welcome to bets on the future where we highlight the various career paths in the electrifying Metals World from the vehicle you ride in to the bridge holding it up metals are everywhere why not in your career too I’m Jennifer Betts a medals industry veteran with almost 20 years experience here to highlight these incredible career paths As Told by the women who are living them on this episode of bets in the future we have an incredible guest Becky Barbe has served the recycling Community for over 30 years based in Greenville South Carolina as president of United Catalyst Corporation she writes a monthly educational column for the industry and serves on several AR and Rema committees she is newly appointed adviser on the US industry trade advisory committee on critical minerals she was a recipient of a 2023 South Carolina women in business award and is a mentor in the women and pgms program additionally Becky serves as an atlarge director of the Rema Southeast Board co-chair of the ipmi preventing autoc Catalyst theft committee and is on the executive committee of the international precious metals Institute ipmi where she is a past president as

you can see or if you’re listening you probably can pick up some background noise because this is a special edition of bets on the future because spoiler alert we are live and in person at isra 2024 and again spoiler alert that is going to be uh a vintage name uh in 24 hours is the Institute of scrap recycling Industries will be no more it will be something else something none of us know exactly and I have a very special guest Becky Bary is with the United Catalyst Corporation president of that organization that company and I am beyond thrilled that you spare a few moments uh in this obviously very busy conference season so thank you so much for joining thank you for having me Jer it’s my pleasure I I want to get into a little bit about what you do but first I’m just kind of curious I mean uh catalysts are not exactly very talked about uh part of the the the metals industry do you mind just talking a little bit about where your particular company fits into the metals world yeah absolutely thank you um you know the Platinum Group

Metals which are what is inside of the catalytic converters a lot of people hear about catalytic converters for the wrong reason yes but for 33 years we’ve been recovering precious metals from auto parts and the right way and so it’s really funny but most of the world’s supply of Platinum Group Metals comes from Mining and about onethird comes from Recycling and that’s the part that we’ve been involved in for 33 years um we co-founded the company I was 24 years old and um there were not a lot of women at I that were involved in our part of the supply chain but you know by 2040 there are so many vehicles coming off of the road that it’s actually the supply of precious metals from recycle is going to become 2/3 recycle one3 mining that’s huge so and is members produce most of the world’s supply of recycled cars and catalytic I mean the automobile is the most recycled um consumer good in the world really yes I did not realize that I know you might think paper or plastic but the automobile is the most recycled consumer good in the world

well that would explain why uh pgms the Platinum Group Metals is obviously something that is talked about frequently yes and hence the Cal converters are often talked about again for the wrong reasons but it’s really wonderful to hear that the shifting from the mining of those Metals is going to be shifting into the recycling on the majority side the industry and one of the reasons why it’s so important Jennifer is because it has a negative carbon footprint which is really interesting there’s nothing against mining we love our mining friends but um this is above ground natural resources that our country has in abundance and these metals are found in like every from you know our Electronics to our automobile Catalyst to to um pharmaceutical and applications and things that save lives and cancer research and things like that so it’s really wild and um it’s in metal is infinitely recyclable as we all know that’s a good little sound bite but um but the precious metals being carbon negative like these the catalytic converter it’s above ground natural resources of critical minerals that the country is really needing for its economy as well as

National Defense so very very important you mentioned that you co-founded this company at 24 did I did I remember what I was doing 24 it was it was not co-founding companies H how I mean I wasn’t really even to be frank aware of PGM at 24 um I mean I was I was trading uh scrap metal recycled materials uh cool of itself yes uh but you know how how did this be how did this get on your radar yeah it’s kind of wild um no I think it’s very cool that you were trading FIS nonf or whatever at in your 20s I mean when I got here at 24 there weren’t a lot of women in the room and it’s just it’s wild to walk around today to see Robin leading the organization to see all the women you know everyone Brandy needy all all of us that kind of run in circles together it’s just wild but um yeah I was a um portfolio accountant I’m from Massachusetts and I worked in Boston and I was with Plum Investments and my husband was going to be an architect oh and and

we were newly married and he was not finished his degree and um his dad laid him off he owned a he owned a muffler shop his dad in in Massachusetts he said but I found you this great D job driving um for this company that collects catalytic converters and in a strange turn of events that company closed and Tim happened to be the number one driver for that company in the United States in a very short time and I think they told him he could work as many hours as he wanted and pay him and as a new what he thought really that’s great that’s great I’m trying to provide for a family so it’s good you know for me and um but they closed and they wanted him to go to another state so drive all week long and then go down to Pittsburgh and bring all this material and he said that is just too long to be away from home and so that was it um we he said no thanks and we went out and started our company wow yeah that that’s and So eventually I transitioned from Mutual F

you know from ancial sector to helping I always had a fiduciary role but I eventually and to be honest I didn’t think it was very cool and I’m not sure I really wanted to do it but over the past 33 years it’s become much cooler and has really evolved into my life and my career my life’s work right precious metals and and recycling right has the company always been in its current location um no we started in New England we started in Massachusetts we had a facility in Providence Rhode Island near Federal Hill which we really love the food and that was great and a lot of people like to visit but we started doing a lot of business um east of the Mississippi and South and we said why don’t we open another location in the Southeast and my husband you know we’re local people he said let me go give you the life you always wanted in the South and I was like all right yeah I think our parents thought it would take a year to transition we were gone in 3 months wow sadly with their grandchildren they were 3

five and seven and now you see Cole today working in our company’s 25 and leads technology so yeah it’s wild it it’s pretty cool i’ I’ve Had The Good Fortune of being able to tour your facility last year I was in town for yes the circularity conference and I’ve seen a lot of facilities in my day and your facility was impressive I mean not a piece of dust anywhere that would be somebody’s money on the if the dust is on the ground somebody’s money is on the ground oh that dust is so expensive if if it was anywhere it was very impressive and I think what struck me the most about it was the technology that you have obviously put into it I mean you just referenced your son in the technology aspect uh of it um I know that there’s been some investment that you’ve been putting into it as well again I’ve Had The Good Fortune of of seeing some of what you’ve been working on lately uh do do you mind sharing a little bit about the no I think um thanks for asking yes I I mean it’s been cool

we try to run it like like Michigan like it’s a like it’s a plant right it’s a it’s a disassembly facility and so you know we we disassemble the Catalyst we Mill it we have Laboratories that type of thing but I think what’s really cool is you take this industrial business where you’ve got this green metal now coming out where oems are going to get carbon credits for using recycled metal versus mind metal and we had a vision um to bring recovery of of a basis of selling to the scrap industry based on recovery cuz that’s the only way a catalytic converter gets um paid for or delivered back into the market is to destroy it and recover the platinum plaum and rodium so we did we disrupted we did that about 12 or 13 years ago we made this model called assay selling on recovery available to all of the scrap industry you know the recycling industry and then um that was 12 years ago and everyone follows suit and then the next disruptor for us was was how could we map year make model and vin with the serial number on the

can and give people the most accurate assay based vehicle identification Vin to converter database so that they could run their businesses legitimately profitably eliminate risk when they’re buying Vehicles so we are excited we have just released our Vin like a bidding tool so that people can put in a VIN and see how many many units are on the catalytic converters are on there what their value is in recovery and they can also do serial numbers it’s it’s wild people say it’s changing the game and that makes me really excited it it’s it’s been really cool to see and you know and that’s all Cole and his team the te like the Next Generation takes it to a whole new level so I can’t take all the credit it they’ve really been building upon what what you’ve you’ve built right it it’s and let me step back for a second because uh the the the people that listen to this podcast are across the full metal supply chain and yes because we are at a recycling event and there will probably be several podcasts in a row that are heavily recycling experts like yourself um

they may not be aware that catalic converters come in a variety of recoveries and that there might be on a two de Camry a slightly different makeup essentially of those pgms than say a you know a BMW right very true and so it’s it makes it very challenging for consumers like yourself or even for people that are auto recyclers to accurately purchase Vehicles when it’s end of life to factor in all the components from the steel the aluminum to the C converters to everything because they’re all different Commodities y right so what you’re providing these customers of yours to be able espe the the VIN the accuracy of the engine displacement yeah it’s it’s different on two different BMWs you know x5s and it’s perfect example there is software out there today that will help people buying scrap help people buying recycle end of life Vehicles they can probably get to 60 70 80% of the vehicles value on Parts but the catalytic converter has remained an enigma right it’s the unknown they put it in their fluff number and then they just hope that they’re not upside down on bidding on the car

or the Cadillac conversion might be missing or there might be aftermarkets but yeah like for example you can take an X5 BMW um with different you know made different times different years and you could have you know $300 worth of catalytic converters on there or $700 worth of catalytic converters on there and if you don’t have that VM with that engine displacement and it hasn’t been mapped properly then you’re not going to you’re going to think you have $700 worth of cats on there and you can pay an extra 500 bucks for that car but you may only have $300 of converters and now you’re $200 upside down so we’re trying to mitigate risk as well as help people be successful at getting back into buying converters safely responsibly responsible sourcing is a huge as you can imagine responsible sourcing is a huge issue in our industry with converter theft then well and so I was talking to your son last night actually at um the young Executives reception and what I didn’t realize is that you are also providing this software uh or maybe not necessarily this software but you can help clarify

with law enforcement as well so yeah we think that the platform that we’ve built could be um commoditized any commodity could use the platform that we’ve built and we also think it has a great application for law enforcement because if we’re tracing your make model V and and they can and a law enforcement can have that database and put in that run that car and see exactly what those converters should be and how many and then they show up somewhere down the supply chain and we can match them back for them we’d be happy to help and I don’t think there’s any recycler you know that’s part of isri or any other organization Automotive recyclers or United recyclers that wouldn’t want to help law enforcement because we want to be tough on crime but we want to be prot trade you don’t want to landfill your nation’s critical minerals like you know you wouldn’t want to take all these wonderful resources and say they have to stop being traded no they can’t be recovered no so we want to be tough on crime 100% And on criminals it it’s been a tough subject that

I’m sure you’ve had to navigate for for years and when I visited your plant it was very impressive and it’s just something that it showed what a just miss conception our industry gets it’s an A company that obviously contributes to the economy you provide jobs it’s it’s contributing to the environment making sure that you know you’re you’re pushing towards more recycled content into our supply chain and so it’s wonderful to hear that you’re also pushing the technology Factor because our industry is a little um delayed delayed yep on not everyone there’s some great technology I mean just walk around but technology is becoming the game changer right yes and Todd forsman is doing a great job with is in law enforcement and we’ve had um law enforcement in the Carolinas come visit us and you can really change their perception about our whole industry about recycling when they see that we do business partner screenings that we do know your customer protocols that we follow anti-money laundering fin sense’s best practices things like that you know Patria stuff we’re only doing business with businesses that pass our compliance um and there’s competitors that

you know friendly competitors that actually have wonderful compliance departments and they’re doing a great job we do not want to do business we want to do business with reputable companies and we’re very much a B2B industry right business to business it’s but technology is key and it can it can help eliminate so many of the pain points it it really yeah yeah so when you’re starting out at 24 I mean did you see the business going to where it is today no but the vision has grown like I said I didn’t love it um it was a little lonely and weird and not very fun and some it was dirty you know what I mean like it’s so nice to hear you talk about our plant because I do think we have one of the most beautiful disassembly facilities in in our industry and that’s all my husband he is just we have an engineering team they create all the equipment it’s all blue and yellow it looks like a plant like it and there’s safety and you know we follow the you know our our operations manager is a huge safety guy he’s

safety officer in the Texas oil rigs and I mean we just have great people we have you know we build our own equipment and and that is not what it looked like day one but but the vision has grown and this is the professional level at which we should all operate right is teaches us a lot about safety and and we and we take those best practices and so um yeah we want people to be safe we want them to come it’s a little Google asash I’ll be honest it was very I mean we do have a gym and yeah so yeah and we have a cafeteria and a be some nice stuff but I mean we did that work right that is like we are bootstrap people like I learned how to do a little bit of tiling at the cafe and my daughter learned to do work was very nice the tow work was very impressive so we’re that kind of family you know we try to do a lot with a little but it it’s the vision has evolved and now with the technology it’s just going to to a whole

new level mhm so so now we have a a process that people can trust but we also have a product that will help them and that has been a GameChanger I never knew we’d have a product I knew we had a process that people could responsibly send in the material participate in the refining and recycling process and get paid more than someone just coming and buying it for nickel on the barrel head like I wanted recyclers that was my vision was to have recyclers participate in the processing and refining we always believe that the recycler owns the vehicle or they own the catalytic converter so that they have legal you know property rights to that we’re a processor we’re going to we’re going to partner with you we’re going to sit on the same side of the transaction the more metal we sell for you the more we get paid the more you get paid and that was my vision but the technology piece I had a little bit of a vision to get it started but I had no idea that we could take that platform and put tools right into people’s business

to help manage inventory so so the first release is for the bid tool and that helps them when they’re buying over the scales or at you know and then the next product comes in and it’s an inventory management tool where a manager who has multi facilities can see the dismantlers or the scale guys building boxes they can see their digital twin on their desk and those will price twice a day in live markets and so you could be running a multi a one yard facility or multi yard facility and have complete control and then we’ll track it all the way through the refining process and you can see that on your um on your desktop so so the vision is great it’s a Microsoft kind of Vis vision and that gets me excited I me but I don’t think I could have done it it’s really we have a great team with vision that has taking it to the next level that’s pretty incredible I mean talking about digital twins talking about you know digitizing essentially scrap metal industry y resp sourcing responsible sourcing I mean block we may as well just go blockchain

next I feel like you’re about to say crypto at the next it digital wallet yeah yeah uh Pro we’re probably not there yet we’re we’re but the vision is there no and I think and I’m so so it’s the internet 4.0 of things that that is where Cole is making a Smart Warehouse and his team and they’re and they’re making smart products we wanted to give recyclers the Apple the iPhone when they didn’t know they wanted it yes and then we want to make it so easy to use that it provides so much value and the way you get that is by working with us so it is a bit of a captive but it’s a partnership absolutely and and the people have contributed to helping I have to say that the people who have helped us in the past year to really get the converters in and really map them they’re true partners and they’re they’re great and we couldn’t have done it without them the Erp systems that are out there uh you know I think merging with those or providing those types of software programs to The Yards to the

to the people that are buying these types of products I think though the the software that you’re providing those types of uh SAS products are going to be game changers for the recycling industry because a lot of productivity issues have Arisen from essentially time management issues having to try and track and manage and follow the commodity markets but then also you have to manage the operations in your yard and to your point is that cat going to be a $700 one or $300 one that’s coming in and how many vends are out there we sell what 15 16 17 million cars a year yes in just the us alone 10 million cars come off the road and that’s about 20 million catalytic converters the thing is Jennifer we realize that the catalytic converter commodity sale the PGM sale is not a huge part of what Automotive recyclers and scrap metal recyclers do so so what we so that’s where Integrations come really important so we already have um companies like scrap right that that we’re partnering with to make sure that if you’re using that as your as your operating system you can also

be our supplier and see the data you want to see where you’re working daily we don’t want you have to go to a standalone system so Vin match Pro some of the other ones Crush software we’re integrating so that recyclers can use our tools where they’re already working so Integrations are huge and and besides Cole’s team we have a wonderful software development company that that works with us and and really they’re topnotch they’re used to doing things at Fortune 100 company levels so they’re bringing an amazing user experience to to what we’re doing I had the fortunate uh did you meet I I yes I I met at least one member uh again from development team yes uh last night from The Young Executives and it was pretty cool to to see those individuals again get interested in our industry yes you know it it’s and he’s a young professional running a company right so yeah yeah yeah yeah it’s it’s exciting to see and you know every year there’s more and more technology companies at these types of events and I love to see it it’s it’s it’s cool to see those types

of individuals coming to our industry and providing these types of solutions and really getting invested I met two um Founders last night one at women and Recycling and one at the afterparty both in startups both co-founders of marketplaces or battery exchanges and it gets me excited at 55 to meet another young founder you know I’m like yes this is great There’s Hope for I mean like our industry is evolving yes and it’s becoming Dynamic maybe it’s always been Dynamic but it’s a lot cooler than it was so you’re you bet your career on it yeah well done well done so knowing what you know now yeah do you have any advice for those younger Founders getting into or those individuals interested in our industry or wanting to get into our industry yeah I think if you come to isri or any of our industry associations events you’re are going to find two kinds of people you’re going to find very successful people within large companies that have been intrapreneurs so they their company Founders they may be public or private have given a lot of people phenomenal careers right they’ve been able to

make great livings and and provide for their families and then I I’ve met a lot of Founders that you know are doing the same on their in their own right and I would say it’s always too soon to quit I mean last year for automotive Catalyst we had a shrinkage in our supply of like 50 to 70% for various reasons um so people holding on to Vehicles longer postco CU you put a lot of miles on your car interest rates have gone up so people don’t really want to go out and buy a new car at 8 or 9% um and so we see that and then the PGM prices have come down from their historic highs um and that price has been cut over 50 60% so some Independents are holding um inventory so we took a b we took a hard hit in our in our side of the business and I can just say maybe it’s the worst year in 33 the past year but it’s always too soon to quit it we know in 33 years it will come back yes so weathering a storm so it’s always too soon

to quit you’re going to see years of abundance you’re going to see lean times you just have to have that whatever that persistence to stick through Absolut and it’s never easy you know you just look like a 30-year you know overnight success but it’s been hard the whole way there there absolutely is no overnight success it’s just when those people have found you nobody sees all the work that you’ve put in no it’s just when they they actually tend to see your success y because of course like when you’re putting in all the hours the work to whatnot they they don’t see that in 2012 I was running around with an iPad with a presy presentation trying to get digital appointments for people to meet me in the cafeteria to talk about selling on assay versus selling for cash or by by the piece and now the adoption is higher but it’s still you know a struggle to get people onto that model but yeah you can’t give up no you have to you know keep on yeah it so it really is and I firmly believe that if you can make it

in the downturns think about the success you can have when the market turns around yeah and and John Maxwell says in his um 21 irrefutable laws of leadership there’s the law of the lid is like the first first one and the the other thing is is you can only lead at you know people are only going to follow you if you’re if you’re a five in leadership you’re only going to attract fours and under so so if you’re not committed to growing and learning like I I feel like I’m a constant learner and maybe I drive my team a little crazy but you’ve got to surround yourself with people who are good you’ve got to put thorough Breads in in the barn you you’ve got to have people that are better than you in some ways that are diverse and different from you you don’t want all yes people around you um you got to build a good team it’s like Team of Rivals sometimes but you’ve got to have that I haven’t always done I haven’t always done any of this well but you know you’ve got to commit to grow because people

are going to want to follow you know someone that they can grow with and lead with you know and you don’t always do it right you don’t get up every day and do everything right no you make a lot of mistakes and as long as you learn from them you look at them as learning moments you give Grace to your team when they have learning I mean you have to get we’re just humans everybody gets up and goes and does a job because they want to provide they have goals want to provide for a family they have things they want to achieve and so I hope we allow people to do that but just remember you know they’re not there to serve you you’re there to serve them yes if we can take care of our team they can take care of our our customers completely agree I always forget who this quote is attributed to but it’s something along the lines of if you don’t fail at least every now and then you’re not trying hard enough something along those lines that’s a lot Jeff Bezos you know people say fall F and

John Max allot of them fail fast yeah you know all those quotes but I do love a good quote right there’s something along those lines where like you know if if you’re never at least like messing up every now and then like you’re not pushing yourself and if your failures aren’t getting bigger you’re not you’re not in the you’re not the right game you’re not you’re not hitting it you know you’re not going forward I think that was Jeff Bezos with Amazon he’s like I think he said that it’s like and if your if your failures aren’t getting bigger you’re not doing it right that’s great Mak feel good that’s so so great life is hard and you know I’m going to just go back to being women women we like have like multiple lives we enter the workforce we exit the workforce we have children we do different things we’re pinch hitters yes you know we rise up to the plate and we help do whatever the family needs yeah and um so our in many ways our lives are very different in work but I’m an equal opportunity kind of feminist I

like being a woman but but and I’m just not made the way men are made and I’m okay with that I have a there’s been many of times that I’ve had a Boss Challenge me that I’ve gone in a restroom and cried because I don’t have that skin I’m not made like that and that’s okay that that empathy helps in lots of other ways so you learn a lot yes it it absolutely does and I do have to say because we saw each other at the women recycling event last night yeah there were so many people there men and women exactly that also makes me very happy yes it it was probably the largest event that I saw in terms of that particular reception at any isre event to date yeah and it just it it makes me look really positive towards the future of this industry because to me that shows that we are pulling more and more individuals into our industry and it uh means that we have a very positive future companies like yourself are pulling in individuals because of the technology the upgrades you’re looking forward you’re developing new things

you’re thinking outside of the box it’s it’s just it’s pretty pretty incredible and then the partners you find along the way in this industry that want to help you grow they’re also Visionary right yes you know Brett that you work with he’s Visionary right you guys have come together and look what you’re creating you’re creating something that hadn’t been here before yes and um you know and I think like finds like you know and then that’s how you grow and expand people come alongside you and they they partner with you and they give you loyalty and you give them loyalty and you can’t do it alone I know that no absolutely and there are a lot of people that are very supportive in this industry so if you’re listening out there if you’re watching join us yes come to the metals the recycling worlds we’re the cool kids we’re so fun I do have to say we have some of the bigger toys out here as I’m like looking at some of the large equipment in the back yes if you want to find a good recycler go to the equipment yes all the

equipment they’ll all be at the they’ll all be spending money at the equipment yes exactly well I I know you’ve got um a pretty busy schedule but I just want to say thank you so much Becky for for taking a few minutes out of your schedule it it’s been really great catching up with you um if you want to get a hold of Becky find her on LinkedIn um visit her website her company is really incredible they’re doing an impressive things in the industry recycling it just thank you again thanks for doing what you’re doing you’re a busy woman and mother and I mean you’re always leaving California to travel and go on location and really bring the news and and I love that thank you I am a follower so so if you’re not betting on the future and following Jennifer PS you get on LinkedIn and you follow her social media feeds and and Brett scrap life and what is your newsletter I know I’m just plugging but I 360 recycle 3 yep thank you we’re tracking thanks for having us thank you Becky thank you appreciate you awesome