welcome to a scrap life a podcast solely focused on the hustlers Grinders operators and business owners who live and breathe the scrap metal industry every day here is your host Brett eard all right another uh scrap live podcast I think this is an Awesome Fit for our generational courage segment just because I’m a big proponent of you know generational business our industry is driven by people that are in that come they’re multi-generational right I mean second third fourth generation and I got an awesome opportunity today thank you Jennifer for uh setting this up to sit down with Nei trakia from Allied Alloys who’s second generation her dad an immigrant a straight hustler if you were if you were to say it right if I was to say it I me those are my words but thank you thank you for the tour this morning thank you for everything for taking the time now that you’re the newly elected CEO of this company which is awesome thanks to thanks for taking the time thank you for being here so your dad I like I love telling stories about my dad and so I want

to hear like right out the gate like like tell me about your dad tell me like how how how how did alloy come about oh my dad um I think the word that you use just now Hustler is totally my dad I mean he’s just a Workhorse um one of the first Indians back in early 1980s to be in the recycling industry especially down here in Texas um it was very rare um so he started off uh actually by qualification he’s a pharmacist so when we moved here in 1981 he worked for Walgreens for like 2 weeks and he was like no this is not Pharmacy like back in India you’re actually making the medicine in a lab okay here you’re just filling bottles so he’s like nope can’t do it so I ran into another gentleman that was buying uh recycling at that time copper and brass and was like let’s let me try another business so went from Pharmacy to a non-f feris yard um back in 1981 and um that’s like a far jump it’s a huge jump and I’m like how does that happen people like connect those two

I guess other than I I have a way but go ahead I’m I’m good I think your way is going to be like my the lab exactly that and making Blends exactly so uh yeah so uh huge jump uh stting on Ferris uh was one of the first um recyclers to um export brass and copper items into India um and that opened a lot of doors um and so I mean his story is just amazing I mean like you said being an immigrant it he was living the American dream he made it happen just from sheer dedication and persistent and work and he’s still working to this day right yeah you said he’s in India he’s in India right now working or vacation working or just straight working straight working straight working and just basically touching base with your consumers over there and and so I was talking to was before we he I was I was kind of talking to um the disp your dispatch guy and he’s you know I’ve talked to a few people now here and like you said your truck your truck driver been here for 20 years obviously

you have a dedicated I mean people they don’t just come in and go right I mean you got a ton of 10 20 multiple generation people themselves right or multiple decade people so you guys alloy started in what year 2006 is one when it was formed um and it was formed by actually merging of two other companies okay um we had nothing to do with stainless and nickel Alloys um aside from we were taking their material and marketing it into India also one of the first to do like a 316 304 blend you know into India um and turns out India loved it um the stainless still Mills loved it it was easy for them to throw it into their furnace um so that was kind of my beginning of Learning stainless and nickel Alloys so relatively still young 2006 was you know not even 20 years ago yeah so so in so before that you said you are just kind of learning the nickel Alloys what were you doing prior so I actually was I graduated from college in 2003 um and my dad uh had a proposition he was like give me

6 months if you don’t like it then you could still pursue law school cuz that was my dream okay um never never looked back instead of going you know and sitting for an elsad I changed it completely did you know an MBA yeah um so 2003 was my beginning as fulltime but I grew up in the industry just like you yes High School my internships were at the scrapyard like there was no question so what did you do like what was the I did import export documentation you know letters of credit you know I was kind of helping with the back office on the admin side exactly but which then gives you kind of perview you get to see like what’s being traded what the prices are being traded at what the logistics situation looks like it kind of gives you that whole backend like it kind of I think a lot of people in say your second or third generation they start like from even in me I I start in the warehouse right like I started like on the physical labor side but I feel like there’s just as just just as

good of a path or maybe even better really if you can understand all the back end and then take the time and go understand the operations it feels like there’s not really one set way to do it because obviously whatever you were doing on the internship side you didn’t mind it you you’re at least somewhat intrigued by it I loved it loved it because I mean you you literally are like you said you’re connecting the dots right you’re dealing with what’s actually going into another country and for me that was super exciting so where was the first physical location that you guys had that your dad had it it was a company called Ruby medals uh which has been dissolved but uh it was here in Houston it was in Pasadena so not far from us right now not far from teet which is correct I was I was telling you earlier we came down and we had done dinner last night with the Lars from teat and somebody we’ve been selling um catalic converters to um for 10 years now I’m just every time I come to Houston I’m always just enthralled by

how much industry there is here coming from Idaho I mean this whole state population I think is just shy of 2 million I mean I don’t know what the I mean Houston’s what the third largest city now in the United States so I mean what’s the population of Houston it’s like between five and six million right now it’s a triple of Idaho yeah just whole state exactly your City Plus that doesn’t even count like you’re outlying right like the suburbs of you yeah so and I’m just in we were on our way in there’s just so much industry just on this block yes you know I mean the recycling industry the scrap industry call it what you want to S I’m sorry um is I mean just on this block you have a textile recycler a um obviously it’s plastic recycl plastic recycler a nickel say and you guys are also I mean you guys have iron you guys have steel you have you know material other material in your yards which I assume helps you make the solid blend that’s correct assume that that’s the purpose of it you’re not specifically targeting those

items here or is it just if it comes with the m i mean how does that work on your end if you’re well obviously for sure you know because all of our stainless Blends is you know at least minimum 70% Fest right so if I’m short on iron I’m definitely going to go out specifically Target that and buy it as much as I can um but typically our loads are you know something our suppli like we were talking about supplier will call me and be like hey can I just throw a box of you know 409 cat converters on the truck sure yeah you know cuz I need everything else that you’re giving me yeah um so it just depends you know we have to move with the market so which which opens you up to be able to receive material from a lot more people if you if you can say yeah I can take take that or I can take that because they want to sell a full truckload maximize Freight which then gives you the opportunity to say I can take so did that has that like forced you to open

up to to take more materal more items than normally you kind of thought you would initially or if has it just always been that way I think it’s right now because Supply is so tight we are all seeing it um especially in you know nickel-based Alloys um now kind of being forced to keep that open um and take things that pretty much in the past I could be very selective on um which is fine um you know real estate you know if you have the real estate you’re going to take it exactly exactly and I think that’s like I mean one of the reasons we do demo work is people they like these companies have this facility like we were just quoting a demo Nick and I were quoting a demo this last week and the the real estate’s so expensive where we’re at that they’re like well if we demo this part of the this all these old equipment out of this building we can repurpose this and be able to use this for more manufacturing right and I assume real estate doesn’t like the actual cost of real estate here doesn’t

because there’s it feels like there’s a lot more of it but maybe it’s not maybe is do you see the cost of real estate like on the industrial side has that been a big is it around here has it gone up significantly I think real estate in Texas has gone up period um especially postco um you could thank California you could thank New York Jennifer thank you she’s not a true California but I like to mess her about it no I mean everyone’s moving to Texas right that’s been the big Trend that’s what everyone’s talking about idah Texas we’re getting a lot of that as well you know and as you see we we have a lot of land so so I to go back to I sometimes I get out track but but ultimately like your dad you’re you you do the internship while you’re in high school and and coming up and he gives you the six month hey give me six months what do you start doing in those six months that that enabled you to totally switch course like what was it in those 6 months that you’re like yeah

I could see myself not going to law school and entering into the family the family business that’s a great question um and I actually have a very definite answer for it I remember exactly when and where I was when I was like okay let me change my entire course it was bir it was my first conference in person in the recycling industry and it happened to be bir Paris oh wow and so now I am meeting people that are in our industry and I’m like oh wait there’s more people like me out here like you know I’m not just on my own Island um and meeting those people and developing those relationships and hearing their stories was when I was like yeah I’m going to shift my entire course and stay in this industry and I think you people ask the question like what keeps you in the industry what makes you love this industry and i’ you’ve heard it’s like a cliche answer but like it’s only cliche because it’s so true right it’s people say it’s the people and I think it’s the reason why people have a hard time even your

dad I mean as work as much of a Workhorse as he is I think sometimes people have a hard time getting out of the industry cuz they enjoy the people that they trade with that they deal with and that they are dealing with all the time yeah cuz they’re friends right yeah you become like literally you become friends and I and even people you work with and I and my wife’s like and we have this conversation regularly why do you I mean what makes you like not be burnt that you have to go to work today every day I was like CU I like everybody I pretty much get to deal with you know we have our problems we don’t have to fight issues always you know as a CEO as you know you’re going to always have problems but generally speaking the the good so far outweighs the bad on the people’s side that you’re like yeah I can work through T of these issues so on the people side so you go to vir you’re at a conference you’re looking around and which is something I want to go to I still

have never been to a bir event um is it you recommend it’s I mean but this was when I was doing a lot of export right so B naturally was you know the conference that I first attended but it’s because of that conference I met Robin and that introduced and open the door to I okay um and so then I started attending every single I conference has have not missed one still and this is 20 years now um and so I I do recommend bir if you’re going to you you know try and expand your footprint and on the export side correct just cuz it opens you up to those all those consumers exactly the different countries that are you know being represented which for you guys is a big part of your business cuz you do export you know a lot of material right we do that’s kind of really with how you cut your teeth exactly so I would say if you asked me this probably I don’t know maybe two years ago it would have been a different answer but right now I would say probably 30 40% is being exported

the balance is staying you know domestic um but I mean it’s a big chunk of what we do how much is that trade flip flopped like in the last couple of years has it so it depends on the markets that we generally follow and watch would be Asia so it’s for me it’s predominantly India so it depends on where India is you know in terms of uh just their strong like their strength um and how much stainless still that they want to consume or need to consume um so it’s going to this year is going to be really interesting cuz it’s an election year yeah so it’s ask me in a year and I’ll tell you if it’s flipped out an interesting year like domestically right but globally yeah because uh Andy is also election yeah so Prime Minister Modi um if he stays in office then the infrastructure the government has backed so far will continue I was just reading an article on Bloomberg yesterday um on the airplane and they were talking about the strength of India and like them kind of taking up a bunch of the slack that China was

on the consumption side and so the the strength being moving forward in the next decade that Indian India was going to be not just they are a player today but even a more of a bigger player at the table so that probably bodess well I think for you for your company for you know the any anybody exporting alloys you know to India I to think that’s a good thing for you guys it’s a great thing it’s a great thing I mean they’re predicting by 2030 uh India is going to be the PowerHouse you know and they’ve already surpassed China in terms of population so it’s going to be really interesting what happens is that what’s driving it you think me people trying to you know move safe third to second to First FL I mean the same thing that drove the Chinese growth over all those years exactly it’s a domino effect I mean consumer spending is going up how important of a role does the currency play when you’re trading I mean are are you guys hedging the currency and stuff too or are you guys we’re not okay we’re not um so

all of our hedging is natural we don’t aside from that we we do zero hedging I don’t hedge either that’s why I was curious like we people ask me all the time do you hedge do this I was like no we just kind of buy against the market and we try and get ourselves timed efficiently and get our throughput and just try and you know it is what it is rky it is the business is risky it takes a lot of like going back to it like our business our industry it takes a lot of courage to I mean hedging aside to just do what we do every day and know that we’re not the most you know positively you know viewed industry like you said you fight some tough battles here locally um when you guys are doing the right thing you’re you’re doing everything you can to to to not not just improve your facility but to improve the area that around you and I think it is risky to enter into this business when you are smart enough to go to law school luckily I was never smart enough to go

to law school so my one way was like I got to go into the scrap industry luckily I I I enjoyed it so moving like when you look at it with your dad like what was some of the key things and I don’t want to leave your mom out I know we mostly talk about your dad I don’t know if your mom was involved in the business or not um but what do you think were some of the things that by you watching your dad that you really took away from how he operated you know how he operates today that’s kind of enabled you to have the success that you’ve had is it oh that’s a great question um I think the one thing the key takeaway is my dad’s work ethic um that was a big one for me yeah uh he’s still still as you know still such a big believer on like you should be here when the sun’s up and you shouldn’t leave until the sun sets you know and this generation I think is changing um the mentality of that so his work ethic but also I laugh um

just being Indian our negotiation our negotiation skills like that’s probably the one thing I’ve taken away right we want everything for free or if not half off so you want a deal exactly yeah so just of Wheeling and dealing so those are two things well and your dad had to be a I mean he has a had to be a hustler he had to be I mean you have to have a strong work ethic to to to immigrate here and then build the type of you know business and and what what he’s been able to do but I think that what’s I think what made my dad successful was my grandfather you know you know getting you know cutting his teeth and kind of getting him going and I think I’d like to think what made my dad successful is having me come in and help him and bring in another generation the Next Generation and I but I also you know don’t I also think that without those previous generations we wouldn’t be able to do what we do today right I mean it’s it’s uh we we were given a lot of

opportunity any time a lot of opportunities given a lot of work is needed to sustain it so you were just telling me earlier that you you were now you recently as of was it January were now the officially the CEO of alloy of Allied I’m sorry um was that a proud moment for your dad very proud moment yeah very proud moment um he typical Asian you know it’s even in school if I brought home a 100 I was like why isn’t this 110 you know on a grade so typical Asian yeah uh immigrant mentality um so with him not having to really say it I know how proud he was CU he was announcing it to everybody else yeah and that’s when I was like okay I’ve done good by my dad so as a when I when I when I think about your journey and I think about like you going to bir and then meeting Robin um and which is what got you on the iie journey so tell me about the iie journey for you and kind of what like how that’s really got you even more involved in the industry

is there anything that that’s that sticks out to you that that you want to discuss as far as I goes oh um my I Journey um I actually took the traditional route um so I started with the Gul coast region I really wanted to make an impact here uh in my area um so mov through all the offices you know and now immediate past president of the gulf coast region but that opened the door to isra National um really seeing how our trade Association Works behind the scenes MH um how much they do in terms of lobbying um how many changes and laws that they are influencing um for our positive future yeah um that was big for me to it was a huge eyeopener um so so now that my office um ship is over for Gulf Coast um I’ve decided to pursue it more on a national level so I’m actually a director at large so I do sit on the is national board um and uh will be in the running for a campaign to be secretary treasurer uh for is National so let’s see yeah there’s still a journey ahead

of me um but it’s already been a long way yeah it’s been a long was did your dad encourage that was he was he involved in that or is just something You Came Upon and said I want to make an impact in the industry no I’m not going to say he encouraged it because I still this mentality is changing and you’re going to agree with me on this they come from a generation that was always flying under the radar right like they it didn’t want anything public I don’t think my dad would ever sit for a podcast pass 20 years ago now maybe so the perception’s changing so I’m not going to say he encouraged it cuz he also knew that means I’m bringing Allied Alloys to the Limelight yeah but when he started seeing the positive impact then it was like oh okay well yes you continue down that path yeah cuz it creates connections it creates opportunities it creates I mean business opportunities like it’s both right you’re you’re shining a brighter light on on on the industry and I think part of that deal deal too is you know one of

the reasons why when I saw Jennifer on LinkedIn and we connected again was you know there’s not as many females in the industry right as there could be because maybe us as you know business owners operators we haven’t said like we want more Talent right regardless of where you’re from whether you’re a male or a female like we want talent and and talent comes in all forms shapes and sizes and I think that’s the biggest thing I think that we can you know promote is like for the next Generation whether it’s our own kids or just the generation that’s out there is promote our business in a positive light and I feel like if there’s one thing I’ve gotten from iery lately is by just watching how it works is they are actually trying to make a push to not to take guys like my dad’s generation your dad’s generation who would would was truly trying to fly under the radar and say like we don’t need to fly under the radar like we should be talking about good we should be proud the good things we’re doing right and I think that’s a

that’s a big part of it and I think you probably are going to looking forward be a big part of that conversation because you check a ton of boxes that people might not really anticipate with a typical CEO of a recycled materials company yeah can’t say scrap yeah we can’t no you can’t you can’t but I can’t but anyways I ultimately I just want to thank you again I don’t I want to take up a ton more of your time but as a third generation you know scrap guy talking to another multi-generation scrap gal like I know that you it’s like in your blood I can you love it as I see you drive around like you’re proud of what you have here and like there’s nothing I love more than watch people like walk around a scrapyard and just love what they do and I it bleeds through you and I can see it so thank you thank you for your time thank you to your dad for for bringing you in and and conning you in to to doing this because I think the industry will be better for for having

you so thank you I appreciate it thank taking the time and I think we’re we’re good now