Fresh Perspective

Matt Young

Founder and president of Electronics Value Recovery

Growing up, Matt Young enjoyed learning software development. He attended computer camp at age 8 before taking several college-level computer science courses in middle school.

“My parents always joke that the best thing they ever did was send me to computer camp when I was 8 years old because it’s kind of just defined the next [few] decades of my life,” Young says.

His hobby came in handy when he was a student at the University of Maryland looking for a job. Hanover, Maryland-based electronics recycler E-Structors Inc., now known as The FTK Group Inc., hired Young to develop its internal information technology (IT) processing and management software.

“I think what really excited me were the opportunities around reusing and refurbishing goods,” Young says. “It was really eye-opening [for] me to kind of walk into this huge 100,000-square-foot warehouse and just see electronics that were going to be going into a shredder that I thought could be reused, and that was really the path that my career took after I finished writing the first couple of versions of the software I developed for them.”

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Maryland, Young landed a job as director of technology, SaaS (software as a service) and operations at California-based ECS Refining. He held several positions there for the first few years of his career.

“I always try to steer toward more of the reuse and refurbishing.”

In 2018, Young moved home to the Baltimore area to start Electronics Value Recovery, which provides electronics recycling and refurbishment services.

In the following interview, he shares what it was like to start his business.

Recycling Today (RT): What was it like starting your business?

Matthew Young (MY): We grew from just me and my dog sitting in an 1,800-square-foot garage and, by the time we moved into Baltimore, we probably had about 10 employees. ... By the end of the [coronavirus] pandemic, our current headcount is stabilized right around 40 people.

We’re really focused on growing our sales team [and] diversifying some of our upstream revenue mix, which is our big 2023 focus.

RT: How much does Electronics Value Recovery rely on commodity markets for business versus the services you provide?

MY: We’re relatively diversified. That was a lesson I learned from the previous company I had been at where we had a world-class management team. We were really focused on things like continuous improvement and lean efficiencies but, at the end of the day, we could still lose money because commodity markets fell. It’s not that you’re not executing … but if you budgeted on $3 copper and you get $2.25 copper, it’s really challenging in some of these high-volume businesses to make stuff like that up. That’s part of why I always try to steer toward more reuse and refurbishing.

RT: You also are involved with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) as secretary of its electronics division. What has that work been like?

MY: It’s been a really valuable experience because of the networking and educational opportunities. I’m a big proponent of ... trying to stay involved.

I’ve gotten to work on the specifications committee, which has been a really cool process. The ISRI specs are used the world over. … Different than the standard ISRI spec that defines less than 2 percent ferrous inside of this specific code, our items are more about what defines whether a device is actually reusable, refurbishable, functional. And it’s been pretty cool to document all these different attributes and think about how they could be used in trade decisions.