March/April 1991
The majority of scrap recycling professionals may be men, but women are increasingly playing important managerial roles in the industry.
By Beth Rogers
Beth Rogers is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
Not too long ago, an anecdote was used to depict how women can be stereotyped. It went something like this: A man and his son are involved in a horrible car accident that kills the father. The son is rushed to the hospital, where the surgeon takes one look at the boy and says, "I can't operate on him; he's my son.”
Many people were stumped by this puzzle before they realized that the surgeon was the boy's mother. Today, it's not so unusual to find female doctors, but women are still an anomaly in the traditionally male-dominated scrap business. Their numbers have increased in recent years, however.
Jane Perlman, president of Louis Perlman & Sons Inc. (Pittsfield, Mass.)--a ferrous, nonferrous, and plastic operation that deals primarily with tradespeople like roofers and electricians--is one of the few but growing number of women in the scrap recycling industry
Perlman's grandfather founded the business in 1912 and her father began managing the firm in 1932. When he died in 1972, her bachelor uncle took over the business. It was implicitly understood that the business would die with the uncle. But when Perlman's uncle died in 1988 and some of the employees at his funeral asked her what would happen to the business, she answered, without thinking, "I guess we open Monday.”
She was convinced it was the right decision after reading an article in the town newspaper. There, on the front page of the "Marketplace" section, a bold headline proclaimed "Demise of Perlman Firm." Perlman called the newspaper, livid. "I told them, ‘I want to know what my gender has to do with running a 76-year-old business Please explain why being a woman should prohibit me from running my father's business.’”
Fueled by anger, Perlman threw herself headfirst into running the scrap firm.
Starting From Scratch
There was nothing in her background that prepared her. "When I was a girl I took my father sandwiches, but I wasn't allowed in the yard," Perlman recalls. "It was a place where men swore, it was dirty, it was not a place for girls.”
Neither was her family very encouraging, initially. "My mother said, 'You can't do it, you're crazy.’” Other people said, "No women are doing this." People told her to just sell the business, but Perlman figured that if the business had to be sold, it should not be sold as a closed business. So she kept it open and continues to run it today with no thoughts of selling it.
Perlman was a social worker at the time her uncle died. In the beginning, as she was winding down her caseload, she worked 85 hours a week between both jobs. And at first, she didn't know much about the business. "On my first day a guy came in and said, 'I'll give you $150,000 for all your nonferrous metal, she recounts. "I had to go home and look up 'nonferrous' in my dictionary.”
She started educating herself about the industry by reading about it and visiting other plants. She learned a lot through observation and asking questions. "Learning this business is just like anything else; you read books, you talk to people, and then you go out and wing it," she says.
At first it was overwhelming, and the shop talk was "like a foreign language.” She double-checked prices over and over again, wary of people who were trying to take advantage of her. Now, she considers herself, after two years, to be one of the most knowledgeable people at the company. "I can't believe that my father and uncle never taught me anything, " she says. "I could kill them now."
Responding to Reactions
One of the most discouraging incidents for Perlman happened early in her second career at lunchtime when she was the only person in the office. Two men came in with a load of iron and aluminum, and switched the aluminum for iron on the scale, cheating her out of more than $100. Later they went to a bar and started bragging loudly about "how stupid the Perlman girl was." Coincidentally, one of her employees was at the same bar and he told her what he had heard. She confronted the two and made them make reparations. Nonetheless, it was distressing for her to see how the incident, which could have happened to anyone, seemed to be a slur on her gender.
But by the same token, she says, being a woman has had its advantages. From the beginning, competitors were more inclined to share information about the business because, says Perlman, "a lot of them were fiftyish men who thought of some sweet, young woman running a yard all alone, and then they thought of their daughters having to do it." A lot of men liked coming by and telling her how she could do the job better. Rather than feel insulted, Perlman figured she could learn a lot from them.
Customers' reactions to a female-run scrap business have been varied. "At first, a couple of men didn't want to deal with me," she says. “They asked, ‘Aren't there any men around? I want to talk to a man.’” But now that she's proven herself and displayed her determination to stick it out, she's gained their respect.
Perlman has a 10-year-old daughter and hopes that her daughter might someday take an interest in the business. She's proud that her daughter has more options available to her: "When I was 10 you were either going to be a teacher, a nurse, or a social worker," she says. "Even being a lawyer or a doctor was very ‘frontiersy.’”
The company has had local elementary schools take field trips to her plant to learn about recycling, and the kids always ask her if women can run cranes and forklifts. Perlman enjoys being able to expand those young minds through her example.
"In the old days," says Perlman, "a 'junkyard' was not considered a dignified place. Now there's more respect in the industry with all the emphasis on recycling. My daughter's very proud of what I do." Her mother is also proud and Perlman thinks her father, if he were alive, "would be so happy. He would be very impressed."
But other people still can't seem to understand that Perlman is serious about the business. She has a friend who says she thinks it s wonderful that Perlman is in the business, but at the same time Says, "When your daughter grows up, maybe she'll marry a guy who's interested in the business and he'll run it."
Despite the negatives she's had to endure, Perlman loves the scrap recycling business. In fact, she likes it more than social work. She enjoys the laid-back atmosphere and not having to dress up every day. She also seems to enjoy being somewhat of a curiosity: "It's fun to find a frontier for women,” she says. "There are so few left."
A Paper Stock Woman
Nini Krever, owner of Traders International Corp. (North Palm Beach, Fla.), has had similar experiences. Traders was started as a family business in the 1940s as a scrap paper packing firm with plants in Montreal, Toronto, and Quebec City. In 1977, her father, Dan Krever, opened a brokerage and export office in North Palm Beach. At that time, she was teaching French in Ontario.
Krever explains how she got into the business: She had, on occasion, made overseas calls for the company and became aware of the finesse required to negotiate in another language. Business appeared to be an exciting, new challenge that would use many of the skills she employed in the classroom. And the paper business seemed a perfect opportunity since it was not totally unfamiliar to her. She knew the names of many of her father's colleagues and figured she was smart enough to catch on.
So she asked her father to consider bringing her into the business. Dan Krever, who was not well at the time, thought it might be a good idea and agreed to send her to Florida. Unfortunately, the week she arrived, her father died and she was left to run the business without his guidance. "I was probably too stupid and too naive and too saddened by my father's death to be afraid. In retrospect, I realize I must have been crazy to take over a business I knew nothing about. But I knew it was an opportunity I wouldn't get again."
Knowing she had a lot to learn, Krever hired an experienced paper packer who had retired and was living in Florida. Being male and older, he provided her with the credibility she needed to do business in male-dominated countries. They traveled together. “I took notes and calculated prices and freight rates and whether or not a deal seemed profitable to me," she says. "At first the customers probably thought I was a secretary, but that didn't bother me as long as I was learning and we were getting orders.”
In addition to learning from her consultant, Krever went to mills, factories, and paper packing plants to understand how paper was collected, sorted, processed, and recycled. Having the Krever name helped, too. “It opened doors the first time around,” she says, noting that "the second time those doors only opened if they wanted to do business with me."
Unlike Perlman, Krever had more family support. “Knowing my inexperience, at first my mother was skeptical,” she recalls, “but she was also encouraging, proud, and helpful. And as time went on, she gained confidence in me and my ability to do this job.”
Krever doesn't see anything inherent in being female that prevents her from succeeding in this industry. It does, however, force her to be more cautious in her personal and business behavior, she says.
Krever is founder of the National Association of Paperstock Women. The association attracts women from all aspects of the paper recycling industry and offers members a forum for sharing industry concerns, she says. "Women bond differently than men. Men bond at the golf course or over a drink. Women do it over lunch.”
Like Perlman, Krever sees tremendous opportunities in this business. "It's a difficult business," she says. "But the gratification of closing a good deal makes each day challenging and rewarding."
Setting a Precedent
Shelley Padnos is the first woman to hold national office in the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (Washington, D.C.). The association's secretary plays a major role--executive vice president--in her company--Louis Padnos Iron & Metal Co (Holland, Mich.)--as well. The privately held company, founded by Padnos's grandfather in 1905, has five different locations in western Michigan that process ferrous and nonferrous metals, paper, plastics, and glass.
Padnos recalls her first memories of the business: "On Saturdays, when it wasn't so busy, my dad would take all of us down with him. If they had bought a new piece of equipment, we all went down to look at it. I remember it was a big deal when we loaded our first overseas vessel. The family business was always a big deal--our family movies are all interspersed with scenes from the scrap yard.”
She worked in the business in high school and during summer breaks through college. The Padnos family seems to take a fairly progressive posture toward its female members. In fact, her grandmother ran the business for almost a year when her grandfather became ill. Padnos was not necessarily groomed for the business, but the option was always there for her to work. "My father took the attitude that if you were interested there was always room for you," she says, "but he encouraged outside work experience first.”
Padnos went on to law school, but "there was a part of me that always wanted to work in the scrap business." After working in law for five years, she joined the firm in 1984. She enjoys working for the company because "I never do the same thing two days in a row," she points out. "It's constantly changing and dynamic." Working for the family business is a plus, says Padnos: "You have a leg up if you have the name of a family that's been in business as long as ours has."
Padnos says there are people in the business that have not responded well to her, but she doesn't know if she should attribute it to gender or personal chemistry. When she perceives a lack of compatibility, she delegates authority to someone else.
Padnos implies that more women in the industry can help change the negative perceptions people have of it: "I have the hardest time with the fact that, historically, this industry hasn't had the best reputation in the world, and I'd like to be able to help change that.
She tires of people treating her as a novelty, making gender an issue. But it is women like Shelley Padnos, Jane Perlman, and Nini Krever that are paving the path and opening doors for more women to enter the industry.
"Women who consider going into the scrap business would be doing themselves a disservice to not look at the opportunities here for fear of difficulties or sex discrimination," says Padnos. "There are lots of opportunities. There is no reason why women can't do any of these jobs.”•
The majority of scrap recycling professionals may be men, but women are increasingly playing important managerial roles in the industry.