i met jennifer sherman betts in 09 about 010 when she was a buyer for djj i always admired how she went about her business and how she navigated a pretty masculine world and still made it happen in the scrap business i lost touch with her when she left djj so when she popped back up on linkedin i reconnected with her i was able to talk her into doing a podcast while she was traveling to the israeli gulf coast chapter meeting and have her fill me in on how her career has evolved in the scrap industry that we both enjoy so much enjoy so i was able to wrangle up jennifer sherman betts which is really jennifer bess but when i very first met her she was jennifer sherman so i figured i’d use the middle name just like we discussed um but i’m super excited to sit down with you we have been doing business we don’t necessarily do much business today but for i was trying to think of the year when it very first started when you were a buyer for djj what year was that it had to have been 2009.

i moved out to seattle in 2009. so so to say that you’re you know new to the industry would be a lie because you’ve been doing it since 09 and in my in my estimation 12 years lends a lot of credence to what you’re doing you’ve uh you’ve moved around and you’ve explored the industry pretty you know pretty in-depth and now you’re currently with argus media yes and so i’m super stoked to get you on the podcast and uh let’s get this thing let’s get this party started fantastic i’m excited to catch up we obviously haven’t spoken a lot since 2009 business yeah exactly yeah no we did you know what what prompted is when we were doing that clubhouse talk here what about a month ago and nick snyder who kind of does that talking scrap on clubhouse which has gained a little bit of traction i think as the time goes by and people know about it it’ll gain more traction but you know we nick brought you on and i came on to kind of help um just facilitate the conversation and we got a lot of positive feedback your

insights into the scrap industry and i was like man i need to get uh jennifer on the podcast like for multiple reasons um mostly because i guess i have a strong appreciation for like real hustlers in the scrap industry and people that have been around and not necessarily like in my opinion you don’t need to be around for multiple generations to really be good or care about the industry you just got to kind of have a passion for it and and that’s those are the people that probably i respect and those people i want to get on the podcast so super stoked to get you on here absolutely yeah it’s been uh a bit of a ride uh i i didn’t have any experience in the scrap world i mean i’m i’m the stereotypical you know got plucked out of college into this crazy world thought i i’d i do this for six months and then i’d reassess after bonus time and then that was back in 2007 so i’m still obviously here doing this and like it so 07 was the first year you were in the uh in the industry right yes

yeah i started off at uh djj david joseph uh kind of went the non-traditional route i started off on the non-fair side of the business trading in cincinnati for um a few years so how wild of a ride is it from like 07 to 09 i mean talk about two of the biggest swing years three three years i guess in the industry from absolute peaks to canyon type valleys and uh i mean how is that i mean looking back on it now that you’ve kind of had more years to kind of draw from was that was that a pretty wild ride for you as well it definitely was although if you could have timed any time to come into the industry knowing nothing and being trained essentially in one of the best markets where you essentially could never mess up it was probably the best time to enter because for basically what one to two years whatever you bought whether you messed up on the buy or not you still could wait three days and make money right i mean yeah especially those swings were big those people talk about the ferris

side and how big of swings those were but the non-ferrous swings were just as big but even bigger percentages you know on a daily weekly monthly basis absolutely and it was great you know having such experienced traders around me during that time period especially on the non-fair side because you know you really got to learn all the different types of grades as well as the different strategies they were using uh with hedging or packaging or you know their their tolling business it was really quite informative for those few years when i was in cincinnati i think that anytime i mean what if i know it helped me a ton so when i was in college um i took a couple of my spring breaks and i went to work for schnitzer because obviously at that time we were partners with schnitzer and uh just seeing how big companies operate and they do i mean they do different they do things differently than like say a small mom-and-pop small business like ours operates right we’re very like hands-on very um you know we see the daily transactions and the purchases

and you know the movements and it’s like giving looking at it from like a much larger perspective it gives you just like a different insight into how things are being done you know in in a in a different environment than what like even what i operate in today so i almost encourage if my son either my sons ever wanted to get into scrap business i would i would almost encourage them to go work at a big a big you know whether it’s a publicly traded company or a big you know privately held company just to go see how things are um viewed differently you know oh 100 i’ve worked for publicly traded companies for privately held companies and then you know with small uh medium-sized you know family-run businesses and there’s advantages to both sides of you know the the spectrum but i do have to say where you’re sitting it’s a great perspective because you can be nimble i mean you basically get your team together somebody comes up with an idea you discuss it for five minutes maybe you need additional information but the decision can be made there and

within 15 minutes somebody is off and running and taking it versus in corporate world you have to get you know 20 meetings together you got to get the powerpoints the excel spreadsheets you have to have three levels of c-suite officers to sign off on the you know that we gotta make sure that we’re not gonna mess up any of our shareholders positions okay now you can go yeah no it’s six months later and that’s the only way that david has a chance with goliath i mean really that’s your that is your competitive advantage is your ability to be nimble because realistically if they want out pricey they can out price you if they want to out you know muscle you they can it just by sheer size so really all you have is your your ability to be nimble and your ability to make decisions and go and yeah look at those decisions move forward but that is like that is really your your biggest competitive advantage as an absolute company in any industry really yes oh absolutely well and also think about the amount of overhead those large organizations have so whenever

you see them getting aggressive in the marketplace and you’re like how can they possibly be making those margins think about you know the amount of accounting staff the amount of marketing staff that they have like all these you know back office positions and it you really start to question what are they doing in those situations like what’s the end game because you’re looking you know the numbers and it doesn’t add up sometimes yeah it just makes for it just like i think that that’s kind of one of the things i’ve appreciated about like your kind of uh progress and process through the industry is you’ve kind of seen you know all the different sides so just for the listeners that don’t really have a uh a good as strong of a background idea that i do on you know your path in the scrap industry do you want to just give us kind of a you know the cliff notes or version or kind of how you got to where you’re at and what you’re up to today absolutely um so i i mentioned briefly earlier you know i came directly out of college

went to go work for dj in cincinnati as a non-ferrous trader for a few years went to seattle for five years uh mainly doing ferris for the west coast you know idaho which is uh you know where i met you so you know just dropped down into utah for the steel mill down there a few times every month and then i went to go work for ak steel i managed the raw materials purchasing um so in charge of their their scrap purchasing as well as i did some fair alloys and some base metals like aluminum and zinc for their coating lines and then i went to work with becker iron metal a very well-run family-run business out of st louis a large scrap yard in that region for four years and then most recently i joined argus about six months ago as their vp of business development to help grow and expand their metals business so what was the draw from say traditional scrap buying whether it’s you know large companies um versus your family you know own companies to the argus um side like what what was the like what

got you excited about moving that direction i was taking a look in terms of the future okay what do i want to do in five years 10 years 15 years do i want to keep trading scrap every single month you know is there something else that i want to take a look at and um argus reached out to me in terms of hey do you know anyone in the industry that might be interested in this opportunity and i read the description and it’s you know at first i actually gave them a list of like five names i’m like these people would be great they’re fantastic you know they got the experience and then the more and more i thought about the opportunity i’m thinking well you know like i can always trade scrap like i can always you know once you know what the grade is who the players are you can always do it right but this opportunity seemed a little more interesting to me like i could make more of an impact because i had some frustrating experiences with you know formula contracts in the past and you know i figured if

i don’t actually attempt to try and make a difference in that realm then i can’t complain about it so i that that was kind of the driving factor is this is a new challenge haven’t done it before seems interesting let’s try it let’s give it a go well that seems kind of like your personality though i mean like even to go out of college to an industry you have really don’t know much about like it seems like a challenge you’re like oh give me six months and after the bonus if it works like i’ll stay if the bonus doesn’t meet my expectations like i’ll go do something different um but if so it’s probably just in your personality to take on challenges and do do different things and hopefully if anybody gets anything out of this i mean i think that there’s so much to be said for especially in your younger years you know of your life when you really have nothing to lose right like go take a chance on an industry or something that maybe is maybe a little slightly out of your comfort zone or isn’t the cool google apple

job and say maybe there’s something out there that is appealing that like i could make a big difference in doing or just something that looks interesting or fun i can learn a bunch of different things and then i can either apply it to another job in the industry or go do something way different exactly um i i really did not know what i was stepping into um they were at you know dj was at a career fair at indiana university they were honestly probably next to you know a target or proctor and gamble or some other you know huge name brand company and you know i started talking to uh one of their traders uh amy zack at the time and um you know she just started talking to me about what they do and you know you get a company car and you get an expense report and you get a travel and you know meet interesting people and i’m thinking well i don’t want to sit in a cubicle all day yeah so this seems way more exciting and my friends in college severely questioned my decision making because they’re like wait

you’re gonna you went to college and now you’re you’re gonna go work in scrap yards like what what what are you doing my parents definitely who did you piss off like what happened yeah yeah my parents were like wait a second we sent you to school to to do what what do you like what did we just pay for um their their graduating gift to me they want they wanted to they didn’t do it um but they wanted to get me a handgun to keep in the car because they thought i was going to be going to like the most ridiculous places and i’m like mom dad if anything’s going down like it’s already gone down i’m not being able to get back to the globe fox by that point like you’re just gonna have to trust my common sense at this point well it sounds like it worked out so my at least in my opinion it has um yes so my my questions and i’ve told the story like a few times but i think what’s in what enabled me to grow our business was that in that run so i graduated

um from from with my undergraduate 04 and so from 04 to about 0809 like i was able to recruit a bunch of people into our industry which notoriously like the 06 to 08 run was like one of the better runs in scrap kind of circling back to our you know how we opened up the the conversation with you know that market being kind of just like on a rocket ship so it was a lot i’d say like a reason i had success recruiting people into this industry that had no idea about scrap or any of it was because i could show them hey there’s potential here like this there it’s i know it might sound funny or may sound like why would you want to do that but there’s real money to be made there’s real potential there’s i mean it’s a it’s a pretty um free-flowing flexible job career and once you learn it you can pretty much be employed anywhere in any state in any city um there’s only so many careers that i think you can really truly say that about so i think that was one of the reasons

why i had success wasn’t because i’m some scrap genius it’s just i had the ability to recruit you know in kind of a sweet little window of opportunity in our industry and i got was able to get a bunch of bright smart people in here and help me build it right so do you think so this is kind of a two-part question but do you think that we’re in that maybe that window again of where if we’re gonna recruit people maybe outside of this industry um that maybe now is our chance to say hey look there is opportunity in here and look at what what can happen if you you know play your cards right or i mean what’s your two cents on that so it right now it’s just a really tough job market if you’re an employer um because you can pretty much like write your own ticket at this point um obviously with covet and going and working remote over the past year and a half companies have had to figure out okay we still want to keep hiring we’re going to have to give up our whole like you

have to relocate here you have to come into the office like and they figured out how to work remote so you can start having somebody work for you in michigan for a california-based company and they have to pay california or maybe slightly less you know wages and so that’s going to be pretty tough to compete against honestly i think in terms of getting more people interested in this industry we have to use the sustainability angle we have to use you know like this is good for the planet this is you know recycling aspect and we might also need to have a little bit of a tech bubble because a lot of those jobs like i feel like the next generation is like very appeali you know that’s very appealing to them um and when you’re talking about you know that 2004 to 2008 period that was relatively right after the tech the 2001 tech bubble so like people were probably still thinking yeah no that’s probably gonna bust again and you know you probably had some friends laid off during that time period so it it’s kind of you know it depends on

how you angle it in terms of getting the next generation in i think showing them that this is a green industry that makes a lot of green i think is probably the way to go at this point because uh there’s still a lot of you know sexiness that comes into play with like what kind of job opportunities are out there like what do you what do you want to tell people that you work for do you want to tell them that you work in the scrap industry or do you want to tell them they work for like some you know uh i t startup right yeah i know and i there is there is a big element of that and i’ve had that i’ve had to have that conversation you know we have a micron is in our backyard here in boise and i’ve said if you want a micron type job you know a cubicle or you know a more of a a cooler looking business card you know with your title on it i go this probably isn’t the right industry for you but if you want you know flexibility and decision

making ability and the ability to make some money and this and that like now we got a chance um so the second part of that question was is you and i kind of briefly just touched on before we started recording was you’re you’re heavily involved in the woman women in recycling component of our industry and you can tell me the acronym again um but what what do you think it’s going to take to say get more females in our industry and wanting to be in not just a part of it but an active part of it and and um and kind of draw them into doing doing like what you’ve done in your career i think it’s definitely going to take a shift in hr practices um you know i’ve worked for companies that basically have a set criteria and it’s worked for them and they’ve been successful in it but that also tends to be more male dominated so i think we’re just gonna have to get a little bit outside of our comfort zone with our hr practices in terms of okay if we’re going to the same types of schools or

we’re recruiting from the same locations then okay we’re probably gonna still keep finding the same folks and that’s probably not gonna like you know increase the diversity in that aspect um and then in terms of uh you know getting more people to be more active like when i first started in the industry i tried to assimilate myself and hide the fact is probably a good way to describe it that i was a female because it was so obvious whenever i would walk into a room i would be the only one or maybe there’d be like two others at best right so you know you didn’t want to say anything that would be different from what like you know the boys said you didn’t want to do anything that might be different you know my fashion choices back then were not what i would have worn in my personal life it was a lot of you know golf polos because that’s what the you know the men wore versus now i’m getting more comfortable and having more professional feminine attire yeah and you know 15 years later i’m seeing more and more women in their

power suits and their power outfits and they’re like f this like yes i’m gonna wear amazing jewelry and like yes i’ll still kick your you know whatever at you know business and get it done so i think just having more confident women just in the industry interacting with more people is making it more comfortable for women to be themselves in the work environment and so i think that’s how we’re going to just naturally increase the amount of women that are in the business is just seeing more and more of those individuals and i think when you can convince like i think i’ve i’ve always said like i love to go left when everybody’s going right and then go right when everybody’s going left like that’s just i i enjoy it sometimes i’m right sometimes i’m wrong maybe i should have went left when everybody else is going left but i feel like some of the best decisions i’ve made is going the other way when people are going this way right and i think that if we could get companies to understand that i think that there’s something to be said i we have

a gal that runs um that manages a couple of our yards in eastern idaho her name is amy i’ve had her on this podcast and you know we didn’t recruit amy out of college or anything like that you know we recruit her she was working in another another uh recycling facility that no longer exists but i just saw in her like her want her her willingness to go out and she where sometimes the shoe her shoe choices i’m like i kind of questioned them like really like you’re gonna wear those those boots but i’m like hey that’s your deal like whatever works for you like go get it amy but uh but i was like you know there’s really no scrap buyers really you know in idaho that are female and i’m like amy you’ve been in the office like you understand scraps there’s any questions like that i can answer for you like i will answer them for you i said just go out and just start doing it your way like whatever way that is you know go talk to the customers go and just get started and get yourself comfort like

i think with you like talking about you know wearing polos or whatever um to more blend in physically i think once you understood it mentally the material you understood that that you could have a conversation about scrap with the best of them like i understand what hms is i understand difference between bonus playing structure thorough alloys like let’s go let’s have the conversation right now it doesn’t become a matter of what you’re wearing as much as like do you understand the material like i understand it do you understand the flow like i understand it then it’s then people are willing to put take their their guard down and say all right you know scrap we can have a little conversation yes and completely agree what i had to have with her i’m like once you understand it they won’t really care because they’ll know that you know your price you know what it’s going to take to get it from a to b and deliver to the mill whatever else like you’ll win just because you have more upstairs knowledge not what we know what you’re wearing right absolutely and it you know it

just takes experience at that point i mean i i’ve run into some female buyers um for yards in the midwest that are just crushing it and they you know the first time that um i met one individual that i’m thinking of you know i was like you cannot be from this industry like i’m thinking like you had to have come somewhere else and her background was from another industry and she basically took what she knew from that industry and was applying it to scrap purchasing and she was crushing it like like no holds bar you know like owned it and she’s been very successful and it and it’s the exact thing that you’re talking about she did not stick with the status quo and try and blend in she completely owned it yeah i had like a side side story but i had a a gal my wife my wife had a really good friend and she was in the tech industry and she was kind of unhappy with her gig and i had bought a pipe company in indiana and i was like and she was like man i just i want to

get out of this tech industry job blah blah and i’m like well i got this pipe company in indiana and she goes i don’t know anything about pipe and i said i don’t really care i’ll teach you about pipe i go but you got you got hustle like that’s all and i said there’s nobody out there selling pipe that’s a female that’s any that’s that that i think is out there hustling the way you hustle on the tech side shoes on the marketing for a pretty good sized tech company traveled around the world setting up trade show boost and doing all the marketing for them and i was like if you could do that like even on a small scale on the pipe industry nobody’s doing it right way i said you’ll win and so i like hired her like my wife said really you’re gonna i said yep i said inside so as long as you’re willing to fly to indianapolis you know once a month and go out and then fly to you know we flew to new york and boston and down south to set up dealers were setting up all

these dealers and i said well just fly me in if you need backup and she was just out setting up dealers and and just kind of getting everything going and within a year i mean it didn’t take but just a year for everybody to just see okay she’s not she’s not just out here speaking like tech talk she actually knows pipe and so people it was just a change of face it was a change of um of knowledge and just brought something enough different to the table that it worked and she’s still doing it to this day and so i’ve always felt like if there’s an opportunity if you get the right individual male or female that’s actually driven that because that’s what it is about it’s just someone that’s motivated to go and attack the the business and attack you know the potential so i i was always stoked to see that that it’s worked out well for you yes no i mean it it it hasn’t been you know like a clear shot obviously when i first joined uh david joseph it’s like okay you’re the junior trader and then you’re the

senior trader and then you become the district manager and then or you know maybe there’s some few a couple moves in there and that’s how you get promoted to a different office and yeah you know then you get in charge of the steel mill and you go on to be like the vp of trading you think like this is just like where i’m going and then after you know a few years you realize that’s probably not what i actually really want to do okay how do you how do you you know maneuver the the career hey at some point you find like your pivot point and then you say okay what do i want to where do i want to go what do i want to do different yes exactly and and you know so far in my career um you know i haven’t really had to search for the next opportunity it’s just been very like informal knowing someone in the industry hey i’ve got this opportunity or hey i heard so-and-so’s hiring do you want to talk to them or maybe somebody approaches me and you just kind of you

know find out as much as you can about the opportunity see if it works for you and your family and is it is it something that’s going to pique your interest for a while and the scrap industry is so relationship driven that those opportunities come up just because if you’re able to establish strong relationships and people know they can trust you and you’re good for your word whatever it is then because we are it’s not a huge industry you know pretty much not everybody knows everybody but a good percentage of people do that especially on the national brokerage level where you’re probably hearing it from all sides you know you probably know more than you know somebody like news kind of tucked over in my little corner of the world but i think that that’s the cool thing about our industry is that it is relationship driven and those opportunities can come up which then could be another talking point from a recruiting standpoint whether it’s for females or for males like you know say hey you may start here we’re going to get you in the industry we’re going to teach you hopefully

we do enough to keep you and you like it and you want to stay here in our business but if we teach you enough and we show you all the different opportunities that exist you know there you can pivot and go whichever way you want so i think that’s probably a talking point as much as the green and the sustainability and whatever else like there’s so many different versions of of what you can do in our industry oh absolutely and you know uh if if you you know start off single in this industry you know you can you’re you just think okay i’m gonna i’m gonna move wherever i have no ties like you know you can follow the career wherever and then obviously it gets a little more complicated when you get married there’s another career involved you have children now but what’s fantastic in terms of like a selling point is i can work anywhere in this business like you know we recently relocated out west and i work remote and if there’s an opportunity um you know in the future to go overseas well there’s scrap overseas there’s you know scrap

back in ohio there’s you know there’s there’s metal pretty much anywhere in the world there’s going to be an opportunity so if we ever get relocated again for either my work or for you know my husband’s work i mean there’s going to be opportunities down the road to keep this life interesting oh yeah yeah that is one thing about our industry and you know another recruiting talking point is it’s it’s no matter where you go there’s scrap so once you learn the industry you will have a you know you will have a the potential to have a job if you like it you want to be in the industry you can pretty much move wherever people are always on the lookout for knowledgeable even in some of the toughest times like it’s i mean the toughest times you may have to scale back what you think you’re worth an hour or a year but there’s still opportunity like if you if you mean as long as you you know you don’t come from as some high executive from xyz company and still think that some small mom and pop can afford you but you’re

willing to kind of say hey i’m willing to take a step back financially to show you that i’m worth the money and there’s always a job in the scrap industry for some 100 500 and i’ve done that i’ve done that where i’ve said okay let’s start off with this number and i will show you i’m worth more you just you just hustle you work for it you show them what you’re capable of and the money follows oh yeah 100 if you were and if you’re working for the right company and you’re making them money then they’ll either take care of you or they won’t or they’ll either realize the value or they won’t and then you’ve at least shown that i’ve told you exactly what i could do and i’ve you know and now just and then what does it do it just opens up more opportunities down the road so tell me you’re at the uh the history conference in san antonio so kind of give us give us for all of us um over there are at the conference give us kind of what’s what’s going on over there and a while

you’re there but b just kind of what you know the i’ve heard that the the attendance is great i’ve heard that uh you know it’s people are excited to get back out and about so kind of give me your your scoop on what’s going on over there absolutely so in my career this particular region of the country was never you know like my day-to-day book of business so this is actually my first time at this particular regional conference i’ve always heard really great things about what they do they they move the location each year i think next year it’s going to be in new orleans so keep that on your radar um but it seems like it’s set up kind of like a miniature um uh national conference i mean there’s an exhibit hall here um you know it’s three four days long there’s golfing you know you got the cabanas the lazy river action you know the attendance here is it might be record breaking so typically in a good year there’s probably 350 400 folks that register um it’s at least 650 people registered you know on by monday and

then i think with walk-ins i think they’re over 800 at this point i mean it’s kind of absurd it it just shows that people are ready to get back out there you know we were we were hugging last night like shaking hands like i don’t have to look at you at it in like a box on my computer anymore it was i can’t see your whole face like i can see yes you know actually i’m not just looking at like just your eyes like i actually see if you actually are smiling or if you’re like frowning at me yeah exactly i’ve had to remember uh people’s heights i’ve forgotten how tall people are compared to me it’s yeah it’s it’s actually been uh quite wonderful to to get back out um i i’ve appreciated this zoom opportunity honestly though because it gives me you know uh some time in the air conditioning because i i’m just not acclimated to the humidity here um but uh overall it’s it’s been wonderful so far and then on uh thursday tomorrow there’s gonna be a whole day of award presentations uh speaking opportunities uh panelists etc

one of which i’ll i’ll be doing tomorrow um and then we’ll we’ll wrap up with some more um you know networking receptions and and parties i like it i anticipate when do they do the um consumers night i think it’s in the fall right in st louis uh middle feb middle of february oh it’s february do i anticipate that conference and i anticipate the national in vegas next year to be huge huge just for the same reasons as long as the industry as long as the scrap price doesn’t go to 100 and people are trying to keep the lights on which and i don’t anticipate that either but i think as long as the market holds up and as long as uh as as things keep moving in a similar trajectory that they are right now or even if they just flatline for a while i think that you’re gonna have a crazy turnout at the national convention just people wanting to connect again and just say hey you know because what’s been two years since that national convention as as i mean they did the virtual one this year but where people actually

be able to in person shake hands hug have a cocktail like all the stuff that like what makes our industry fun and great and you know just those back to the personal relationships oh absolutely uh you know after this conference is over i’m i’m looking at the uh you know i call it the israeli circuit you know the israeli golf circuit where you’ve got all the the different regional chapters with their golf outings or various summer outings and you know that everyone’s putting them back on it’s fantastic um you know the southeast chapter does a really big um uh conference as well and that’s gonna be in october in charleston this year i imagine that’s gonna be a fantastic turnout um i’m already you know booking out for the the national conference i expect the consumer’s night in st louis to be a huge turnout well worth the the money spent on a couple nights in in st louis with that kind of turnout and so people are ready we actually were having this discussion with a few folks last night okay what what would have happened if okay we’re we’re getting out of

the the coved era and scrap prices or steel prices suddenly tanked you know 300 400 or something right would we still have had this type of turnout yes i mean even if like we were starting to hit a little bit harder times in the industry but if this is the first opportunity to see people in person i i mean we’re a relationship type of industry yeah yes we’re still going to spend the money to get here absolutely yeah i agree 100 i mean and especially on the national side i mean i think where maybe it limits the national side if the market was the tank would be like some of your people coming in from say other countries i mean depending on the country and depending on their travel restrictions and what that looks like you know come april of next year but assuming that things truly keep progressing forward and opening up i anticipate that to be a record-breaking record-setting uh conference as well just for those reasons just people are ready to get out and and do so from your standpoint give me kind of a like give me a

little bit of um your like what your day-to-day what what you’re trying to achieve there in argus like what what is what is what is your modus operandi what do you what’s the goal you’re over there at argus the end goal for me is to make argus a more well-known brand in the metals industry that’s like the very macro uh end goal for me whether or not you’re an aerospace manufacturer or you’re a scrap yard like argus should be in your business portfolio in some aspect whether you’re using us for the incredible news that we put out on a daily basis whether you’re using us for price assessments in formula contracts with your industrial accounts or whether you really like our analytical tools the the concept is you should not only be using just one price reporting agency in your business because you don’t just get your news from one source you don’t just get you know your your personal information from one source so why are you doing that in your business and i think a lot of people in the metals industry haven’t felt like they’ve had a lot

of other alternatives and so my whole end goal is to provide another alternative another very serious and reputable alternative so that they can have more than one option out there and whether you use us in formula contracts or not or use this as just your news data source or maybe you do an average basket price with our assessments that’s up to you but at least we have provided another option for the mendel’s industry so on argus is argus is amm yes so and so i’ve had to learn from people that don’t like understand you know like how how does it you know how do they all connect and sometimes even me on the back end i’m like well how do these how does it work so well and i’ve had to learn some fun new acronyms that you know as a fellow uh scrappy i never used before um for instance pra everybody loves to use the term pra in in my industry uh and uh it’s price reporting agency i don’t think i ever heard that term used i’ve never heard it i mean that i know something right so now hey we’re

adding value out there pra is it’s a price reporting agency okay exactly we’re using another adding another acronym to the wonderful world of acronyms that we already have in the in the scrap world um but yes so amm is a price reporting agency um platt cru they’re all price reporting agencies pras um and they all provide um similar and sometimes different services and so it’s just really about research and figuring out what the different pras provide a lot are different and there are several that overlap in certain areas and it’s just a matter of figuring out what works for you and your business and it’s just it’s a matter of just interacting with the various ones to to really try and figure out what works i think you said though i mean when you read the news you’ll read like i mean at least when i read the news i’ll read like the idaho statesman online like what’s going on in my backyard and then i’ll read um fox news and then i’ll read bloomberg and then i’ll try and just get like kind of a a little bit of everybody people that slant

real hard left people slant real hard right because there’s the truth really is probably mostly in the middle it’s not either side and then i think that that is the same um when it comes to scrap i mean and the information you’re getting i mean if if people are reporting sales or people are reporting pricing um some people could be inflating pricing for their benefits some people could be deflating pricing for their benefit um people could be reporting news or information that somehow benefits them or doesn’t or some people could just be telling you the way it is and i think that that’s how you have to approach the information that you’re reading about what’s going on i mean and just use your your brain and what you feel is strong for your local market and try and combine all those forces into what you’re going to pay what you’re going to sell for and and i i think that that’s where like what you’re saying a price reporting agency now that i know what the pra is like that’s how all those all connect and there’s not one i had sean dave sean

davis on this podcast right sean davidson from the davis index and you know he’s very passionate about the scrap industry which is why i wanted him in on this podcast people that care about our industry and care about what’s going on and i think even he said you know that people are gonna report what they want i mean there’s no documentation and they’re not going to send you their purchase order and like this is exactly what they’re going to report what they either what their opinion is or what they want you to know and it’s your job as a pra as an argus and amm or davis to kind of try and lead through some of the and try and get a accurate representation for all your customers like myself that are trying to put together you know formula pricing or basket pricing for their customers and be within a you know a few bucks of what we’re actually selling the stuff for because you know we’re trying to you know keep our customers in line and so we want accurate information but you better be getting it from a few different people absolutely

and that’s i mean if you’re not getting the news from uh you know at least a couple different sources i mean you’re really doing yourself a disservice you know we talk about basket pricing but if you think about where that term came from it’s the phrase you know don’t put all your eggs in one basket well that’s what our industry is doing and has been doing for decades and we diversify in every other aspect of our business and our personal lives except for pricing yeah like what the main components of what we’re doing every day you know yeah just you know something that may or may not make or break your business that you know but nobody ever stops and thinks about you know we why am i doing this it’s just because it’s been the status quo it’s the same reason you know an industrial account that’s based out of california is using chicago busheling prices for their scrap yeah well that has nothing to do with what your scrap is actually worth on the west coast why are you doing that and it’s just because their predecessor did it and that predecessor

did it and well we just we just do it this way or there’s some inherent advantage because the person reporting on the busheling price over on the east coast or west coast is under reporting the pricing so they want to use that price because that what works best for their formula and that’s just a numbers game that’s a shell game just trying to get you know trying to buy the scrap right but realistically people are becoming you know especially if you’re a big manufacturer who’s generating a decent amount of scrap if you’re worth your weight in salt as a purchasing manager or whatever you’re going to snuff that out and this the better you can tie your pricing to something that’s accurate i think in the long run you’re going to win you’re going to win your customer and it’s just it’s just going to be a better you’re just going to have a better overall your customers got a better overall feeling for what you’re trying to do and whether you’re trying to take care of them or not so oh absolutely and our you know i can really only speak for argus

and and the team of reporters here because obviously this is the first pra i’ve ever worked for um but the reporters are actually a main reason why i joined argus to be honest they do a really great job of snuffing out the bs to be honest um they they speak to a wide variety of players in the market not just you know scrap yards but steel mills and service centers and anybody that touches scrap industrial accounts they’re talking to um and they’re able to to snuff out the bs and it’s uh they do a really great job of making sure that if you do talk to them you know they’re not like citing you directly unless of course you want to be in those stories and you know they’re they’re evaluating how many times you do in a given month to kind of affect you know what kind of price that you’re being factored into for the overall regional assessment it they’re they’re just very sophisticated in what they do and um it’s uh it’s really impressive to see the the work that they put into it they take a lot of uh care

and putting those numbers out each month because they know how much it affects the given market one slip up can cost people a lot of money a lot of money a lot of money um so question for you in looking forward i know everybody’s got prediction of where the market’s going and i don’t want to i don’t know i don’t like to predict a price but you and i we had this kind of this conversation on clubhouse i really liked your insight but just give us like an idea of where you see the scrap industry um in the next you know a few months to a year doing a couple years out and just kind of what you see overall landscape-wise i think that would give some value to people that like this podcast list this podcast kind of somebody from the outside looking in i mean what are you seeing out there and go any direction i’m more than happy just to listen okay so short answer up uh the long answer is i i think we’re in a good period for the metals industry just in general um there’s a lot

of demand a lot of pent-up demand and i don’t see that necessarily going away anytime soon um i think i mentioned on clubhouse you know i’m probably more optimistic than the next person for probably two to three years to be honest it’s a really hot job market people are getting out of covet they want to travel they want to you know spend their money they want to redo their kitchen they want to trade up houses they want a new car they can’t get it right um and you can’t just switch it on overnight right so you’re going to see this demand outpace supply for a while and you’re seeing it on the steel mill price side hrc i mean is just i mean it’s getting close to 1700 in that time um and scrap prices really haven’t kept up with that and you’re still 79 weeks out on lead times that’s not going away anytime soon you’re starting to see some of the auto manufacturing they’re bringing back their production the plants that they brought down because of the semiconductor issues again that’s not going gonna be like resolved overnight um i mean

we’ve had a slight setback in the infrastructure bill um you know uh but that’s still on the table imagine if that got done all the roads the the rebar the you know uh they’re talking about some of the digital infrastructure that’s going to be a lot of non-ferrous metals that are going to be needing down the pipeline where’s that i mean i don’t see that going away anytime soon so i think generally speaking i think we’re going to be in a good period for scrap metal their demand is going to be there and i don’t see section 232 going away anytime soon either so it’s it’s gonna probably be pretty optimistic in the in the scrap world for for the longer well let’s let’s call it uh you know a couple years at this point i think you and i see that eye to eye i just wanted to hear somebody else say other than myself just because i’m sure people are like ah that guy is just he’s i don’t know if he’s saying it just because for his own benefit or not but i’m always curious like what other people’s um

you know take is on it because i’m i’m an optimistic person in general i’m probably more willing to take a little bit of risk than some just on optimism as much as anything or my willingness or to dig myself out of a problem if i get into one but but mostly because i just feel like you know we there is it means something has to give either the new steel price has got to come off or the price of scrap has to come up and i really just go by my own gut feel of our region and our area and then i just kind of try and project that outwards as far as you know what does our flow look like you know what does the you know what what opportunities are there for you know material in our region and when i start feeling this flow slow down in a market like this then i i feel like it’s because it’s going to be as much of a supply side issue as it’s going to be demand so the demand is there and if the demand stays even somewhat relatively strong i think

i think you we’re starting to see supply side issues on the scrap i mean because there was such a you know there was a period of time where there was very little demolition there was very little you know manufacturing or uh maybe only fifty percent of the manufacturing that would have existed had coved not happen right yeah so that’s starting to catch up here’s you know the spreads i mean if when copper is sitting around 450 and the spreads haven’t budged you start you you know i mean in the inventory you start looking at lme inventory and start looking at the inventory you can see why the price is up it’s as much of a supply issue as it is demand and when those two forces combine you better hold on and absolutely the steel mills in my opinion will tell you oh we can buy the material we want like we’re not running into any issues and i mean hey everybody’s got a sales pitch and i get it but i just go by what how i feel right and what i see in my little corner of the world and i think

that that’s what that’s going to be a big proponent of the next couple years is a lot of the low-hanging fruit has been picked so if there is still good demand and we haven’t even we haven’t even really brought in a super strong export market yet into the mix right the pricing that’s being um that’s b is being driven right now is being driven by the domestic the domestic steel market i mean turkey and bangladesh some of these other countries are you know they’re only paying what they’re paying because they have to they’re not i don’t feel like they’re necessarily driving the market as much as the domestic side if that deal ever flip-flops like an 0807 flip flop where it was the export market that was basically forcing domestics hand in pricing this thing is a this thing is is a rocket ship and i’m not saying that that’s going to happen i’m just saying if it did then now you have two real players at the auction versus just one and yep you you ha you better you know you have you better hoping you’ve taken care of your customers

absolutely well and on the export front um let’s think about how the steel mills uh how the steel is made along the gulf coast and the east coast in uh the south a hundred percent of the steel is made from electric arc furnaces so when export is going to get hot and it’s going to get aggressive and it’s going to start pulling scrap out of the south that region is going to fight for that scrap they don’t really have another alternative yes they can buy some iron substitutes but those are expensive um and so there’s going to be you know a a big fight for that scrap to keep those seal mls running especially at these prices you think you know an electric arc furnace steel manufacturer is going to want to give up a sale because they couldn’t get an extra barge of scrap in no they’re going to pay that they’ll they’ll definitely get it in and they’ll just average it into their hundred thousand tons that they bought that month uh-huh it goes back to playing the average game for them you know getting the material in because i said

i mean to me if you’re if you’re melting rebar on a 400 a ton you know margin you can afford you you’ve got room if the price trap has to come up because and i i don’t i don’t know i don’t pretend to know what anybody’s margin is other than just historical averages and if you’re if you’re melting on 400 you’re in a pretty good spot so spoiler alert they’re doing better than that right now i know and that’s where i agree with you but like let’s say you can get to 400 still make good money and that leaves a lot of room for the stock price and so oh absolutely i think the spread right now between um midwest hrc and um like the average busheling price i think it’s like 1200 a short time right now uh and let’s just say let’s be conservative okay maybe let’s say there’s 300 in conversion costs okay so you’re making almost 900 maybe a thousand in a good month on every ton of steel you sell yeah yeah i think there’s probably some room to move up some of the scrap prices or steel prices

to drop and still be economically fine and sound realistically both could happen and everybody can still win and that’s where i think let’s say that the export market does turn on and we do still get some let’s say we start getting more um export or import steel coming in i think that that there can be people say well if the price news still comes down price scrap’s gonna come down i don’t necessarily agree with that as long as the demand is still there as long as the demand for the steel exists and the supply is is somewhat limited i think you can actually see price of new steel come down and price the scrap hold steady or even move up in the face of it just because the margins are so wide agreed and you know we haven’t really even talked about like the behemoth of china or even india in terms of how they make steel they currently make steel from integrated facilities iron ore coal etc right and then obviously oxygen well that’s been a huge topic in india recently i mean that’s a major health concern they did divert some oxygen

to the hospitals and health systems there but those countries are getting to a point where they’re going to start generating their own scrap or they’re going to want to really aggressively find scrap from other parts of the world well we make a lot of scrap here so that i mean we haven’t even talked about those two countries starting to aggressively pull scrap out of this area and we’re we’re as a country we’re one of the first countries to emerge out of the whole covid 19 lockdown and you’re seeing what’s what’s happening here so what happens when india truly emerges and they actually i mean they’re still locking down right yes i mean china is still locking certain areas down i mean they’ve been they’ve been staying you know they’ve been manufacturing a little bit but i mean that’s why you run into the container issues because they’re still fairly limited and you know what they can do or are allowed to do if i mean just the amount of of um just the increase we’ve had as a country you know being a 400 450 400 400 million you know person country grant we

are heavy consumers but what happens when these countries that are a billion or two open up and they have now they see demand i just think people are you know i try and convince you don’t get too short-sighted on this deal it’s gonna get interesting um it is before it gets less interesting it’s gonna get more interesting yes well and that’s why you know i’m thinking two to three years of you know optimism in this front you know i i’d like to believe that india is going to be able to uh recover hopefully sooner rather than later from from covid and the effects that it’s having on their on their people and um their their economies so um yeah imagine when the rest of the world gets it together we get you know the the vaccines out there you know we’re getting people back to work in all countries right and you know travel starts happening again you need more airplanes you need more hotel rooms you need all those services you know um you know aluminum cans to drink your beverage on the go whatever it’s it’s just going to increase demand

it’s going to keep going especially with increased hopefully salaries in this job market i would i’m interested to see and this is something i haven’t really talked much about but i’m interested to see if there’s a transition from some of the things made out of plastic like you like your dixie cups that are starting to get transitioned into like aluminum something that’s a little bit more recyclable yeah and then like in our lifetimes and this isn’t going to happen next year but i’m interested to see if some of that stuff you know like really transitions into like some light gauge you know aluminum type products just out of curiosity on the aluminum side it’ll be interesting um if it if it does happen that’s that’s at least like one step in the right direction but i think a big issue that we have in the united states in particular we suck at recycling like we just do like i mean uh i think we’re at 46 i think is the the number of like the ubc’s that get recycled in the united states so wait half of half of the cans that we make

are just they’re just in the trash in a landfill that we’re never we’re not going to get back versus i think united kingdom and brazil are in the high 90s percentage so you know to kind of switch to some of those metal-based products yes that’s good but at the same time if we don’t get our recycling rates up that just means we’re putting precious supply into landfills that we’re not going to get back it’s crazy i mean i assume i mean you’ve traveled a fair amount for your for your career and you know maybe on your personal line i don’t know but over the years and and i feel like i’m decently well traveled um and dude but there’s a lot some country i still would like to go see but it’s funny when you go to some of these places and like the trash can is you know this big recycling can is this big and they’re there’s they don’t double wrap package you know the the the amount of trash generated here is is is crazy it’s really mind-blowing like people that have never left the country went to another

area another country that’s you know decently good at recycling or even decent yeah then you start to realize how like what you just said how bad we are and it’s like at it and yes i i encourage people like if you ever get the opportunity to go travel like pay attention to the recycling component and the trash generation component when you’re going somewhere just watch how different it is watch how hard it is to throw something away there’s no trash cans like it’s crazy you know they don’t it’s like they’re very very minimal they don’t almost exist and you don’t even have to travel outside our country to see that so um you know seattle has a reputation for you know being a little hippie and you know when we lived there we had the tiniest trash can i mean like there was just like not even an option to upgrade it our recycling can was huge and then we had a compost bin and that was just standard that’s what came with the house like that everybody had that right and uh then we moved to suburbia cincinnati and they gave us the

largest trash can i’ve ever seen and we had to ask for a recycling can and they brought it and it was so tiny we’re like well this isn’t gonna work like i work in the recycling industry this just this isn’t gonna work so i asked to downsize our trash can it wasn’t an option i had to go to lowe’s and go buy my like smaller trash can because they didn’t even have a smaller option and then they eventually brought out like a larger recycling bin but that’s standard we were the only family in our neighborhood you know the the suburbia landscape that had a larger recycling bin than trashcan and part of that is space right landfill space and i was showing my in oh i was showing my oldest son he’s 11. i was showing him the difference between um the us in just land mass and india right and i was like you can fit india into like a quarter like if you were to put it into texas and like the south it’s like takes up a quarter of the us right and i said and and maybe even a little

bit less all in i haven’t ran the numbers just visual right and i said now imagine cramming two billion people into that type of an area i said and then we let’s say we have 350 census which probably really have like 400 pl and some change right in the united states and we’re spread out right we got landfills we got mountains we got you know deserts i mean it’s it’s it’s hard to fathom the them that amount of people crammed into such a tight area and it forces your hand like there is no other option or else you just drowned in trash yes you know well and that’s that’s how europe is um you know each individual country is really trying to set up their own circular economies because they have to there there’s no other assessment yeah yeah it becomes a necessity as much as like oh we want to do this it’s like no no if you don’t do this then there’s gonna be trash everywhere agreed yeah i think if you can figure out over the next five to ten years how to mine existing land uh landfills in the united

states you know i think there’s some obvious issues like with methane gas and et cetera but think about all the metals they already have been like to a certain extent like old shredder landfills right right so that shredders have you know i know that there’s for that’s been going on for a while but and i agree with you if you can actually mine some of the just regular old yes run-of-the-mill landfills it would be super interesting to see it would be when uh i attended the uh the virtual israeli national conference um the illumina one of the aluminum speakers um was from the aluminum association and they were talking about how with the increase in aluminum products and demand over the next five to ten years um and our current recycling rates we’re never going to meet it like it’s just it’s not going to happen that’s it that’s a huge issue even with you know mining box site and and getting enough pure aluminum out of the ground and transitioning it exact et cetera into aluminum we’re not going to meet it and so there’s going to have to be

a shift in something we they’re going to have to find the product somewhere else we’re gonna have to shift existing products into different metals or plastics or something to meet those demands and you know i just keep thinking about the metal that’s sitting from you know decades old landfills like municipal landfills that think about all that material i mean yes there are shredder landfills that they’re going back through and mining but they know that it’s you know it’s currency fluff and you know icw and stuff that’s in there it’s a known commodity imagine if you could find the gold mines that are in the municipal landfills yeah and i mean and especially in states like idaho where you don’t have like a redemption um states right i mean that’s my wife and i we went up to oregon we had a good family friend their daughter graduated high school and went to a graduation party on saturday and you know i go to oregon a lot because we have a couple recycling yards over there and i we went in there and we bought um some drinks for the kids and then we bought

a case of beer for us to go to the party and my wife’s like geez did you see how much extra they charged us for that beer and i was like yeah you’re in like a redemption state you know like they charge you five cents a can actually for the beer and she’s like oh man and she’s pretty frugal i was like i was like that’s how it is like and i said and i go i don’t think it’s necessarily bad because it kind of motivates you like hey if i want to get my money back i better you know and i i’d be and i don’t know the answer i’m sure there is like a ton of studies like the the difference of the recycling rates and redemption states versus like non-redemption states i bet it’s i would assume just outside guy looking in taking a gas has probably got to be better it is better but what’s surprising is that it’s not that much better because i mean not to sound one percent here but like okay so 60 cents extra dollar extra on like whatever you know you you just

bought probably isn’t really going to motivate you to put to like spend 10 minutes trying to find like the correct recycling bin right that would be i just like any study i i wonder what that threshold is though like is it 50 cents a can is it like can you imagine though like what would that threshold be to where even you know people that aren’t necessarily squeezed by a buck 50 extra like like what does that number push to to where you’re like put those cans in that bag over there because we’re taking them back for that yeah we want to go to the store next weekend and you know and buy it you know what’s interesting on those those programs those deposit states um there’s only like a handful of them i think it’s like seven or eight states do that um similar to the lottery system they’re huge money makers for those states because they’re really not getting much more than 50 or 60 recycling i mean i i don’t even think it’s 60 to be honest um as average so think about that half of what they’re charging people for those

containers never gets like redistributed so it can go find um additional programs i mean there’s really a great opportunity here you know states and federal that’s never going to happen we’re never going to agree on like doing something as a nation on that front but think about the private businesses that have an opportunity here to really help the recycling rates um in that aspect i mean i kind of look at it from a covert perspective okay so as a you know again not to get too political here but as a federal like you know uh group we could not like collectively say everyone has to wear masks right yeah what we saw is um private businesses started stepping up and saying our customers are saying we want you to say masks and they did it so if we can get the american public to realize that we have a recycling issue in our country that we’re not going to get the products that we want with the metals that we’re currently using down the road in five or 10 years i think private businesses would start stepping up and saying hey i’ll make it

super easy for you to return the the cans i’ll make it super easy to do this and you know they’ll get you know kudos from the environmentalists and you know they’ll get some good pr but it’s actually going to help us as a country to actually get the metal back that right now is just going into the trash can at this point could you imagine the i mean like you talk about the money generated for the state similar to a lottery program can you imagine i mean what what could be done if people put the amount of money and effort if they have to making like pot marijuana legal if they just put that amount of money and effort into like a beverage recycling program or whatever like in as far as marketing it and like explain the benefits and the tax ramifications for the state if they were to implement it and i don’t like and i’m kind of anti-government i’m not as far as like anti if just don’t tell me what to do and i’ll and i’ll do the right thing but as soon as you start telling me what

to do and how to do it i kind of have a lot of pushback that’s kind of more my stance is um but from a recycling standpoint and just from you know being able to generate tax revenue for these schools i mean people say oh you know if you make pot legal if you make marijuana legal it’s going to generate like a windfall amount of money for your state right well you’re just sitting there telling me that you know that what what a true windfall amount of money really could be made off just implementing a beverage recycling you know fee that actually benefits the city state municipality um counties and it actually benefits the recycling rate all at the same time it’s like it’s like we’re stepping over dollars to pick up nickels you know a lot of times yep absolutely well and private businesses um you know think about like all the supermarkets that already have like the balers for the cardboard they’re already in the back they already have them okay ubc’s are not exactly like the most appealing thing to recycle you know sometimes we get some moisture and some smells

in there that we don’t necessarily like um but the balers are back there they’re already ready to go um to you know start the recycling process somebody’s already sending a truck to pick up the cardboard pick up the ubc’s yeah it’s already there done i agree i agree so i want to ask you one last question um land on and end on this note just because i think you’ll you’ll you’ll add some you’ll add some value to to what people work what to the industry what in your opinion um as a female in this industry or as somebody even taking a step back just somebody that knew nothing about scrap um coming out of college what would you like to what would you tell people what would you what would be your sales pitch to get either more females in the industry or just more young people that are motive that are motivated to to go you know see what’s out there what would be your sales pitch to get them to take a hard look at our industry and what makes it what makes it good if you want to be involved in

an industry that touches every facet of everyone’s life everywhere in the world this is it i mean that if if you want secure long-term job security metals are everywhere they’re not going away they’re they’re in the microphone they’re in the computers that we’re using so if you want to talk about you know oh everything’s going digital okay tell me about that server farm what do you think it’s made of where do you think it’s housed is it made out of a you know plastic box sure but what’s inside of it i mean there is huge long-term success in this industry you can work wherever whenever in this industry and it’s fascinating anything that’s metal in your life has a value and if you’re in that trading mindset it really carries over into every aspect of your life and it really does uh improve you as a person helps you negotiate you know your next home purchase automobile purchase on a personal standpoint but professionally it it’s really quite interesting and satisfying long term awesome you’ve always been in my eyes you know a pretty strong advocate for our industry and not even

just from a female perspective just from like from somebody coming in from the outside not having a big family history in the scrap industry so i’ve always appreciated the conversation i knew you’d bring you know a twist to it so thank you very much for your time jennifer i appreciate you taking the time out of your uh conference schedule podcast to go enjoy some ac and i hope i wish you the best and we’ll stay in touch but you know always great talking to you likewise this has been really fun it’s been uh really appreciate it thanks brett thank you have a good one