Built to Last

The Weber family, including Earl Weber Jr., Earl Weber Sr. and Rob Weber, pictured at left, run Garden Street Iron & Metal. The family has been in the scrap recycling industry since 1958 with the founding of its first yard in Cincinnati. The company expanded to Florida in 1989 with the purchase of an existing yard in Fort Myers. Brothers Rob Weber and Earl Weber Jr. have very little recollection of a life before being in the scrap business. They credit their father, Earl Weber Sr., with allowing them to learn the industry inside and out starting at very early ages, laying the foundation for a family business that has grown impressively in the past several decades.

Each of the Webers is quick to credit the others—as well as additional key managers and employees—for the success of Garden Street Iron & Metal, the company founded by Earl Sr. in 1958.

Modesty and humility are character traits that appear to flow throughout the Garden Street culture, and they are traits that start at the top with the story and the day-to-day approach taken by Earl Sr.

FROM THE GROUND UP

Garden Street Iron & Metal Inc. was founded in 1958 by Earl Sr., his father and his brother as a side line to their scrap metal trucking company, which was located on Garden Street in Cincinnati.

Earl’s interest in scrap metal led him and his wife Margaret to purchase the scrap portion of the business from Earl’s dad and brother in 1962. At the time, Earl and Marge had four small children. In the company’s early years, Earl and three employees handled operations, while Marge handled accounting tasks.

The four children’s frequent second home was the scrap yard. Earl Jr. recalls that by the time he was 7 or 8, his mother would threaten him with having to stay at home on Saturday rather than going to the scrap yard as a form of punishment./p>

The time Earl Jr. and Rob spent at the scrap yard was far from play time. They went to work sorting scrap, running the scale, keeping the facility clean and maintaining and repairing equipment.

By the time Earl Jr. was 12 and Rob was 9, the duo were shopping for equipment and making purchasing decisions for the company. “When they were 12 and 9, I sent them on an errand to a trailer sales company to buy seven trailers,” recalls Earl Sr. “The company owner sees young kids wanting to buy trailers, and I’m sure he was skeptical. But they checked the tire size and the brakes and showed that they knew what they were talking about. It blew their minds that I trusted my sons to make that decision.”

Before they were old enough to be licensed drivers, when the boys could reach a destination by bicycle, they often conducted business on behalf of the company. “Cincinnati Truck Parts offered used trucks for sale,” recalls Rob. “We would go down there around that same age (12 and 9) and we’d climb around and shop. Initially, they mistook us for vandals, but eventually the salesman rode along with us in a Loadstar International 1700 so Dad could buy it.”

When asked if he ever had misgivings about assigning crucial responsibilities to his sons at a young age, Earl Sr. replies with a question: “When are they going to learn, when they’re 40?”

The experience is valued by Earl Jr. and Rob as well. “Rob recently said to me, ‘Boy I’m glad you showed us when we were younger—I don’t have to learn this now,’” says Earl Sr.

Earl Jr. says, “We’re still more subject to hire someone to work the office so we don’t have to. I’m better with a hammer and chisel than I am with a pencil. And when you’re a kid, it was a lot more fun to run a crane than to sit in an office.” He adds, “At age 12 I was driving a tractor trailer and I was a full-fledged cable crane operator at age 15.”

The company’s early years provided all three of them not only with valuable operations experience, but also with a sense of being comfortable interacting with the most modest of scrap peddling customers and performing the dirtiest and most tiring jobs a scrap yard can offer.

SPREADING OUT

Establishing a niche within the competitive scrap metal industry in and around Cincinnati required the combined efforts of Earl Sr. and Marge and Earl Jr. and Rob as they assumed more responsibility.

By 1965, however, just seven years after the company started, Garden Street had outgrown its original site and relocated to a 2.5-acre former coal yard in Cincinnati. Also, Earl’s desire to expand and diversify led him to enter into wood pallet and box reconditioning.

Earl eventually purchased a 28-acre site about 20 miles west of Cincinnati in Fernald, Ohio, with that location housing the pallet and box operation until the recession of the early 1980s, when the Weber family closed the pallet company. The property was converted to a scrap yard in 1990 to make better use of the 48,000-square-foot drive-in warehouse.

The yard has since grown. The company acquired properties adjacent to the Cincinnati location as it continued to grow. But by 1995, the Webers concluded that they had outgrown the location and acquired a 10-acre parcel of land in Cincinnati. “This location had three rail spurs and provided the necessary space to accommodate a large ferrous baler and a 1,000-ton hydraulic shear that were purchased shortly thereafter for processing ferrous materials,” says Earl Jr.

The growth has continued in the ensuing 15 years, as Garden Street has continued to purchase adjoining parcels of land when they are available, with five purchases having been completed.

HEADING SOUTH

The ongoing growth in Ohio is impressive in its own right, but it is more impressive when considering that there has been a parallel growth strategy unfolding several hundred miles south in Florida.

In 1987 Rob moved to Fort Myers, Fla., initially in search of a non-scrap-related business that the family could expand into. After a year of working in other fields, Rob says he realized that what he wanted most was to stay in the scrap business. Rob initially accepted a position running a scrap yard for another owner. In 1989, though, the Weber family purchased the Fort Myers company, incorporating it as Garden Street Iron & Metal Southwest Florida Inc.

That same year, Earl Sr. turned the day-to-day operations over to his sons, with Earl Jr. managing the Ohio locations and Rob managing in Florida. Earl Sr. traveled between the two states for the first year or so, with Marge casting a deciding vote to relocate to Florida.

REMAINING GROUNDED

The vast majority of Earl Sr.’s time is spent working in the yard. “I like to be out where the action is,” says Earl Sr.

His enjoyment of operations aspects have transferred directly to Earl Jr. and Rob. “I’m pretty much a hands-on kind of guy, with my uniform on loading a truck or a barge or putting in a piece of equipment,” says Earl Jr.

Rob says, “There’s no question in my mind one of our reasons for being so successful is because if my shredder operator, crane operator or diver doesn’t show up, I’ll run the darn thing, and I can. There are no layers between ourselves and our front-line people, which also means we wouldn’t ask them to do anything we wouldn’t do ourselves.”

If any of Garden Street’s employees question what it takes to be successful in the scrap business, they need only watch 79-year-old Earl Sr. put in a full day of work.

The author is editor-in-chief of Recycling Today and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.