In Memoriam: Jack Wright

Jack Wright, the founder of Wright’s Scrap Metals Inc., Beaumont, Texas, has died at the age of 89. He founded the company that bears his name in 1968.

According to a tribute prepared by other Wright family members and posted to the website of Beaumont-based funeral services provider Broussard’s, after founding Wright’s Scrap Metals, Jack Wright “never looked back” and “grew his business from a two-person operation to over 35 full-time associates.”

Demonstrating a family business mindset, the tribute says in part, “Jack took great pride in building his business and in the fact that, over 50-plus years, he got to work alongside his wife, two of their children, grandchildren, daughter-in-law, sons-in-law, his brother and nephews.”

The writeup portrays Wright as honest, trustworthy and dependable, and, referring to a verse from the Book of Matthew in the Bible, adds, “Jack operated the business with the same mindset as he did everything else in his life: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”

His interests extended beyond business operations, with his family indicating Wright “also enjoyed volunteering” with the Young Men’s Business League (YMBL) of Beaumont, and in 1977 served as board chair of the Southeast Texas Fair, held in Beaumont.

“Jack was a huge supporter of the YMBL Rodeo and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo,” according to the Broussard’s writeup. “In 1982, he began serving on the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo’s Jefferson County Go Texan Committee, [where he] found lifelong friends who became family through both of these organizations.”

The company founded by Wright, also known as Wright’s Scrap & Recycling, is now led by his son Mel Wright, who was honored earlier this year with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Washington-based Recycled Materials Association (ReMA), formerly known as the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI).

Wright’s survivors include his wife, Shirley; children Mel Wright, Erin Madigan and Whitney Black; six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Contributions can be made in Jack Wright’s memory to Calvary Baptist Church of Beaumont or to the Alzheimer’s Association chapter based in Beaumont.