Electronics Recycling Supplement--Reliable Reputation

Jim Taggart

BETWEEN BROTHERS. Jim bought ECS Refining, an electronic scrap and solder dross recycling company based in Santa Clara, Calif., in 1980 for the modest sum of $15,000, which he paid in 15 installments of $1,000. He had been working as a salesman for a precious metals refining company since graduating from college five years earlier and was already familiar with the industry.

Ken Taggart

Ken joined his older brother as a partner in the business in October of 1980, and they incorporated the company as All Metals Inc., which today consists of ECS, with locations in Santa Clara, Dallas and Terrell, Texas; United Datatech of Santa Clara; Canadus Power Systems of Warrensville, Ohio; and UDT Aviation of Houston. All Metals has sales offices in five states and in Tijuana, Mexico. The Tijuana location also collects material from electronics firms in Mexico, shipping it to Santa Clara for processing.

Dr. Nelson Mossholder, a hazardous waste industry veteran, and Dr. Jack Scott, a veteran of the smelting industry, own 25 percent of ECS and 50 percent of Canadus. Jim says Mossholder and Scott add an additional dimension to the businesses by developing proprietary environmental technology.

Jim serves as president, and Ken serves as vice president of All Metals Inc. Jim says the brothers’ skill sets are very different, which lends to the success of their partnership. Ken, who has a bachelor’s degree in accounting and is a licensed CPA, has an eye for detail, Jim says. "Ken, being more of the accounting personality, is more about detail and procedure, and I find that great support so that I can do the sales and marketing and the outside work."

The brothers share a level of trust that is unique to family, they say. "One of the things you have going for you with family members is you almost don’t have to communicate to know what they are thinking or what the expectations are," Jim says.

This trust coupled with the brothers’ business sense have contributed to their success. "Jim and Ken are innovators," Tom Hogye, who serves as general manager and vice president of United Data-tech, says. "They are successful because they are not looking at this business as it is today. They are looking at what the business will be like tomorrow."

Just as Jim and Ken rely on one another to compliment their individual strengths and weaknesses, ECS Refining and United Datatech also work together to provide their customers with comprehensive, complimentary services.

COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH. Jim and Ken established United Datatech Distributors in 1988. "We actually bought two other companies that were involved in the recycling of electronics," Ken says. "One was more involved in the recycling of electronic scrap, and the other was involved in reuse and resale." The company offers asset recovery services and remarkets peripherals and components through eBay, third-party maintenance firms and other resellers.

ECS Refining and United Datatech share synergies. "One of the things that ties the two businesses nicely together is that companies generate a lot of different kinds of waste materials, and we try to be full service," Jim says.

For instance, if United Datatech cannot remarket incoming material, the company can pass the devices onto ECS for precious metals recovery.

ECS shreds the electronics and processes their precious metals and tin/lead solder constituents as well as materials from dentists, jewelers, other refiners, electronics manufacturers and dealers and other end-of-life electronics processors. The company sells the resulting materials to solder alloyers, smelters and manufacturers.

ECS’s Santa Clara location also processes photographic materials. The company puts treatment units into stores that offer photo processing and also picks up photo solution to process at its plant.

While ECS Refining’s Terrell, Texas, plant does not process photographic materials, it has capabilities that the Santa Clara plant does not. "One of the things that makes the Texas operation somewhat unique is that not only is it a pyro facility, which uses melting and smelting and so forth, but we also have hydro capability," Jim says. "We are able to move materials back and forth between the smelting line and the chemical processing side. Typically, you don’t see that in most operations." The Terrell plant also has shredding and mechanical separation capabilities.

Because the Terrell plant uses chemical separation, the facility can process high-temp alloys from the aircraft industry, extracting precious metals from high-temp alloys. This dovetails with UDT Aviation in Houston, which Jim and Ken are also involved in. The company recovers aircraft parts and components.

PRIORITIZING BEST USE. United Datatech prioritizes reuse when possible, followed by component recovery and then raw material recovery, which occurs at ECS.

ECS recycles everything that enters its doors, according to Jim. "We don’t take materials that we can’t recycle. That has always been the policy of the company so that we don’t have these potential hanging liabilities from Superfund sites and so forth."

Tom Hogye

Since California enacted its Electronics Waste Recycling Act and a landfill ban on electronics, the Santa Clara plant has seen an influx of end-of-life electronics.

Jim says, "The company has doubled in size in terms of volume of product that it handles in the last year, and I expect that to happen again in the next year."

But this growth potential is accompanied by concerns.

"The perception of new entrants into the industry is that there is a lot of money to be made and to be made quickly," Tom says. When reality sets in, it can be disasterous for the environment, he adds.

Jim says balancing the costs associated with proper environmental management against the competitive aspect of the electronics recycling industry is a challenge, but ECS is committed to environmentally sound practices, but not at the expense of its bottom line.

"We are a for-profit company," Tom says. "Our philosophy is to be of the utmost integrity, to provide the customer with the services they require and to do so in the most environmentally and economically sound way."

Providing a variety of services is part of the Taggarts’ approach, but they also value integrity. "It is particularly important in the kind of business that we are in because you are dealing with people’s liability, you are dealing with their data and so forth," Jim says. "So when you tell someone that you are going to destroy something, you better destroy it, because there are potential downstream consequences to not doing so."

He continues, "People who are buying the services need to be aware of that, but also the people who are providing the services need to have a longer view of it and see that what they do today affects them tomorrow."