland Alloys Inc., from which he retired in 1997.
Hobbies: Stamp collecting and traveling.
Si Wakesberg is New York bureau chief for Scrap.
Englishman Peter Mason covered two continents in pursuit of his life’s work in recycling.