welcome to bets on the future where we highlight the various career paths and 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 Metals industry veteran with almost 20 years experience here to highlight these incredible career paths As Told by the women who are living them welcome to a surprise bonus episode with Christine savedra from essay recycling the optimistic Metals Recycling Rockstar hopped on for a second round to expand on our initial conversation she’s incredibly inspiring and I hope you walk away charged up for your next challenge since you’ve been in the industry a few years and you you’ve had what seems like a really wonderful experience are there any lessons or pieces of advice that you would give to your younger self starting out in the metals industry I would say don’t be afraid to ask questions don’t be afraid to speak up don’t feel like you’re out of place because if you’re there there’s a reason you’re there and I talk to students at the high school where my sons go to and
it’s um 97 Hispanic the city these kids go on to University in New York Boston all over the country and I tell them you know what what you see in Pico it might be a culture shock to where you’re going but don’t ever feel left out don’t ever feel like you’re less you earned your place here there’s a reason you’re here and um just keep doing what you’re doing so I think that um yesterday I was talking to somebody about imposter syndrome right and that’s a really big thing because we we get to these levels where we just want to push ourselves to the brink and think um maybe I’m not doing enough and no matter how well you’re doing it’s you don’t see it in your mind it’s just something that you’re doing it’s not anything out of the ordinary it’s not anything that nobody else is not doing but but it really is sometimes so I think that especially for women um when we go to these uh boardrooms when we speak up when we advocate when we bring another woman along you know it’s just it’s something that we need to
do and till that becomes normal I will have to say you know as far as the company that I work for um we have uh I think the industry the in the recyclable materials industry it’s like I saw a study was 81.6 uh percent male dominated but if you look at essay if you look at the directors I mean we have a Director of Finance Sandy Brooks She’s also the vice president for the West Coast chapter I mean our director of HR which she is amazing phenomenal um her name is Yvette um are another Director of Finance which is um Jocelyn and then we have a lot of just in this area in the LA area we have you know general managers like Angela Maribel and they’re all women and you see a lot of women in leadership roles um so I think that’s really important and it just shows because the male it’s you know heavily male dominated the numbers are so high but the leadership roles there’s a lot of women in leadership roles and I’m gonna leave I don’t want to leave out Joanna because if she may if this
makes the interview cut she will be mad at me she is Brazilian so she’s a little spicy she’ll tell you that so I definitely leave this part in um so um yeah I I just uh I am thankful for all the opportunities uh that we are given and I’m thankful for the opportunities that this company has uh given to anybody that’s willing to work you know and so but I do see across the board you know I’ve been to a lot of meetings or when I decided to run for city council I I always remember that somebody asked me what about your kids and I looked and I said if I was a man they wouldn’t be asking me this 100 this would never pop up but uh I just said my kids are first and foremost what’s going to be taken care of everything else comes second so um so my kids are doing great um they’re they’re doing they’re doing well in school you know uh they participate a lot one of them just got an award at the school district for his participation and so it’s it’s it’s good you know
it’s good to see them they are growing they’re 16 and 17 so they’re gonna be almost out of there pretty soon yeah I feel like I’m gonna blink and I’m gonna be in your shoes and it’s gonna be like what happened that’s exactly what happens that’s exactly what happens I saw a U.S Department of Labor statistic the other day that showed that 76.4 of women aged 25 to 55 I believe participate in the labor force so when you are telling me that 81 of the recycled materials industry is male dominated I just think about all the potential employees experts that could partake in this industry that companies are missing out on and when you hear about essay and the diversity and inclusion that they’re they’re working on and obviously they are not just talking they are walking the talk look at essays financials look at what essay has done in the past three years five years ten years that company has seen their Workforce not from necessarily a gender standpoint but as a who’s going to be the best for the the job the opportunity who has that attitude who’s willing to
work and they’re not saying oh we should just hire what we’ve always hired we’re going to give other individuals chances and it’s showing in their bottom line a hundred and 130 yards you said yeah I think it’s 134. um 134 yards for for those that are not familiar with the scrap World um think of it like this you have a business and you have one location maybe you have um a restaurant or maybe you have a clothing store you would be so successful to the point where you would have a 134 locations that’s to put it into scale that you would have 134 restaurants 134 clothing locations across the United States that’s the kind of level of operations that essay brings to the table and diversity is a part of that absolutely a part of that story yeah I I definitely think it also helps that essay is a very bottom up company so we have not just 134 locations we have 134 different ways and different ideas of how to get the job done so you learn from other people we have um a lot of the people that are in locations are
cross-trained they’ll send people from here to there there’s no like we were talking about the open door there’s no oh no no I don’t know everyone is welcome we have people from other yards you know let me let me see your yard I would like to know what you’re doing over there what what I can learn and I think that is one of the biggest um Catalyst to success is just to always keep that open mind to keep learning every day because you can’t shut your blinders or you know just think oh because he’s just the guy that sweeps he doesn’t he won’t know but yeah yeah he actually might know more than you or can do the job better and you you just don’t know that you have to talk to people and and you have to um you have to listen and a part of listening and I was just talking to somebody else but I had to um part of listening is also circling back so providing feedback to say not just did I listen to you I listened to you I processed it here’s what we’re gonna do um
because maybe we can’t try all these new ideas out right but there there’s a lot of stuff out there that um we definitely can or maybe we had never thought about it in that way that’s a good transition to ask you what some of the biggest challenges have been that you faced in your career and how you overcome them because it sounds like essay looks at the different yards the different people that they have in their organizations and look at it as an opportunity to learn from each other and so it’s probably in that mindset that you have attacked some of the challenges in a similar fashion I think that one of the biggest things is um actually I do a lot of the community outreach for this area for La so I go out and I speak to people a lot and um I know I I don’t look as young as I used to a few years ago but a lot of times people think I’m younger than I am or I don’t know any better I’m you know might be just somebody secretary or whatever uh without knowing the backstory of
like no we actually we work here like we are most of the people that came up a lot of the people that are I could say my friends um started on the scale started um outside um started picking and now they are in management supervisor positions and so I think that the toughest part and I and going back to it again right is the whole imposter syndrome is sometimes um you might not feel like you belong in a situation and you have to uh be able to assert yourself an advocate for yourself that just knowing that yes you do belong there there’s a reason you’re there and that’s probably one of the hardest for me one of the hardest things to do because um like everybody that knows me like personally like they’ll tell you I I keep it real 100 you’re not gonna get a fake answer from me you might not get the answer you like but you’re not gonna get a fake answer and so um that uh I feel like that has helped me because I I am thick skin I you know if you’re gonna push back then I
can push back too but um that that is definitely uh one of the things that has helped me I think that’s fantastic it’s a really great way to to look at that there are many times in my career that I’ve experienced some similar situations and you do have to push back and part of why we’re doing this is to Showcase and highlight women in their careers and their expertise in this industry and that this the former stereotype that we might be only back office or the secretaries is not true anymore there are really strong individuals that are in our industry and they’re making change and they’re they’re doing it because they are the experts they are the best person for the job hands down definitely yeah so I tell people all the time I’ll introduce myself and I say I I do the community outreach in you know LA or whatever and then I’ll say but I don’t like people and I had people like what what and I’m like yeah oh better stated I should say I don’t like crowds um I don’t like um and it’s gonna sound crazy but I don’t
like attention I would rather if I could just fade into the background that would be awesome um my boss oh man he’s he’s awesome so um QE will always be one to be like no no wait it’s Chris Christine is the one that did all this she put this together good yeah and I’ll be like it’s okay it’s fine but yeah and I know I should right but um at the same time um yeah sometimes you just uh maybe it’s just more so I don’t like crowds I don’t know um but that has been really hard and I know that’s something I’ve had to work on and I mean here I am right yeah so well it’s it’s wonderful to hear that you’ve got people in your corner that are going to if you’re not going to speak up and highlight your accomplishments that they’re gonna do it too it’s something that I try to be more aware of especially in the past couple years when you know we’ve we’ve been a little bit more online and not as in person that if I see somebody that has you know been talked about in
an article or they’ve accomplished something and maybe they’re not willing to put it out there with their permission I 100 try to go out of my way to either post about it tag them or even just send them a direct message of like I see what you’re doing and I love it and I just want to say that you’re doing fantastic and it it’s great and to to what I see you working on you post frequently on LinkedIn and it feels like you are non-stop constantly going places meeting with people meeting with the community working on things as essay and it’s really inspiring it’s really quite cool to see what you’re working on so please don’t stop thank you don’t stop posting keep putting it out there you know I see what other people are doing and I am very appreciative um what you’re doing you know John Sacco with the repurpose with the pile of scrap um it’s just that I think that recycled materials have gotten a bad rap for a long time without realizing how much good we’re doing like we are I love Mother Earth like this is you
know we only have one Earth you know and so we got to take care of it and I teach that to my kids and I tell that to people and I work for a recycling company it’s it’s part of who we are and so I just feel like we do so much good we should really get that word out because people don’t understand her um sometimes they’ll say oh yeah can I take you my bottles or do you melt it there and I’m like no we’re like on a one acre property there’s no way we can build anything here um so um that that is uh that is a challenge but you know I think that the metal industry is changing and I think that this is uh it’s just moving in the right direction so people can understand what we do and not just us sitting in the back of the room it’s us speaking up and highlighting and showcasing what Recycling and recycled materials are all about mm-hmm absolutely it’s it’s wonderful to see the work that you’re doing what essay is doing what other individuals in the industry are doing
to really promote what we’ve been working on for decades at this point yeah yeah and you know technology is only making that easier so hopefully um so um what advice would you have for younger folks or even younger professionals that are interested in starting a career in the metals industry I would definitely say to reach out to someone uh find a mentor find someone that can be in your corner not necessarily have to be a cheerleader for you all the time but someone that you can bounce ideas off of that you feel comfortable with and um you know they they say um having a work best friend is the key to a lifetime of happiness in your in your workplace um so my work best friends don’t are not even at my location but uh we’re able to connect you know I have a problem text I look this happened oh I have this customer what do you think and so that that in itself is is like a tremendous it’s a tremendous help and it’s a tremendous resource for anyone not even in just in this industry I think it’s important for people
to have that you know teachers to have other teachers to bounce ideas off of um I’ve never I’ve never worked with any scientists but scientists do have scientists right in the lab or yeah I just feel like um anyone that you can connect with and feel that safety and being able to say I had this crazy idea do you think this would work or um that kind of thing is just is just very necessary that’s a really wonderful answer because it relates to any industry not just the metals industry and it’s something that you’re gonna use throughout your career it’s not just for younger individuals having a mentor throughout your career or a variety of mentors as your career progresses it gets a little lonelier um as you move along in your career right um and so it’s really wonderful to have those people to bounce ideas off of to help keep pushing you to grow and and move forward in in your career yeah definitely awesome well it was really good to see you nice to see you too talk to you soon and have a good week with days today Wednesday yes
yes we’re almost there almost there all right all right bye see ya bye