Personnel Notes

Eriez announces executive retirement

Charlie Ingram, the former executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Eriez, retired from the Erie, Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of separation technologies at the end of last year.

“After 26 years of significant contributions to Eriez, our industry and the Erie community, Charlie has decided to retire and bring to an end his very successful career,” Eriez CEO Lukas Guenthardt says in a news release on Ingram’s retirement.

He joined Eriez in 1994 as national sales manager, rising to vice president of sales and marketing in 2004. Guenthardt says Ingram was one of the architects of Eriez’s three-fold growth while he directed the sales organization in the Americas.

“Ingram’s approaches to field sales, market-focused strategies, aftermarket initiatives, training and customer education significantly helped position Eriez as the world authority in separation technologies,” he adds. “Charlie has been a valued mentor and leader during his tenure.”

Eriez says Ingram fostered the professional growth of Eriez’s sales and marketing teams, enhancing customer satisfaction through improved sales structures and processes.

As executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Ingram oversaw Eriez’s global marketing operations and the introduction of new products to target countries, managing product line realignment and standardization, the company says.

While at Eriez, Ingram served in numerous volunteer roles. He was president of several community and industry boards, including the Erie Philharmonic, the Sight Center of Northwest PA, the Process Equipment Manufacturers’ Association and the Kahkwa Club. He serves as a trustee fellow of Denison University and is on the board of directors of Sterling Technologies Inc. and as the Manufacturers’ Agents National Association.

“We at Eriez value the many contributions Charlie has made over the span of his career,” Guenthardt says. “We appreciate the foundation Charlie has built over the last 26 years, which positions Eriez to be successful for many years to come.”

Balcones Resources appoints president

Balcones Resources’ board of directors elected Adam Vehik as president of the Austin, Texas-based corporation Aug. 25, 2020. His appointment to the post was effective immediately.

In his new position, Vehik is leading the company in its continued growth following its acquisition of Sarasota, Florida-based Single Stream Recyclers.

Balcones Resources is an environmental services company that is backed by Closed Loop Partners, which is a circular economy investment firm based in New York City. Closed Loop Partners acquired a majority stake in Balcones Resources in October 2019.

According to a news release from Closed Loop Partners, Vehik served as Balcones’ chief financial officer since February 2011. Prior to that, Closed Loop Partners says Vehik had a career in finance, law, marketing and strategy and technology commercialization. He spent four years in private equity and worked in the White House during the Clinton administration. He also held positions in Johannesburg and in Granada, Nicaragua, and he helped to conduct expeditions of the Arctic Circle and Australian Outback, studying applications of closed-loop ecosystems in a variety of contexts.

For the last five years, Vehik has served as a board member for Hill Country Conservancy, a land trust in central Texas.

He received a Juris Doctor and an MBA from the University of Arkansas and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Vanderbilt University.

Macpresse adds Randy Gibson to North American team

Randy Gibson has been named vice president of MP North America LLC, which will distribute balers and equipment from Milan-based Macpresse.

MP North America LLC was formed in 2020 as a business unit designed to provide Macpresse factory representation to customers in the United States and Canada, Gibson says.

“My main goal is to build the dealer network in North America for Macpresse, whose equipment is highly regarded for its innovation, productivity and reliability. Right now, I am looking to continue growing our partnerships with the extensive list of dealers already in the Macpresse family in the U.S. and Canada,” he says.

Gibson has been involved in the design and sale of balers and other recycling equipment since 1989 and has had previous roles with Harris and International Baler Corp.

WestRock’s Porter retires

WestRock Co., Atlanta, has announced that Jim Porter, president of business development and Latin America, retired Dec. 31, 2020. Porter continues to contribute to WestRock by serving as one of its representatives on the board of managers for Gondi S. de R.L. de C.V., the company’s Grupo Gondi joint venture, and an advisor to the company.

According to a news release from WestRock, Porter has worked in the paper and packaging industry for most of his 46-year career. After earning his degree in forest management from the University of Missouri, he began his career with Menasha. In 1993, he joined Southern Container and was president and chief operating officer when WestRock acquired Southern Container in 2008. He has helped to lead the development of the company’s corrugated packaging business and its growth in Latin America, including the company’s operations in Brazil and joint venture with Grupo Gondi in Mexico.

In 2018, Porter also received the RISI Lifetime Achievement Award.

His industry involvement includes serving on the board of the American Forest Foundation and the Forest History Society.

Porter recently was inducted into the International Corrugated Foundation’s Circle of Distinguished Leaders.

Mark Reiter, Sam Gershowitz receive ISRI Lifetime Achievement Awards

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, has honored Mark Reiter and Sam Gershowitz as its 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award recipients.

Reiter, who died in 2020, posthumously was recognized for his efforts to advance the scrap recycling industry, the association states in a news release.

Politics and the political process defined Reiter, ISRI states. He started in politics at age 10, working to help various candidates in his hometown of the Bronx, New York. He attended Stuyvesant High School and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Temple University.

Reiter worked for New York Mayor John Lindsay before moving to Washington to work for Rep. Bella Abzug of New York. He also spent 10 years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and then returned to Capitol Hill as a senior staff member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. In 1992, he left government and joined ISRI as manager of legislative and international affairs. As Reiter once said, “Being connected to politics keeps my engine going.”

Reiter established ISRI’s first grassroots advocacy network to provide support for the Superfund Recycling Equity Act (SREA), lobbying for it in a decadelong process that culminated in its passage in 1999. According to ISRI, that law saved the recycling industry hundreds of millions of dollars and created the precedent for recognizing recycling operations as distinct from disposal operations.

Although he was a lifelong member of the Democratic Party, Reiter worked across party lines to help ISRI achieve its policy goals.

Reiter served as ISRI’s vice president of government relations until his death in January 2020.

“Having had the pleasure and honor of working beside Mark for his entire ISRI career, I can honestly say that doing right for the membership was always at the top of his mind and doing it with integrity was always his first priority,” says ISRI President Robin Wiener.

Gershowitz, who founded New York-based Gershow Recycling, received the award for his commitment to the industry, his employees and his philanthropic work. ISRI says the award honors his vision and tenacity in creating one of Long Island’s best-known and largest environmental and manufacturing companies.

“Sam’s commitment to the industry and drive to better the lives of his employees is truly unmatched,” Wiener says. “From his work ethic to the many ways he benefits his community through numerous philanthropic efforts, Sam and Gershow truly embody the best of all our industry has to offer. ISRI is proud to recognize Sam with its 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award.”

The son of Polish and Russian immigrants, Gershowitz quit school at age 17 to support his family in Brooklyn, New York. On his days off from work, he would travel to the Hamptons on Long Island, where he noticed abandoned cars and scrap metal on the side of the road along the way. To address this problem, he founded Gershow Auto Parts & Wreckers in 1964. In 1981, he changed the company’s name to Gershow Recycling to reflect its growth and overall commitment to recycling and conservation, later adding the motto “Conserving the Future by Recycling the Past.”

From its start as a two-person operation with a tractor-trailer, a boom truck and a portable car flattener, Gershow has grown to nine facilities employing more than 750 people, processing ferrous and nonferrous metal, paper and plastics.

“I want to thank ISRI for this wonderful honor,” Gershowitz says. “Being recognized by one’s peers is the highest honor one could receive.”

In memoriam: Joseph M. Stover

Joseph M. Stover died Nov. 3, 2020, at the age of 62. He was the founder of First Capital Fibers in York, Pennsylvania, which he sold to his son, Joey Stover, when he retired in 2019.

Joseph Stover began his career in the scrap industry in 1978 when he started hauling mufflers and junk with his pickup truck, Jerry T. Kellner of First Capital Fibers tells Recycling Today. In 1988, he purchased his first scrap yard in York, naming it First Capital Recycling. Ten years later, in 1998, Joseph Stover started First Capital Fibers.

According to the company’s website, First Capital Fibers now operates out of two locations with more than 60,000 square feet of processing and warehousing space combined. It offers scrap management services, including material processing, document and product destruction, plastic recycling, metals recycling and brokerage services.

Joseph Stover was born Oct. 18, 1958, in York to Jane (Peterman) Stover and the late Jesse Stover. He had been married to Lisa A. (Herman) Stover since Jan. 10, 2009.

According to his obituary on the Heffner Funeral Chapel & Crematory Inc. website, he enjoyed golfing and traveling in his RV in his free time.

Kellner says Joseph Stover also enjoyed spending time with his family and friends.

“He was known locally and in the industry as being a generous man,” Kellner says. “He used his companies to support mission trips, local charities and giving many, many employees a second chance and continued enrichment in their lives.”

Along with his wife, Lisa, and his son, Joey, he is survived by his daughter-in-law, Alli; his daughter, Rebecca Kunkle, and her husband, John; three stepchildren—Brittany Honaker and her husband, Jack; Zachary Herman and his wife, Cassandra; and Steven Herman Jr.—granddaughters, Emily Stover and Hannah Stover; stepgrandson, AJ Herman; his sister, Kathy Price, and her husband, Tim; and his half-brother, Bill Stover, and his wife, Carrie.