In Plain Sight

As a third-generation scrap recycling company owner, Randy Van Gundy has both witnessed and heard about the ways scrap companies can maintain a low profile.

For the past several years, Randy has followed up on a conscious decision that the company his family owns—Van Gundy’s AMPCO Inc. in Grand Junction, Colo.—will be a visible part of its neighborhood as well as the regional business community.

The decision has resulted in a Recycling Education Center that accepts school tour groups at the Van Gundy’s facility, an asset that has helped foster familiarity with and appreciation for scrap recycling in the wider community.

“It’s been a great thing,” he says of the center. “We have classes of up to 50 students at a time that come here just to see what we do and how things are done, and what is recyclable.”

Randy says his associate Holly Evans “is just great at putting on this class. She always asks the kids when they first come in who recycles and also does so at the end, and that’s when more hands go up. Actually, most of them want to work here when they’re done,” says Randy.

“We get them geared up with safety glasses [and] hard hats and tour the facility,” says Holly of the tours, which start with a video presentation on aluminum beverage can recycling. “We review the equipment—it’s very exciting for the kids because there are a lot of big machines, and they learn how they help the recycling process and how much volume we recycle out of this area.

“The tours create a lot of positive goodwill that goes home with the kids and the teachers,” she continues. “In 2006, we had 89 students that came through our facility. For 2010 it looks like we’ll have had about 570 kids come through,” she says of the growing popularity of the tour.

Dean Van Gundy, Randy’s father who is 77 years old and who remains president of the company, also is proud of the Recycling Education Center. “One of the biggest satisfactions is the children at the Education Center—to see their faces. That has really been a big asset to the business,” he says.

ON THE MOVE

Operating the Recycling Education Center is just one of several ways that Van Gundy’s finds to interact with the wider Grand Junction community.

Whether helping charitable groups raise funds or helping local law enforcement agencies track down scrap thieves, Randy says the company strives to lift not only its own image but that of the overall scrap recycling industry.

“As a proud member of ISRI, Van Gundy’s has strived to transform the typical image of a mere ‘scrap yard’ into a clean, safe and efficient recycling industry,” Randy says of the company’s philosophy and its involvement with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI).

In 2006, Van Gundy’s AMPCO was essentially forced to move from its long-time home because of a highway project. It was a situation that was contentious at times but that ultimately steered Randy toward the decision to operate more visibly in the community.

“It turned out to be an opportunity,” Randy replies when asked whether the move was more of a challenge or an opportunity. “It took a long time to see it as an opportunity. It was a hassle at first, and we had to work around the other tenants when we first moved in to our current location. But it all turned out for the best.”

Randy says staying open for business during the transition—during a booming scrap market when the company also had an active demolition unit running—was one of the challenges.

Once the move was made, though, locating to a plot of land where operations and traffic flow could be designed from scratch worked in the company’s favor. “We have about 5.3 acres currently,” says Randy. “We’re smaller than what we were, but definitely more efficient. We were able to really organize the facility, something we didn’t necessarily have at the other site. It had been around since 1929. We had certain areas that were set up that didn’t make much sense—it’s just where they always were. By stepping back and looking at that, I knew what changes I had to make.”

Aspects that Van Gundy’s AMPCO could bring with it after the move included the industry experience of Randy and his father, Dean.

Dean is the second-generation link in a family business that was created in 1929 by Earl Van Gundy, Dean’s father. “He worked seven days a week,” Dean says of his father, “and he would work until he was just totally exhausted. Mother and Dad both sacrificed quite readily through the years to have the business survive. Dad kept buying real estate, and it turned out to be quite beneficial.”

The property purchases made by the Van Gundy family were strategically sound, but they often put the family business in the way of plans being made by civic officials in Grand Junction.

Dean recalls a time in the 1970s when city plans for a new road included a dispute over property lines and rights-of way. “We always had problems with the city taking of property,” says Dean. “They want to build roads and so on. About 1974, they were building a road, and the contractors said to get the scrap out of the road—but they didn’t own the road,” recalls Dean. “So when they told me to get it out of there, I got my dad’s steamroller and put it in the middle of the road and put up ‘road closed’ signs.” Dean recalls that the standoff lasted for several days, “but we finally got paid for that land.”

The project that caused Van Gundy’s AMPCO to relocate also produced tense situations between the company and the city. The Van Gundy family has been protective of the land not only because it houses the family business but also the residence that was Dean’s home from the late 1920s until nearly 2006.

“The city was putting in a parkway that went around the outskirts of the city and that went right through our property,” Dean says of the project that eventually caused the company to move to adjacent parcels of land. “We were under threat of eminent domain and, in order to move, we had to curtail the purchasing of scrap in the area. The people had nowhere to take their scrap. They were asked to just take it to City Hall. That really caused an uproar there,” recalls Dean. “It created a major problem for the city.”

Dean says the city at one point reneged on a promise to rezone the company’s new property. “It was a standoff with the city council. They had a meeting at City Hall to notify the public, and we had tremendous support there,” recalls Dean. “It was standing room only, and the meeting lasted until 2:30 in the morning.”

Dean says supporters included customers such as machine shop owners and scrap peddlers plus business owners who shared the Van Gundy family’s concern for property rights. “It was just a real show of public support for the business,” says Dean, who notes that one council member eventually changed his mind in favor of re-zoning the land so Van Gundy’s AMPCO could continue to operate.

SEVERAL HARVESTS

In addition to scrap recycling, the Van Gundy family business has been involved in several other activities in Grand Junction, including auto salvage, metal plating and demolition work.

Currently, Van Gundy’s has 25 employees, with company activities largely focused on the recycling of ferrous and nonferrous metals.

Being located in Grand Junction brings with it unique regional scrap procurement opportunities along with access to more standard scrap flows.

Grand Junction, located in the Western Slope region about 50 miles from Colorado’s border with Utah, is situated near several active oil exploration and drilling sites.

“Our materials are purchased from (local and surrounding) residents, government bodies and from commercial/oil field entities, such as Halliburton, Encana, Williams Production and Chevron,” says Randy of the Van Gundy’s AMPCO customer base.

“When the [oil field companies] are going great guns, we get a lot of scrap in this area,” adds Randy. “That’s where a lot of our roll-off containers go—up in the oil patch. They are large generators in our area.”

The economic turmoil of late 2008 and 2009 did not spare this sector, notes Randy. “They had a massive slowdown, but it’s starting to pick back up,” he says. “I didn’t have any roll-offs up there in late 2008; now, most of my 70 containers are back out there—maybe only four are stored here.”

Providing service to oil companies is one of the reasons Van Gundy’s AMPCO also takes part in demolition work at times. “The business took a major leap forward after [we] took on a string of large demolition jobs across the country, including for Occidental Oil Co., Fleet Service, Atlantic Richfield Oil Co. (ARCO), Union Oil of California (UNOCAL) and Solvay Chemicals,” says Randy.

The project for Solvay Chemicals involved the dismantling of a 50,000-square-foot soda ash plant in 2006. “The demolition took about eight months and contained more than 2.5 million pounds of recyclable scrap metal,” notes Randy.

That project took place at the same time Van Gundy’s relocated to make room for the Riverside Parkway in Grand Junction. The combination of additional material at the same time the company was trying to move made for a hectic year, Randy recalls.

Demolition work has been scarce the past three years, notes Randy. A steadier source of material during that time frame has been harvesting scrap from a number of landfills that Van Gundy AMPCO serves on a regular basis.

Randy says the landfills are often serviced once each year, but that the annual visits supply a worthwhile harvest of scrap. “They get a lot of appliances,” he notes. “There are a lot of rural counties and solid waste districts within about 150 miles of here where the landfills collect the appliances.”

Van Gundy’s AMPCO makes an arrangement that works best for the landfill operator to arrive once per year (or more often) with a portable baler to compress and haul away the white goods.

Collecting appliances, car bodies and the full variety of obsolete scrap available in the Western Slope of Colorado has Van Gundy’s AMPCO considering the addition of a metals shredder as the potential next step in the company’s evolving business model.

SOLID FOOTING

As Van Gundy’s AMPCO and its scrap-generating customers have rebounded from the recessionary conditions of 2008 and 2009, Randy says the company’s volume has picked back up and its plans for the future have regained attention.

The company’s recent investments have included an 85-kilowatt solar energy system and a customized software system purchased from PIC Business Systems of San Antonio.

Dean says the look and feel of the business since the move and under Randy’s guidance is noticeable. “It’s quite a transition from what it was; Randy has done a wonderful job of transforming everything,” he states. “Right from the beginning, laying out the whole facility as to where everything went, he really put some thought into it. It looks great and it really is a showcase operation.”

It’s possible that a larger investment yet may take shape in the form of a metals shredding plant for processing auto hulks, appliances and other scrap into shredded grades. “We are looking into that, and I’ll be traveling to another part of the country in January to look at a plant that has recently been set up,” says Randy.

Randy says Van Gundy’s AMPCO was processing about 3,000 tons per month of scrap when the market peaked in 2008, and it has ramped back up to 2,500 tons per month as of late 2010.

“We’re always looking for ways to get more scrap,” says Randy, and adding a shredder to the company’s processing capabilities offers a way to do that.

“We have a car crusher on site to crush the car bodies we receive here. By having a shredder, I can send that car crusher out and bring in more feedstock,” says Randy. “Maybe it’s a roll of the dice, but we’d definitely make a safe decision.”

Randy is 51 years old and he has one son who is three. It’s too early to tell whether he’ll choose to be the next Van Gundy to lead the company, but Randy says, “I’d love to have him in the business—we’ll just have to see.”

In the meantime, Randy and his associates at Van Gundy’s AMPCO are building the company with every intention of maintaining a strong regional presence in Colorado’s Western Slope territory.

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