advertisement | GLR Advanced Recycling
Old-School Business
Changes With The Times
By Suzanne Chessler
Michael Bassirpour
N
inety years ago, when GLR
Advanced Recycling was a
one-man business just start-
ing, it emerged with a focus
that could be considered in many ways
forward-thinking.
The idea of businesses and house-
holds establishing recycling routines —
with bins for weekly pickups — would
be far in the future of Henry Rosen,
whose initial concern was collecting
paper, cardboard and rags to sell for
repurposing into useable products.
Now, with the celebration of a mile-
stone anniversary, GLR Advanced
Recycling fits right in with the times.
Its network of eight locations, employ-
ing 150 workers, still collects and
processes paper, but it has moved on
to plastics, metals and electronics as
factories advanced their products and
people developed environmental sen-
sitivities.
“We’re glad to be expanding sites
around Michigan and will be creating
more jobs,” says Michael Bassirpour,
president and partner in the firm
that merged GLR with his Advanced
Recycling four years ago. “We use
heavy equipment that dismantles,
compresses, consolidates and cleans
materials on their way for contempo-
Ilene Bischer
Sandy Rosen
rary uses and reuses.”
In a world of social media, the firm
also developed The Scrap Post
(thescrappost.com), a website that
allows users to buy and sell scrap,
instantly connect with other members,
get up-to-date scrap prices and news
and search for materials of interest,
in which Peter Karmanos and his pri-
vate equity firm purchased an inter-
est. The internet connection has been
described as the fastest-growing mar-
ketplace for scrap dealers, brokers and
consumers.
“Our company’s growth in the last
few years has been fairly dramatic
given the challenges we’ve faced,”
Bassirpour says.
As a result, we’ve refocused and built
an all-star team that’s helped to inte-
grate technology into what is an oth-
erwise antiquated business. We’ve piv-
oted the model, kept working hard and
tightened up where necessary as we
find better ways to run the business.”
Rosen, a Russian immigrant, had
served in the tsar’s army before fleeing
Russia in 1905. He worked in the news-
paper delivery business in St. Louis
before moving to Detroit in 1927 and
began collecting scrap.
The business grew as men, using
Sandy Rosen
Michael Bassirpour
pushcarts to collect scrap metal in
the alleys around industrial buildings,
sold what they found to Rosen. At 17,
Rosen’s son Ben joined the business by
driving a truck route around the city
to pick up cardboard boxes and rags,
later bailed up and sent to paper mills.
By the 1940s, the company moved
from Detroit to Roseville, and their
growth continued.
Today, the firm recycles more than
100 million pounds of metal, paper
and plastic and more than 40,000 cars
every year. Annual revenues exceed
$75 million. The administrative team,
growing out of a pioneering focus in
the business, reports being part of a
$120 billion industry.
The company’s main office is in
Livonia with metal yards in Roseville,
Ann Arbor, Port Huron and Flint. They
operate a paper, plastic and cardboard
division in Northville and an electronic
recycling facility in Oak Park. Those
who sell to GLR Advanced Recycling
include municipalities, businesses and
individuals.
“Jews couldn’t find much work so
they got in where they could,” explains
Sandy Rosen, Henry’s grandson, now
CEO and partner. “Many collected
scrap because it was easy to get and
easy to sell.”
Sister Ilene Rosen Bischer, also a
partner, and Bassirpour are among the
Jewish business owners who remain an
important part of the industry’s pres-
ent and look forward to future oppor-
tunities.
One way of moving toward the future
has been purchasing scrap cars, which
Bassirpour says helped keep his com-
pany afloat when hundreds of scrap
businesses across the country were
otherwise consolidated or shuttered.
“If you’re not working hard and not
coming up with new angles and new
Michael Bassirpour, Ilene Bischer, Sandy Rosen
ways to work smarter than your com-
petition, the competition will chew you
up and spit you out,” says Bassirpour,
a member of Temple Beth El. “That’s
true no matter what industry you’re in.”
Bassirpour, who earned a business
degree from Michigan State University,
believes the success of the business has
to do with the quality of employees.
He has performed all the jobs in the
yards, and while he is based in Livonia,
he moves among GLR’s locations. He
wants to relate to every employee as
daily tasks are performed.
“We’re building a successful com-
pany because of the people we have,”
he says. “We’re all obsessed with find-
ing better ways to do business, and this
also is an old-school handshake sort of
a business.
“One way we’re keeping ahead of the
competition is that we are willing and
able to outwork, outsmart and outhus-
tle all of our competitors. At the same
time, we’re trying to keep Henry’s val-
ues — our community’s values — tied
into what we do.” Y
GLR Advanced Recycling
12600 Stark Road
Livonia, MI 48150
(734) 266-2700
www.glradvanced.com
jn
July 18 • 2017
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