The Staiman Century

In its 100 years in business, the Staiman family’s recycling operations in and around Williamsport, Pa., have been tested by fire, water, and—of course—the vagaries of the scrap market. Through it all, the family-run company—now in its fourth generation of Staiman leadership—has evolved, expanded, survived, and thrived with a diversified product mix that ranges from ferrous and nonferrous metals to railroad rails and recovered paper.
   While the company’s two corporate entities—Staiman Recycling Corp., which encompasses the metals and rail businesses, and Staiman Brothers Inc., which handles scrap paper—certainly enjoy the benefits that a century of good reputation can bring, top managers also recognize that no scrap firm can live for long off its laurels. So they speak a modern business language of teamwork and empowerment, of “investing in employees,” of taking the company to “the next level.” They even work with a performance training/employee assistance counselor who regularly attends the firm’s management meetings and meets privately with employees to help them resolve personal problems or gather work-related feedback.
   Quite a change, certainly, from those days at the turn of the last century when brothers Kalman and Jacob Staiman—immigrants from then-Czarist Russia—moved from Elmira, N.Y., to Williamsport to help found the local Jewish community and launch their scrap peddler business. Yet, even in 1900, the Staiman family saw virtue in diversification, collecting a mix of scrap metal, paper, and rags right from the start.

Family Foundations
Staiman Brothers, as the firm was originally called, began small, with no equipment, on a piece of land along the west branch of the Susquehanna River, which still forms part of the 14-acre Staiman operation in Williamsport.
   Kalman’s sons, Walter and Aaron, took over the business in 1928 when their parents moved to what is now Israel. (Jacob’s side of the family was no longer in the business at that point.)
   These second-generation brothers took the company through the Depression and World War II—during which Staiman Brothers was recognized by the U.S. government for its recycling contributions to the war effort—and into the 1960s.
   It was a time of growth—the company launched its rail-breaking business in nearby Avis, Pa., in the mid-1960s—and a time of setbacks from major floods in 1936 and 1946, as well as devastating fires in 1933 and 1955. The latter fire destroyed the company’s original wooden warehouse and office and led to the construction of the site’s current brick and metal buildings. Modern sprinkler systems now reduce the threat of future fires, while dikes on the river help alleviate the threat of more floods—though the water did rise to within 5 inches of overflowing during Hurricane Agnes in 1972, notes Marvin Staiman, Kalman’s grandson and the company’s former president, now mostly retired.
   Marvin began working with his father and uncle while a teenager, then served in the Army before joining the company full-time in 1947. His uncle Aaron left the business in the mid-1960s, while his father Walter stayed on until the early 1970s. 
Marvin took over as president in 1971, was joined by his son Richard in the business in the 1980s, then turned over control of the company to Richard in 1992, thus launching a fourth generation of family leadership.
   Though Richard is the only Staiman now involved full-time with the firm, his mother Jean also worked for the company for roughly 24 years, up to the mid-1990s, helping keep track of invoicing, shipping, and other paperwork. Richard’s brother Jeffrey served as general manager in the 1970s, while his sister Cynthia Rosenthal and her husband Adam helped establish the company’s environmental program and grew the Avis rail business, respectively, before leaving the company a few years ago.
   The general Staiman work force also includes second- and even third-generation employees, with longevity a hallmark, notes Richard. For instance, at an open-house celebration for the company’s 100th anniversary this past May, Richard presented watches to four still-active employees who each had been with the firm more than 25 years. 
   And some Staiman customers are also multigenerational—such as nearby Jersey Shore Steel Co., a rerolling mill owned by the Schultz family that’s been doing business with the Staimans since Richard’s grandfather was in charge. 

Riding the Fastest Horse
Staiman’s diversified mix of products is essential in today’s volatile scrap markets, Richard says. He points to the analogy about “riding the fastest horse” to get where you want to go, which in this case, of course, is profitability. Thus, with four “horses” to ride—ferrous, rail, nonferrous, and paper—the Staiman businesses are better positioned to cope with market fluctuations.
   Slightly more than half of the firm’s overall product line falls into the ferrous/rail category, with traditional ferrous items such as heavy breakable cast iron, plate and structural steel, and No. 1 heavy melt adding up to 35 to 40 percent of the mix, plus another 25 percent for the rail business. Nonferrous accounts for 25 to 30 percent of the company’s volume, with stainless steel and aluminum the major items and copper playing a smaller role.
   Recovered paper represents about 10 percent of Staiman products, with the mix there divided roughly 25 percent for bulk grades, 35 percent for OCC, and 40 percent for high grades.
   Staiman collects half or more of its scrap—in most categories—within a 50-mile radius of Williamsport, which boasts a “reasonable industrial base” for a city of 33,000, part of Pennsylvania’s 119,000-person Lycoming County, Richard notes. The rest comes in from a roughly 200-mile circuit, serviced by its large fleet of roll-off equipment, trucks (company-owned and leased), and trailers.
   An increasing amount of that material—especially metallics—comes not from industrial accounts but other scrap processors, which is more beneficial than “the old way of going after industrial accounts in somebody’s backyard,” Richard explains.
   For instance, Staiman once lost an industrial account some 200 miles away to another scrap company who now supplies Staiman with material, sending five or even 10 times as much metal as the original industrial account would have provided, Richard notes.
   On the sales side, Staiman must reach farther and farther out for customers, especially ferrous consumers—which is quite a change from 25 years ago when Williamsport supported three foundries and a nearby steel mill. Today, the city has only a single small foundry and no mill. The company regularly sells material within a multistate region that includes all of Pennsylvania and parts of New York, New Jersey, Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland. Staiman also regularly ships material to Canada. 
   Most material arrives and departs on truck, though the company is relying more and more on rail transportation to ship its products longer distances, Richard notes.
   The firm must also reach beyond its current Williamsport location for growth, Richard says, noting that warehouse and processing space are getting tight along the Hepburn Street property, which is in an area being redeveloped by the city. So last year, Staiman launched a 6-acre feeder yard in Hanover, Pa., some 130 miles south of Williamsport. The new facility—opened on the site of a dormant scrap plant—currently handles mostly nonferrous material, explains Chris Lorson, who runs the nonferrous and paper operations in Williamsport. But the company expects the paper and ferrous sides of Hanover to grow as well.
   At its roughly 5-acre rail yard in Avis, Staiman processes scrap steel rails predominantly, along with railroad wheels and axles, and OTM—other track material—such as spikes and bolts, explains Tom Griffiths, the yard operations manager. The rails are torch-cut or chopped on a Constellation rail breaker into segments ranging from 18 inches to 4 feet long and sent mostly to foundries, albeit a different set of foundry customers than Staiman’s other ferrous products, Griffiths adds.
   In addition, the Avis facility provides better-quality rails to its neighbor, rerolling mill Jersey Shore Steel, and handles the mill’s in-house scrap. Though Jersey Shore buys only about 10 percent of its total rails from the Avis site, John Schultz, the mill’s president and co-owner, praises Staiman as “probably our most steady supplier.”

A Time of Transition
The previous decade was a time of transition for Staiman Brothers. Not only did Richard take over from his father in 1992, but the company also divided into its two operational halves—Staiman Brothers and Staiman Recycling—in 1996. In addition to serving various marketing and legal purposes, the separation is part of Richard’s overall push to modernize the business.
   Richard credits his father with “doing a lot without much equipment or capital,” and he admires Marvin for his ability to survive difficult times. 
   But when Richard took over the business, he also felt it was time to move the company to “another level.”
For instance, Staiman used little processing equipment before the mid-1980s, other than some alligator shears and cable cranes. And while the company did install a 500-ton Harris shear in 1987, most of the major equipment purchases are far more recent, starting with a 1,000-ton Logemann shear in 1997 and a Harris HRB baler in late 1998. 
   Staiman also recently replaced its 70-foot-long truck scale, upgraded its Bicron radiation detection equipment, and installed a Mosley baler. And the company launched a detailed Web site (www.staimanrecycling.com) and upgraded its computerized accounting system.
   What’s more, Staiman has invested about $400,000 over the past five years to hard-surface roughly half of its operating area, putting in both concrete and, on the internal roadways, a material derived from the asphalt that gets ground up when city streets are repaved. This asphalt milling goes down loose but hardens to an almost concrete-like surface as trucks and vehicles drive over it, explains Joe Markley Sr., maintenance and environmental director for Staiman Recycling. The concrete is higher along the outer edges of the facility, Markley adds, to help keep storm water from escaping the property.
   As the neighborhood around Staiman’s Hepburn Street property changed in the 1990s, the company changed with it. After a large supermarket replaced an old factory site across the street and the formerly dead-end street that ran past the firm’s main office was connected to a major highway, Staiman put in attractive landscaping in front and added a special access lane for peddler vehicles to help them avoid crossing paths with the big incoming trucks. The company also redirected the overall traffic flow through its facility to keep vehicles moving in one direction and put in a special bridge that helps clean the tires of vehicles before they leave Staiman’s property for the public roads, Markley adds.

Investing in People
   Physical plant and equipment changes weren’t the only activities going on at Staiman over the past decade. In 1992, for instance, Richard first brought in a consultant to help promote teamwork and better communication among company managers, which ultimately led to weekly management meetings, performance training, continuous improvement efforts, strategic planning, and the company’s mission statement, adopted in 1998. It reads: “Our mission is to satisfy our valued customers with comprehensive recycling services and quality scrap products with committed and dedicated teamwork.”
   After initially focusing on management, the teamwork effort was expanded to plant employees and enhanced by adding an employee assistance program (EAP) component, explains Bob Makos, president of Susquehanna Employee Assistance. Currently, Staiman is going through an “upward appraisal analysis” in which line workers are asked to provide feedback on managers and company programs.
   “Richard is interested in how employees feel they’re being treated by the company and also getting from them suggestions on how to improve,” says Makos.
   It’s an effort that’s already paid off both on the bottom line—such as when a truck driver suggested that the company try selling a second type of scrap to an existing consumer to whom he made deliveries—and in more intangible terms, by making sure that the daily aggravations of work, which used to be kept bottled up by employees, are now brought out into the open and dealt with quickly, notes Marvin.
   Such measures are especially helpful in surviving bad markets, Richard says. “You’re not shooting yourself in the foot with one person pulling this way while someone else is pulling that way,” he explains. “We’re all pulling together with less wasted energy.”
Plus, the EAP offers counseling to employees and their families when they have problems in marital, financial, substance abuse, or other stressful situations, with counseling offered either after hours or, when necessary, on company time (Makos has a private office he can use in a Staiman building). The idea is to help employees better deal with their personal lives so they can concentrate on work while at work.
   “You build your business through your people,” Richard explains. “And the way to build your people is to invest in them.”
Staiman’s investments in people include paying for all of the company life insurance and most of the employees’ health insurance, plus offering optional eye and dental coverage, a 401(k) with company match, profit-sharing, and rewards for employees who make suggestions that improve the company (such as the truck driver who found the new market), explains Carl Lorson, manager of administration, who heads up areas such as human resources, insurance, safety, and workers’ comp.
   One result, notes Carl (father of nonferrous/paper manager Chris Lorson), is a stable work force that has experienced little turnover despite the currently tight labor market. Of the company’s 95 employees, the majority are based in Williamsport (including 15 company truck drivers), while Hanover has five workers and the Avis rail division has six.

Past and Prologue
Staiman celebrated its centennial this past May with an open house in Williamsport for employees, consumers, and suppliers that attracted some 200 people. The company raised a big tent, hired a band, and rented a trolley to give tours of the facility. It also took out a full-page ad in the local newspaper, thanking its many loyal employees and 
customers.
   But what does it really mean to reach such a milestone? Marvin Staiman, whose career spanned more than 50 of those 100 years, points to the company’s longstanding reputation for honesty, integrity, and service. He believes such longevity and the firm’s good name have encouraged customers to stick with Staiman even during bad times. 
   Staiman has also earned considerable goodwill in its community, having actively supported numerous charities and civic organizations such as Little League Baseball, United Way, Boy Scouts, local hospitals, Israel Bonds, and other causes and institutions. Marvin was the first Jewish president of Williamsport’s chamber of commerce and was active in the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel (an ReMA predecessor) as president of what is now the Keystone Chapter and as a member of the safety and public relations committees.
   Looking ahead, the Staimans hope to someday open additional feeder yards like the Hanover site, but not right away. Launching that facility and rebuilding the 1,000-ton Logemann shear this year—a combined investment of roughly $1.3 million—were enough capital improvements for the time being. 
   And whether this fourth-generation family firm can expect a fifth generation of Staiman leadership is also not yet an issue, given that Richard’s oldest child is only 6 years old.
   For now, Staiman Recycling and Staiman Brothers plan to focus on what they do best—providing quality scrap and good service. It’s a combination that’s worked well for the company, says Richard, who recalls the time he visited a consumer’s purchasing agent just as a Staiman truck arrived. “You’re right on time—just like your scrap,” the purchasing agent said approvingly. •