Sierra--A Reputation for Honesty

Mike Lewis

While many modern families fail at honest and open commu-
nication, the family at Lewis Salvage Co. has made honesty its mission. Lewis Salvage, a family-owned business headquartered in Warsaw, Ind., has successfully fulfilled its mission for directness, which extends to communications with its customers and its employees.

For more than half a century and through the work of three generations of the Lewis family, Lewis Salvage has earned success through close ties with its customers and the surrounding community and a commitment to honest and fair business practices.

Lewis Salvage’s growing success is proof that an honest businessperson is a rare and refreshing asset in today’s market.

The Lewis family has built Lewis Salvage from the ground up. Three generations of the family have operated scrap yards in Northern Indiana and have focused their efforts on developing lasting relationships with the people they serve. And it all began with Abe Magazine.

When a railroad company approached Abe in the late 1930s or early 1940s, asking him for the use of his land next to the railroad tracks as a coal depot for the community of Warsaw, he began selling coal to the town’s residents. Soon afterward, he started Abe Magazine Junk Yards when the railroad asked him to collect scrap metal and rags from his neighbors for shipment on the train to Chicago.

The scrap business soon became the family business, when in the early 1950s, Elmer Lewis, Abe’s son-in-law, began collecting scrap at Lewis Salvage in nearby Akron, Ind., eventually turning the company over to his son and Abe’s grandson Mike Lewis in 1983.

In the early 1980s, nearly 30 years after its start, Lewis Salvage expanded, and Mike moved the business to the downtown Warsaw yard of Abe Magazine Junk Yards.

When he took over, the downtown scrap yard was beginning to overtake more than one-and-a-half city blocks. With the assistance of Warsaw’s mayor, Mike relocated Lewis Salvage to a plot of land on the west side of town, where it has served the town of Warsaw and the surrounding agricultural community since 1985.

Mike continues to head the family business and encourages its potential for further growth.

Lewis Salvage, which now employs 18 people, has come a long way since Abe’s days of collecting scrap and rags. Mike acknowledges that the scrap industry has remained essentially unchanged. "You buy for a certain price and sell it for a certain price. It’s all a supply, demand, cost-derivative-type business. The only changes may be in the equipment and the way the material is shipped," he says.

Although general business practices have remained the same for Lewis Salvage and countless other scrap yards, the amount of materials collected and processed have grown dramatically.

The company is flourishing, processing approximately 30,000 tons of ferrous materials and 1,500 to 2,000 tons of nonferrous materials per year. To process this much scrap, Lewis Salvage needs reliable equipment, and that includes two 500-ton Sierra Idromec shear/balers, five material handlers and a nonferrous two-ram baler. By investing in equipment with up-to-the-moment technical advancements, the company is able to efficiently produce a product of which it can be proud.

The company’s container accounts are a large part of its business. Lewis Salvage processes an annual total of approximately 10,000 tons of material gathered from more than 400 containers placed throughout Northern Indiana. Additionally, the company serves the commercial and industrial markets with a fleet of eight roll-off trucks and tractor trailers, which gather 15,000 tons of material annually, including the material collected through the placement of Lewis Salvage’s containers. The company also services farm and retail dealers.

When Abe founded his business more than 50 years ago, the need for scrap collection and processing was beginning to grow. The need for scrap metals has increased throughout the years and still fuels Lewis Salvage today. The company has expanded to remain competitive within the scrap industry.

Since relocating to Warsaw’s west side in 1985, Lewis Salvage has outgrown its yard, leading the company to expand its operations through the acquisition of more land. In 1997, Lewis Salvage added five acres of land in Warsaw on which it constructed a facility to house offices and nonferrous processing activities. Most recently, Lewis Salvage acquired another five acres of land in Warsaw in 2004 for additional nonferrous processing operations and container/truck parking.

A LASTING PRESENCE

"I think if someone comes to town looking for Lewis Salvage, most anyone could point them to the yard," Mike says. He attributes that recognition to fair business practices and a lasting presence in Northern Indiana. In turn, being well known in the local communities, along with putting out a good product, has led to Lewis Salvage’s growth.