March/April 1998
Seven ReMA chapters have developed scholarship programs for their employees’ dependents. And while running the programs hasn’t always been easy, members agree that they’ve always been worth it.
By Kristina Rundquist
Kristina Rundquist is an associate editor of Scrap.
The odds were against her. She was a Mexican national, living in a rough neighborhood and running with a local gang. You’d probably assume she’d never amount to much, right?
Wrong.
She’s managed to pull her life together, graduate from high school, and—with the help of ISRI’s Rocky Mountain Chapter—pursue an undergraduate degree at a local college. While the chapter can’t take credit for her drive and ambition, it can rightly claim to have helped her attend college by providing financial assistance.
The higher-education dream is just that for many youth. But this young woman was fortunate that her father worked for a company belonging to the Rocky Mountain Chapter, which just so happens to offer a scholarship program. When the program began some 20 years ago, students were eligible to earn a $500 award. Today, the amount has grown to $1,000, with an expected increase to $1,500 this year.
This young woman hasn’t been the only one to benefit from the chapter’s scholarships, of course, and the Rocky Mountain Chapter isn’t the only ReMA chapter to offer such awards. Here’s a look at these scholarship programs and how they’re helping students achieve their higher-education dreams.
Starting a Scholarship
Of ISRI’s 23 chapters, seven—or about 30 percent—have a scholarship program, offering amounts from $500 to $2,500 per award.
According to ISRI’s Recycling Research Foundation (RRF), which oversees and administers each program, chapter scholarships are to be used “to pursue studies at an educational institution designed to meet the requirements for an academic or professional degree conferred by a college or university.”
As far as who can apply, “applicants must be a dependent of an employee of a member firm, in good standing, of the chapter of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in whose name the scholarship was created,” RRF says.
Beyond the standard clause excluding discrimination for race, religion, and gender, rules forbid dependents of scholarship committee members and RRF from applying. But some chapters have gone a step further. The Rocky Mountain Chapter, for example, prohibits “owners’ and principals’ families as well as anyone with stock in the company from applying,” explains chapter President Michael Yourtz, vice president of Commercial Iron & Metal Co. Inc. and Du-Wald Steel Corp., both in Denver.
As for what scholarship committees—usually composed of a few chapter board members and possibly someone outside the industry—look for in applicants, “need is the primary requisite and, of course, their grades and activities,” says Leon Galoob, president of Interstate Metals Corp. (Oklahoma City) and chairman of the Gulf Coast Chapter’s scholarship committee.
This base standard is reflected in each scholarship program to varying degrees, though some chapters link awards to a recycling project. Doug Kramer, vice president of Kramer Metals (Los Angeles) and immediate past president of the Southwestern Chapter, has established “the criteria so they have a direct correlation to the scrap recycling industry. One of the standards is the completion of a poster, recycling project, or essay on the importance of recycling.”
The Empire Chapter has a similar standard, requiring applicants to “write an essay on a recycling project they’ve tackled, in addition to a personal history covering what they’ve done in high school and what they’re looking for in college,” says Ed Arnold Jr., vice president of Edward Arnold Scrap Processors Inc. (Corfu, N.Y.) and Empire Chapter vice president.
The Southeastern Chapter, though, requires a more general essay on an education-related topic. Says Gene Rosenbaum, president of Southern Scrap Co. Inc. (Pensacola, Fla.) as well as the chapter’s secretary and scholarship chairman, “we haven’t put any restrictions on it. We want to keep it as open as possible.”
Adhering to IRS regulations, all contributions—which can be written off as a business but not a personal deduction—are sent care of RRF and deposited in an ReMA common interest-bearing investment account and tracked through a separate fund accounting system. “We receive the money for tax purposes and then we disperse it,” sending award checks directly to the schools rather than the recipients, says Terry Hamilton, ISRI’s manager of accounting.
RRF, in essence, frees the chapters from the day-to-day responsibility of financial administration of their scholarship programs and thus enables them to concentrate on fundraising and the application process.
“However the chapters want to raise money is up to them,” Hamilton says.
Once a chapter has finalized its criteria and application process—and raised sufficient money, of course—it sends application information and forms to its members, with deadlines for submissions usually in early April or May.
At this point, the success of the program depends on the members’ decision whether to post the information for their employees to see. “Then,” explains Kramer, “if the employees want to pick up the ball and participate, they can give the applications to their kids.”
Not surprisingly, most problems occur at this stage for the simple reason that members aren’t required to make this information available. Doing so depends on good faith. The New Jersey Chapter knows all about this. In fact, it no longer has a scholarship program due to a lack of applicants, says Alora Meisel, a nonferrous trader with Criterion Recycling (Manalapan, N.J.) and the chapter’s president. After reinstating the program in 1993, and despite a slew of publicity, the program was canceled, she recalls. “Twice it was stopped because of lack of interest. Whether or not our membership provided the information to employees, that’s something we don’t know,” she says.
Arnold also emphasizes this point, noting that “the hardest thing is making sure our members post the applications.” To make that task easier, the Empire Chapter has designed a poster and sends out fliers to be included with paychecks. The Southeastern Chapter, meanwhile, assists its members in preparing press releases.
Does this all sound like a lot to do? Sure. Creating a successful chapter scholarship program takes work. As Kramer offers, “I went over the program’s language for months to make sure the chapter is always protected and that the work product of the applicant stays the property of ISRI.”
Even so, Arnold points out, “once you get everything set up, there’s not a lot of work until you send out applications and get them back. The program basically runs itself.”
And, as all agree, the positive payback from these scholarship programs makes all the effort worthwhile. On a personal level, Kramer notes, “I feel my best when I’ve done something for someone else. As much time as I’ve spent doing this, the finished product feels great, and the award checks will be the icing on the cake.”
The programs also make for good public relations for the industry. “As an industry, we need to be out promoting ourselves,” Arnold says. “The more we do for the community, the more it helps us. It gives us a little bright spot.” The Empire Chapter, he notes, has tried to use its scholarship program as a tool. “When someone calls and says ReMA never does anything for me, we say ‘Here’s something we’ve done for your employees,’” he notes.
Another point, asserts Kramer, is that “as an industry we should have pride in what we do and impart that to our employees. One of the ways we can show how important they are is to help their children. It’s hard to be able to afford to send a kid to college, so if we can give their kids an advantage and include the parents in the loop, that’s great.”
Seven Stories for Seven Chapters
Just as each recipient of a scholarship is unique, each chapter program has an individual story, as follows.
Empire Chapter. The Empire Chapter established its program in the late 1970s in honor of Harold Goldman of Lake Erie Smelting Co. Inc. (Buffalo, N.Y.), who was robbed and murdered at his business in the late 1970s.
Some 20 years later, the RRF-Harold Goldman Scholarship continues to aid two students each September in the form of a $500 scholarship. The scholarship committee, consisting of three executive board members and Howard Goldman, Harold’s son, expects applicants to be promoting recycling in some way. “It’s more than just going out and saying, ‘I’ve recycled all my newspapers,’” notes Ed Arnold. “One winner had developed a recycling program in high school, as well as one in her sophomore year of college.”
The chapter collects funds through programs such as golf outings, raffles, and corporate and private donations. Drumming up support hasn’t always been easy, acknowledges Arnold, referring to a period of seven or eight years during which the program “got lost in the shuffle.” It wasn’t until John Linder of United Alloys & Steel Corp. (Buffalo, N.Y.), then-president of the chapter, reinstated the scholarship. This year, the chapter points proudly to receiving six applications.
As for the program’s future, Arnold is confident it will continue to grow, noting, “I’ll become president after the convention in March, and this is something I want to pursue with even larger scholarships and more applicants.”
Gulf Coast Chapter. This chapter’s scholarship program—arguably one of the most successful—is named in honor of the late William A. Bushman, CEO of A. Tenenbaum Co. Inc. (North Little Rock, Ark.). Last year, the 30-year-old RRF-William A. Bushman Memorial Scholarship Fund received 27 applications and awarded six scholarships of $2,000 each.
Funds for the program are raised through the chapter’s annual golf tournament. “We also solicit members to acknowledge people within their organization through a donation, and that’s been very well-received,” Leon Galoob notes.
The scholarship committee is composed of people from outside ReMA to avoid the specter of favoritism, counting a hospital administrator and school official among its members.
How does the program decide which applicants get awards? As a general philosophy, the chapter has “always felt that it was better to give as much as you could to as many as you could,” Galoob says. When reviewing specific applications, “we look at how they’re progressing in school and make an honest effort to reward those who try.” Although the chapter gives preference to previous recipients so that “we end up helping one family out over four years,” Galoob notes that the rules “aren’t so inflexible that they can’t be amended. While an applicant may not succeed one year, they can shine through the next if their grades are good.”
Though Galoob admits it took several years to get the program up and running, the program is now “so well-recognized that it’s one of the important reports we give at the chapter’s board meetings,” Galoob says. He credits William Friedman, chairman of Friedman Iron & Metal Co. (Greenville, Miss.), and Tom Salome, president of M. Lipsitz & Co. Inc. (Waco, Texas), with “making certain the program is of the caliber it is today.”
Paper Stock Industries Chapter. This chapter’s 3-year-old program has already met with great success, having received 14 applications its first year and a whopping 30 in 1997.
Such success is attributed to the chapter’s sense of activism and teamwork, which is highly prized and rewarded by the committee. “When we’re reviewing applications, all things being equal, if one company has been more active than another, we’ll give the scholarship to the applicant from the more active company,” explains Wayne DiCastri, president of Pioneer Fibers Inc. (Minneapolis) and chairman of the chapter’s scholarship committee.
While DiCastri spearheaded development of the program, he altruistically notes that “when the idea came to light, there were a lot of other people who picked up the ball and ran with it.”
The program gives four $1,000 scholarships annually and derives the bulk of its funds from chapter dues, with direct contributions and raffles bolstering the pot. The program is advertised at committee meetings and each member personally receives a copy of the application to pass along to his or her employees.
Generating support hasn’t been a problem for the paper chapter, says DiCastri, noting that he and his committee have had a relatively easy time running the program. “It’s been easy to handle and easy to run,” he says. “What’s more, it’s been very well-received.”
Rocky Mountain Chapter. While some chapters give scholarships to students with a strong record of academic achievement and community service, the RRF-Rocky Mountain Chapter Scholarship Fund also emphasizes the applicant’s need.
“I noticed we were giving the scholarship to the best and brightest, and I had a problem with that,” says Michael Yourtz. “So I said the awards should go to someone who needs it the most, someone who is a bit of a risk but who is trying to get ahead.” He adds, “We want to see potential, and if it’s a little bit of a gamble, that’s OK. I’d rather gamble with someone who could really benefit from the scholarship.”
Funds for the more than 20-year-old scholarship program come from the chapter treasury, says Yourtz, noting that the chapter doesn’t “solicit funds—we have a CD and interest-bearing accounts that fund our scholarships.”
Although the chapter considers itself fairly small compared with other ReMA chapters, its scholarship program—which provides one $1,500 award annually—has had some big results. “We’ve had people on the committee who’ve had children of their employees win, and they’re thrilled,” Yourtz says. “Most of our work force is first-generation Mexican, and this is an opportunity for the employee, who is sending a lot of his money home, to take his kids to the next level. I love that our program gives something back to our community and the people who work for us.”
Southeastern Chapter. The RRF-Southeastern Chapter Scholarship Fund is unusual in that it solicits half of its funds from its members, says Gene Rosenbaum. “The recipients’ firms contribute 50 percent to the scholarship and the other comes from the chapter,” he explains. “We don’t do golf tournaments or raffles. Most of it comes from direct donations.”
This unique fundraising approach helps explain how the program can provide up to 10 annual $1,000 scholarships. Says Rosenbaum, “We have great participation but we have to be somewhat selective. The first 10 winners receive the award from the program, but if we have an overabundance of applications we do give the member firms the option of paying the full $1,000.”
The chapter’s scholarship committee includes a university professor who grades the essays, which helps the other committee members—who also review the applications—know how applicants “have stacked up already,” Rosenbaum says.
The program, initiated by Rosenbaum’s father, was “started as a way of not only marketing our companies to our employees but to the community as a whole, and that definitely remains true today,” he says. “We feel we need to give something back to our employees. I’d encourage any chapter to get involved in this very worthwhile endeavor—for themselves, for the community, for their employees, and for their employees’ children.”
Southern Chapter. The Southern Chapter’s two scholarship programs are relatively new, the first having been established in 1996. Its origins, recalls Frank Brenner, vice president of marketing for United Metal Recyclers (Kernersville, N.C.) and the chapter’s first vice president, began when he served on RRF’s board and saw other chapters’ scholarship efforts. At the time, the Southern Chapter was planning to honor Ken Iverson, chairman of Nucor Corp. (Charlotte, N.C.). “We thought that in lieu of a plaque, we would raise $10,000 to name a scholarship in his honor,” Brenner says.
A similar line of thinking went into the creation of the chapter’s latest scholarship, named after Brenner’s father, Abe, in honor of his 80th birthday. Brenner and his siblings saw it as a way to pay tribute to their father and his career. “He’s always loved the business and has always strived to do good things for his employees,” explains Brenner. So he and his siblings agreed to put up $10,000 and match the next $10,000 that’s contributed. According to Brenner, the scholarship is now worth approximately $25,000, with a goal of reaching $30,000 by May.
The goal of these two scholarship programs is to give at least four scholarships of $500 or $1,000. And though these programs are in their infancy, already Brenner says “it’s nice to be able to do something for your employees and people who need it. Quite frankly, they’re the people who have been instrumental in the principals being where they are today.”
Southwestern Chapter. As the newest entrant to the chapter scholarship program, the Southwestern Chapter is looking ahead to a successful fund-raising campaign and hopes to offer an annual undergraduate scholarship worth $2,500. “It’s specifically designed for those students who are pursuing an undergraduate degree at a college or university,” explains Doug Kramer. “It’s been left very broad so that someone attending a community college or trade school could apply.”
Additionally, the Southwestern Chapter has initiated a second prong—a public school grant program with a targeted award amount of $1,000.
“In large cities, there’s a huge urban population attending inner city schools that don’t tend to be well-funded or offer a lot of opportunities to the kids, so I created a public school grant program that’s designed to assist schools at all levels,” explains Kramer. To be eligible, schools must prove a dependent of a member firm is a student, he says. “The school has to identify the names of the students, tell who the parents are, and who they work for.”
Kramer has big plans for the program, including one day being able to offer a recipient a “full ride,” but he admits that “donations are the key to its success. It’s an exciting program and something totally positive and totally for the benefit of our employees’ kids. I don’t see a downside to it. The only one could be if no one decided to fund it. That would be a real shame. So if you really want to thank me, send in a check.”
The Skinny on Scholarships
This summary gives you all the basic details of the scholarship programs offered by seven ReMA chapters.
Empire Chapter, RRF-Harold Goldman Scholarship, Two scholarships, $500 each, Contact: Ed Arnold Jr., 716/762-9080
Gulf Coast Chapter, RRF-William A. Bushman Memorial Scholarship Fund, Six scholarships, $2,000 each, Contact: Leon Galoob, 405/235-2424
Paper Stock Industries Chapter, RRF-Paper Stock Industries Chapter Scholarship Fund, Four scholarships, $1,000 each, Contact: Wayne DiCastri, 612/374-2280
Rocky Mountain Chapter, RRF-Rocky Mountain Chapter Scholarship Fund, One scholarship, $1,500, Contact: Mark Lewon, 801/364-5679
Southeastern Chapter, RRF-Southeastern Chapter Scholarship Fund, Maximum of 10 scholarships, $1,000 each, Contact: Gene Rosenbaum, 904/438-3197
Southern Chapter, RRF-Ken Iverson Scholarship, RRF-Abe Brenner Scholarship, Amounts to be determined, Contact: Frank Brenner, 910/996-2241
Southwestern Chapter, RRF-Southwestern Chapter Scholarship Fund, One undergraduate scholarship, $2,500; one public school grant program, $1,000, Contact: Doug Kramer, 213/587-2277•
Seven ReMA chapters have developed scholarship programs for their employees’ dependents. And while running the programs hasn’t always been easy, members agree that they’ve always been worth it.