July/August 1999
By Si Wakesberg
Si Wakesberg is New York Bureau Chief for Scrap.
When I became a staff member of the National Association of Secondary Material Industries (NASMI)—later known as the National Association of Recycling Industries (NARI)—scrap recyclers were still talking about their wonderful train trips to Los Angeles to attend regional meetings on the fabled West Coast.
As one executive recalls, “You’d board the train in Chicago, get yourself set up in your room, then meet the boys for a game of poker.”
Those poker games achieved a legendary aura as time went by. “They made the trip pleasant and quick,” remarks an old-timer. Others offer sub-rosa comments about dice games, though most insist that they’d only heard about them—they didn’t participate.
The West Coast in those days—and we’re talking post-World War II days—was viewed as a distant country where movies were made but where there was little industry. As long as it took days, not hours, to get from New York City to Los Angeles or San Francisco, the distance seemed daunting. Easterners certainly had no idea what transformations were taking place there since the war’s end, how technology was developing from Southern California to the northernmost points of Oregon and Washington.
Insulated in the East and Midwest, members of NASMI and the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel (ISIS) also weren’t aware that an insurrection was brewing among their West Coast colleagues.
“Why do we always have to travel East to come to an association convention?” That became the nagging question among West Coast processors attending NARI and ISIS meetings in Chicago or New York City. “Why can’t a convention be held in L.A. or San Francisco?”
It was a question that became more pressing and urgent as time went by.
The advances in transportation helped solve some things. In 1958, I flew to Los Angeles for a regional meeting on a prop plane that took nine hours. But I returned on one of the first transcontinental jets. I still possess a card that says: “This is to certify that Si Wakesberg is one of the first to book passage on a Jet Airliner. National Airlines of the Stars is the first United States carrier to offer domestic jet service.” The flight, which I recall vividly, was a one-class affair on a 707 jet. It carried Ed Sullivan’s troupe back from Hollywood. Martha Raye sat in the seat in front of me.
One time, the West Coast insurrection took on such vitality that California chapters of NASMI and ISIS decided to hold a joint meeting without getting approval from their parent associations—a bold action. The meeting was a huge success, with standing room only.
In 1961, NASMI finally did schedule a convention in San Francisco. Wide-eyed Easterners checked into the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill as if they were entering a palace. Things were changing. Soon, in fact, Walter Daley of Independent Paper Stock Co. (San Francisco) became the first NASMI president from the West Coast. A quiet, gentle, and friendly man, Daley endeared himself to his metal colleagues and served as a model association executive.
I still recall with nostalgic emotion a trip to Los Angeles for a regional meeting in 1963. We first stopped at Las Vegas, which was not the Las Vegas of today. Meeting Ralph Levenson and his charming wife Ruth, we took some time to visit Hoover Dam. Then, from Las Vegas, we traveled to Los Angeles to attend an industry meeting. We were seated at a table with Mr. and Mrs. Milton Fox of Markovits & Fox (San Jose), parents of Marvin and Robert (currently chairman and president of the firm, respectively). The Foxes were two of the nicest people I’ve ever met in this industry, and I remember them fondly. If memory serves, I think Ted Gruen, an unabashed Easterner and player in the copper business, was the guest speaker and Mack Cottler was the genial emcee of the event.
In that trip, what dazzled me was my first view of the Pacific Ocean as I traveled on Route 1 from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Mesmerized by the inordinate beauty of the landscape, by the mountains on my right and the ocean on my left, I experienced a communion with California that I feel to this day.
Alas, I was in lovely Carmel when I learned the terrible news that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. It’s said that everyone remembers where he or she was on that day. How could I forget the contrast of the sunlit city and the dark, melancholy news?
After our first West Coast convention, Los Angeles and San Francisco became closer territory. And with the emergence of a new generation, West Coasters began to play a more dominant role in our association. Among those who came to the fore was Jake Farber of Alpert & Alpert Iron & Metal Inc. (Los Angeles), who represented the new and active leadership of the West Coast and who became not only president of NARI, but also a two-term president of the Bureau of International Recycling (Brussels), an international scrap recycling association. In addition, men like Ray Alpert, Marvin Fox, Jerry Stroffolino, Victor Rosenfeld, David Sidell, Maury Schwartz, Alan Engle, Irwin Becker, Griff Martin, and many others began to play an important role and brought to NARI a special West Coast flavor. In the steel scrap field, the impact of the Schnitzers, Neus, Prolers, Glants, and others was also being felt forcefully.
The rise of the West Coast as an industrial giant has indeed been phenomenal. As the home of the computer industry, Silicon Valley has seen some of the fastest and richest growth in the United States. The scrap industry, too, has taken advantage of its geographic position as gateway to Asia and become a dominant export base for nonferrous, ferrous, and paper scrap.
The importance of Asia to the West Coast was explicitly noted when the Asian economy broke down in 1997 and countries like Korea and Japan, which had been buying large tonnages of U.S. scrap, suddenly bought less or dropped out of the market altogether. The thud in export shipments hit the West Coast scrap industry particularly hard.
Like other geographic areas, the West Coast has changed since I first wandered the streets of Los Angeles in search of a good restaurant. Today, of course, Los Angeles holds its own against New York City and Chicago as far as restaurants, art galleries, and symphony halls are concerned. If it has lost some of its early charm, it has gained the status of a major U.S. city.
Trains still leave Chicago for Los Angeles, but today’s scrap executives, cell phone in hand, catch the plane to Los Angeles or San Francisco or Seattle. The old friendly train ride is now only a dim memory. •
When I became a staff member of the National Association of Secondary Material Industries (NASMI)—later known as the National Association of Recycling Industries (NARI)—scrap recyclers were still talking about their wonderful train trips to Los Angeles to attend regional meetings on the fabled West Coast.