Sierra--True Entrepreneurs

Mark Goldman and Herb Wax

Mark Goldman and Herb Wax of Scrap-All Inc. embody the  entrepreneurial spirit. As college students, the duo would spend their summers collecting scrap metal to earn money for the next semester.

At the end of the summer, the pair would sell their truck "because none of the girls we dated wanted to go out in it," Mark jokes. Together, Mark and Herb would buy a car to use during the school year, which they would then trade in for another truck come summer.

After college, the two went to work for large national scrap companies. After five years of working in corporate environments that stifled their tendencies toward innovation, Mark and Herb left their corporate jobs to open their own yard in Tampa in October of 1973.

Today, Herb and Mark own two yards in Florida and employ 85 people.

"We were both very entrepreneurial in spirit, and working within the confines of large companies gave us a good education, enough of an education to understand that we didn’t want to do this much longer," Mark says.

It was this entrepreneurial spirit that helped Mark and Herb identify the need in the Tampa area for a containerized scrap metal service, a trend that was beginning to take hold nationwide in the early 1970s.

"No one in Florida was really doing much of it," Mark says. "We really jumped in to fill that void in the area."

Today, Scrap-All processes all types of ferrous and nonferrous metals. Mark and Herb’s experience collecting metals in college made these materials a natural choice for the new company, Mark says.

With Scrap-All celebrating its 32nd anniversary in 2005, Herb and Mark obviously know how to play to their strengths. But it wasn’t always easy.

Their first hurdle was to overcome the somewhat sordid reputation of the scrap metal industry in Florida.

"We entered an industry that historically did not have a wonderful reputation in Florida," Mark says. "We had to build trust and establish relationships before we could hope to grow."

Mark and Herb went about establishing trust quite simply by honoring their promises. Customers were more concerned with actually being paid than with getting the highest value for their metals, Mark says. Scrap-All inched ahead of other processors in the area by picking up materials and paying customers in a timely manner.

"We immediately got a good response and were able to use our existing customer base to vouch for us and gain new customers," Mark says.

Scrap-All had more than the reputation of the scrap industry to overcome in those early years. The energy crisis was also in full swing, which meant waiting in mile-long lines for gas to keep trucks on the road.

Mark recalls waking up at 3 a.m. to fill up a truck to make a day’s worth of pickups. Because of the gasoline restrictions, Scrap-All was also limited in the number of accounts it could service.

"Customers were very understanding because everybody was in the same boat," Mark says.

While Scrap-All’s customers understood their predicament, Mark and Herb encountered resistance at home during Scrap-All’s first year.

Mark and Herb financed their new company out of their own pockets, which meant not taking salaries during Scrap-All’s first 10 to 12 months. Instead, they reinvested their income in the business.

Mark says he and Herb sacrificed personal gain, as well most of their time and energy, during that first year, often to the frustration of their families, making their achievement that much sweeter.

In 1984, the company expanded, opening a second full-service yard in Sarasota. Again, Mark and Herb financed the new yard out of their own pockets.

The decision to open the Sarasota yard grew out of the number of customers Scrap-All serviced in the area. The Tampa yard had been servicing these accounts, but was constantly sending trucks on the 100-mile roundtrip.

"We started small and built up over a period of time with no external financing," he says of the Sarasota yard.

Mark and Herb’s belief in the importance of reinvesting in their business extends to their staff.

"We feel that our employees are our greatest asset," Mark says. "Without good employees, we wouldn’t be able to service customers as they expect to be serviced."

Finding good employees is an ongoing challenge. However, it’s one that Scrap-All appears to be winning, as many employees have been with the company for 15 years or more.

"After a while you get a feel for people and how they handle themselves and if they are going to be lasting employees," Mark says.

To keep these employees, Mark says Scrap-All offers "the highest level of employee benefits and wages in the industry."

Looking back, Mark says it’s been a difficult road, but not without its rewards. "When market conditions like today’s come about, it tends to make the whole trip worthwhile," he says.

While Mark and Herb have shown the integrity, perseverance and diligence it takes to succeed in the scrap industry, they hope one day to exit the business, leaving it in the capable hands of their sons, who also became familiar with the industry at a young age.

Both men are in managerial roles with Scrap-All now. "They realize they are in the best place they can possibly be," he says.