Welcome to this special metals and advanced manufacturing podcast edition.
I'm your host Jennifer Betts and today we're diving into a fascinating chapter of recycling
history that changed the game for the metals industry. Imagine a time when recycling
an automobile meant hours of grueling labor-intensive work with torches and shears.
Enter, the Prolerizer, a revolutionary invention that transformed how we recycle large-scale materials,
like cars, making it faster and more efficient and paving the way for modern recycling processes.
Recently, this groundbreaking piece of industrial history earned its place in the Smithsonian's
National Museum of American History. And today, we'll explore why that's such a big deal.
Joining me are two incredible leaders in the recycling industry. First, Robin Wiener,
president of the Recycled Materials Association, has spent over 30 years championing the economic
and environmental benefits of recycling while driving innovation and sustainability.
We're also honored to welcome Becky Proler, president of SCR recycling in a proud member
of the Proler family, whose groundbreaking invention reshaved recycling as we know it.
Becky has dedicated her career to improving processes and implementing cutting-edge technology
in the industry. Together, we'll discuss the legacy of the prolerizer, its impact on the industry,
and how innovations like this continue to inspire the future of recycling and manufacturing.
Let's dive in. Welcome to Metals and Advanced Manufacturing, the podcast for Innovation
meets Industry. I'm Jennifer Betts, an entrepreneur in the metals industry.
With two decades of experience, from leading roles at Fortune 500 companies to building my own
businesses, I bring you conversations with the brightest minds shaping the future of metals,
technology and sustainability. From breakthrough materials to decarbonization strategies
and cutting-edge manufacturing, we'll cover how industry leaders are building
a more efficient, responsible supply chain. Let's get started.
Now that we've set the stage for today's conversation, let me introduce our two guests,
two trailblazers and recycling industry who bring unique perspectives and decades of experience
to the table. Becky Proler is co-founder and CEO of Southern Core Recycling, a family-owned
scrap recycling facility in Houston. Becky grew up in the industry, working in all facets of the
business. She works closely with her partners and management team to improve processes,
purchase new equipment to use cutting-edge technology, leading SCR into the future.
Becky enjoys serving on the Rima Golf Coast chapter board. She holds a master's degree from
Temple University. Robin Weiner is the president of the Recycled Materials Association, Rima,
representing nearly 1700 companies in the Recycled Materials industry. With over 30 years of experience,
she leads efforts to promote the economic, environmental and social benefits of recycling.
Robin oversees strategic initiatives, compliance and innovation while serving on advisory boards
to advance the industry. She is a recognized leader and advocate for sustainability in the critical
role of recycling in the U.S. economy and global trade. So please welcome these two incredible
leaders to the Metals and Advanced Manufacturing podcast. Huge thank you to you both for joining today.
Thank you, Jennifer. We're inviting you. Because I understand that we have some travel coming up.
Robin, spoiler alert for those that are listening to this, you will be traveling to India tomorrow
for those that are listening and when this will be recorded. It's challenging obviously to
get two of you in the same room at the same time with your careers, your travel, all of the work
that you currently do in the industry. So just huge thank you for showing up today and wanting to discuss
the history of what we're celebrating. We're excited to do it. It's such an important development
and I'm grateful to be here alongside Becky as well who is a phenomenal leader for the industry
and has done so much to transform the industry to where we are today. I think that goes both
ways. Robin, you've done a lot to transform our industry and Jennifer, I really want to thank you
and congratulate you on your podcast and on this new road that you're taking. It's very informative
and it really is very good for our freight association as well as for recyclers. The content that you
give is very good and I really appreciate your work in that area. Well, I appreciate it because
I've known you both for several years and the knowledge that you have and this goes for
for many of the ReMA members that that exists out there. I want it to be known for future generations
what's possible out there. So it's a really great segue to one of the first questions that I wanted
to ask you both. The Prolerizer was revolutionary for its time. So for those that are unfamiliar with it,
could you paint a picture of what recycling looked like before this invention? Like what challenges
did the recyclers face at that time? I was born. So I was Robin after the first prolerizer but not
much. They started building it in 1957 and that's when it was tried and then 1961 was the second
shredder that is actually the one that is the Smithsonian has agreed to take some of the parts from.
So and it was just decommissioned this last year. It made it 62 years, I believe.
And that's a hell of an ROI for any kind of piece of equipment. And so, you know, I think
before the prolerizer material was going through blast furnaces and EAFs came into being in the
50s and an EAF furnace was much cleaner and it needed more material and metals that didn't have
non-metallic in it. So, Arnco steel in Houston reached out to my family. They were supplying
Armco with various types of metals. And I think it was a problem that they were having and
my uncles and my father helped come up with solution which is really how a lot of things get done
if you think about it. That's more or less before scrap was very hard to keep clean. Imagine a car.
How would you take the seats out? How would you get all the non-metallic out? How would you get the
non-ferrous out? It's very, very difficult, right? So the idea was to size it with hammers
and a motor that was big enough and grades because there were shredders prior to the Prolerizer
but they didn't have all of those items that you needed in order to take a complete car
and put it into a machine and you come out with this size pieces. You could maybe tear pieces apart
and put it through but never could you take a complete car in within 30 seconds,
transform it into a metal that could be used in an E.A.F. furnace.
And it is amazing to hear Becky tell the story. I've known pieces of this but it is such a great example
of how innovative and entrepreneurial the industry is because the solutions often, most often,
don't come from outside the industry. They come from within the industry from the recyclers who
may not have engineering degrees. Nowadays, many do, but may not have an engineering degree or
a PhD in chemistry but based on their real world knowledge of the challenges with processing
the material, the needs of our consumers and manufacturers, they're able to come up with those
solutions that really do make for an improved product, a safer product, a more environmentally
friendly product and one that manufacturers need them or liapom. I think it's a defacitating story.
A lot of individuals in this industry probably think that kind of collaboration doesn't
necessarily happen between the consumer and the supplier. So to hear that type of story where
the consumer went to a supplier and said, "Help us on this." And just a quick little asterix for
any of the particular listeners that are listening that may not be familiar with an EAF is electric
arc furnace. It's essentially a giant furnace that takes recycled material like metals and essentially
re-melts them into the new metal that's out there.
Earlier in the meeting, you mentioned the electric arc furnaces. Electric arc furnaces, the steel,
the they produce, represents 70% of US production, the manufacturing industries in the US rely
significantly on EAFs steel. Although they're still basic oxygen furnaces being utilized and they
use about 20% recycled ferrous, the vast majority of steel in the US is made through electric arc
furnaces and they use the various metal that comes out of shredders. The 300 shredders around the
country that now exist. And so we would not be able to have the level of production that we do in the US
and the steel, the success of the steel making in the US without what evolved from the Prolerizer
60, the many years ago. We're incredibly grateful for this innovation. It really did transform not
just the recycled materials industry, but the manufacturing economy.
Absolutely. I think about that percentage, that ratio that you referenced there. And I think about
one of the largest steel manufacturers that we have today in this country and they didn't start
using the EAFs until after. Obviously the Prolerizer that shredding technology existed probably
at least based on when the prolerizer came around 15, 20 years afterwards because they needed that
steady supply of raw material to feed those furnaces. The United States wouldn't fee where it's at
using those types of raw materials without this type of invention.
Correct. Yeah. And just wrote quickly a spoiler alert for you. We're in the process of showcasing a
video that's going to be made that really does talk about that history where we'd been and where
it's going. It's going to have some really neat pictures on my family. I didn't even realize this.
And that's what's so great about kind of going on this journey is I've learned a lot about my family
as a result. And in the 70s, they had a commercial made. So you're going to get clips on that video
that we're going to show at the Smithsonian. There's going to be clips of that commercial that was made.
It's going to be something to watch. It's going to end up being a project for Robin.
Rema is going to end up with the actual video at the end. And I didn't want to stress this
without the networking that at the time ISIS or ISRI was involved in, you wouldn't see half of
these companies that are out there. They met each other. You go new met my uncle at an ISIS or
ISRI show in in California. Believe it was in either San Francisco or Oakland. And that's how they
met and formed a partnership that was at one point the largest in the world of scrap recycling.
They were the first. Hugo Neu Proler was the first to ship whole scrap cargo ships to Japan.
for scrap. So having a trade association is absolutely essential, I think, to this sharing of ideas
and problem solving solutions. It didn't pay that case. Yes, not sponsored by ReMA. The Proler
family owes a lot to trade associations because it really did help us meet people and reach out.
And I have learned so much about my family, about my uncles and about my grandfather.
By just searching and doing the research I had to do for the Smithsonian.
Perfectly tees me up for the next series of questions that I have. It's about the Proler family legacy.
I mean, if you go to Texas and you're in the metals recycling industry, it's not uncommon to run into
a proler, right? Or somebody married to a Proler.
Yes. Right? Exactly. But I mean, your family has played a significant role in
the metals recycling world, especially with the development of the prolerizers. What lessons or
values from your family's work still resonate with you today?
So and I'm glad you asked that question because it's really very interesting. I encourage everybody
out there if you don't know much if you're in a family business like I was.
And you grew up in that. Learn more about how it got started because there are things that I do
and have done. And I didn't really realize, I mean, I grew up in a scrapyard, my father started
taking me there when I was six years old. And I actually worked out in the yard. I know that's
illegal now, but they probably I didn't want to go into the office and play with the I wanted to be
out with the materials. Two things kind of resonated for me as I was doing research for this one. We have
always we get a new machine. We give it a name like a baler. We name it our shredder. We name it
because it's much easier for our employees to go to something that there's a name up and they
feel that pride. Then to say, okay, you go to the shredder, you go to the baler, it's not the same thing.
So what I found out when I was reading my uncle's book is that they used to name all of their
equipment too. And I didn't know that. In fact, there's a picture of my grandfather and one of my
uncles and a woman who is clearly an actress who's not a proler. She's blonde and they got her to sit
on a bale and it was the first thousand-ton baler that they got from Ford and they called the bale
like Ben Bale named after my grandfather. So that was one thing that I thought was really interesting.
The second thing was whenever we would pour a new slab for like our shredder or we had a huge
crusher, I would always put a potato sack in before they covered it up with concrete in the
rebar. My grandfather, when he came here from Eastern Europe, and you've heard the story, Robin,
in a million times, people collected bones, they collected facts and then he would bring these
potato sacks home to my grandmother and she would redo them so that he could turn around and sell
them the next day or whatever. So in honor of my grandfather, I would do that. When I'm talking to one
of my cousins and she was telling me the story that when my uncles would pour a slab for something
at the shop, I'm sure for the first shredder, they would take money out of their pockets and throw it
into the ground while they were pouring the concrete. They wanted all the employees to know that
they were all in and I didn't know that but it was, again, it was kind of weird how I ended up
doing these things that I thought I had thought of, to honor my family but they had been doing it too.
Now the difference that I heard when they would throw money into the slab as they're pouring the
concrete, they'd turn around and walk out. The employees would grab the money out of the slab.
And that's why the employees were always there when they were pouring concrete. But I do think that
those two things were really very special to me and I really want to encourage people to go on that
journey because you're going to learn some things that maybe you've always done it but there's a reason
why possibly. I have so many questions about it's almost like there needs to be a Proler treasure map
for all of their properties now. Oh, the slabs that they've put in over the years. I'm sure that
there are some. Yeah, you know, the shredder maps that you see now throughout our industry. There
needs to be the proler all in maps. Robin, you've seen the technology come along from the Prolerizer
and then what other companies have built upon the automobile shredder and what the Prolerizer did.
Can you share some of the advancements that you've seen from that? What has been built off of it?
Sure. The shredder of today is so different than the original prolerizer and certainly I started
it in ISRI then in 1989 and went out and visited some shredders and it's much different than it
was back in 1989. I mean, just think about all of the post shredding equipment that is now attached to
a shredder. We're referring to just the hammer mill. It's the whole process in many ways. It's the
eddy current. It's their separation technology that's added. It's all of the different technology
that is added on in order to further separate the material and increase the yields and not just
recover the ferrous but recover the aluminum, the copper, the zinc and you know, there's research
being done about the plastics and how to recycle the plastics. So there is there is so much more being
done now to refile and when I say now I mean over the years there's been significant progress
to increase more out of the car and the other material that goes in as well as have higher
priorities and increased yields. It's really fascinating to even see in my career what's been
improved upon even in I'd say even in the past two years the AI that's been starting to get
into the downstream systems for these shredders has been fascinating to see that get added on to
and refine to the point where you can find jewelry or coins or you can down to the wire literally
in some of these systems and you just go back to the fact that we wouldn't have been able to do
any of that if it hadn't been for going back to the puller. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's all still
based on that foundation. Literally the all-in foundation is what I'm going to
Yes, very good. There were challenges from the prolerizer era that probably do still persist
in modern recycling. How do you see us addressing some of them? You know, there's still probably some,
I'll call them external perceptions that are still existing that we're obviously trying to address
still today. Where do we go from here to help address some of those similar challenges? Certainly
one of the challenges that is existing is true not just for shredding but for other processing
that's done by the industry is the fact that what we take in as our input material is designed by
someone else and that design changes continuously and the composition of even the car has
continues to change over time and so part of what we need to do and it's one of our priorities at ReMA
is to have that partnership and collaboration with auto makers, appliance manufacturers, etc.
So we're aware of what's in that car that is going to be shredded so that we can make sure either
removing any potentially problem materials or we have the system set up in the downstream
in order to effectively process that material. You know, as we move more towards electric vehicles,
we're going to see a dramatic shift again. So look at the batteries that are in the car currently
and then what's going to happen with the electric vehicle battery and so that's you know we're working
closely with battery manufacturers, electronics recyclers, the shredders, car makers to figure out
how best we modify processes in order to continue to evolve with the evolution of the car
and as well as to make sure that we're recovering as much material as possible.
That's just one of the challenges. There are other challenges I can talk to as well but that's
probably one of the biggest ones. I agree that's the biggest one, probably the one that's the most
challenging to solve as well, just from an economic standpoint, it's difficult to get in front of those
manufacturers and justify to them why you need to do this. I had another challenge and one that we've
been working on with our members and with our regions and chapters over the last few years and
continue the program continues to evolve is working with the communities that surround our facilities.
The communities we're a part of to make sure they understand what is happening within our facilities
the value, the economic and environmental, then it's it of the operations to the local communities
and so that's a big partnership and an ever evolving process for us is we continue to raise awareness
about the importance of the recycl materials industry and what we bring to local communities,
local economies, state economies, federal and even international. Becky, I'm sure your family's
history has played at least some part in your current career and passion for what you're currently
doing at Southern Core at SCR recycling. I'm curious to know how the technological advancements
that you're currently using has maybe some sort of roots or passion from the Prolerizer
from the familiar ties back in the day. I think it's natural for people to want and try to solve a
problem. You don't have to be a proler to do that. You just have to solve a problem and there's
plenty of them out there, right? So I guess I'd never was afraid to try to do that. You know, I
I'm never really, you know, my family and has always sort of instilled with us. Don't walk away
from something just because it's hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it. We're developing some
technology right now and working and collaborating with not just the OEMs but with the manufacturer
of the equipment and it's frustrating and I can see why Sammy Proler decided to go the route
and my uncles and my father in divining at themselves because too many times they knocked on the door
and we're told you can't do that can't be done. You can't have a motor that's big enough that
will shred a car in 30 seconds. They went to lend them and they went to American Pulverizer
and knocked on the door and said, you know, help us here. We're in the we're in the scrap metal
business. We need help. We need to understand we've got a problem. Help us solve it. So, you know,
I think that's where my background has has come from is there were plenty of failures
and there will be plenty more failures but the success that you have is so worth the hundreds of
failures that you get and so that's what I'm trying to do is encourage people to try and, you know,
I'm hoping that showing off this this part of the recycling era is important to not only our past
but will, you know, be inspirational to the future. That right there is a big reason why
the Smithsonian event and the exhibit is such a big deal because our industry feels like it doesn't
get enough awareness or credit for how long it's been around especially when it comes to some of
those buzzwords like sustainability and green and yet when you start showcasing some of the
history of it and you realize that these types of innovations and these collaborations and a lot
of what you just talked about working together on future advancements between manufacturers,
equipment, companies and then what you're trying to ultimately achieve which is basically zero
waste trying to essentially make sure that everything that has value can be reused is finally
going to be seen at a mass level where the full public can see it open on a day-to-day basis
unless it's a holiday and they're closed. It really is starting to feel like our industry is seeing
the daylight from the everyday person to recognize like what we do versus even 10, 20 years ago.
It felt like people didn't really understand what we did five years ago. One of the reasons why
all of us at ReMA so incredibly excited about what's happening now with the Prolerizer and with
Becky's initiative reaching out to the Smithsonian about creating this collection is because of what
you just said it's an opportunity to broaden the exposure of the general public to all the different
aspects of our industry, all the environmental benefits, the economic benefits, the title benefits
and what's really interesting and most people may not realize this and to be honest I didn't really
understand it until we started working on this project. The Smithsonian is an incredible network
and it has an incredible, a huge number of collections of materials and the vast majority of it
is not on display. What it is this it's a research, it's a source of information, valuable data,
valuable information related to so many things that researchers can access so there is going to be
now a mental recycling collection that can be accessible by academics by the general public by
researchers around the world that will be based in the Smithsonian and will grow over time and there will
be certainly objects from the collection such as pieces of the prolerizer that will be on display
at various times but the focus really isn't on that display item although the display item is
phenomenal is in that the latest figure I saw is that over 17 million people visit the Smithsonian
each and every year so that is a huge exposure for all of us about the industry. Not all of them
are walking into American history museum but a good percentage are and so it's an opportunity to
share the story about recycling and mental recycling in particular with that audience but
multiples of that are accessing the Smithsonian's collections for research and we're going to be
we've done to a number of stories that the Smithsonian is focused on stories about immigration into the US
and the history of immigrants and developing businesses within the US and forming a foundation
of our economy. There's a storyline around technological innovation that will be tied to a storyline
related to sustainability and manufacturing that will be tied to for any research in that area
history of family businesses there's so much that we're going to be tied into that will enable
people to become aware of the greatness of this industry and I'm just really excited about that.
And I don't think Robin and I really knew. Sometimes you do things and you don't really realize
what you've done until after you've turned around and looked and that's exactly what happened here.
I was at a concert. I had gone to Kansas City. I had not been to the shredder in Kansas
City since pre-COVID and a real good friend of mine John Rakos passed away during COVID and I
wanted to go pay my respects and I went over to the shredder and at the time the shredder was 59,
60 years old and it was one of their best shredders still in the fleet. It was doing over 30,000
tons a month and more efficient than any of their brand new shredders and John used to call me John
Rakos used to call me and tell me how much it had done every month and how proud he was of that
particular shredder. That night we went to an Indigo Girls concert. They were cheering back. It was 2020.
I was 59 getting ready to turn 60. Yes Robin. We did make that. We didn't do that. The next morning
I thought to myself because I had been told that they were going to take the Prolerizer down. That was
the last one and I thought maybe they wanted to sell it to me and no that's not what they wanted to do.
They just wanted to tell me they were taking it down. So I woke up the next morning after hearing the
Indigo Girls and you know I grew up with them and I thought to myself this needs to be in the
Smithsonian and Monday morning I called Robin remember that and I said what I said that you wanted
to donate the shredder to the Smithsonian. I think the idea could we do it and you said I'd probably
that I didn't think it was possible but we would certainly look into it. Wow you said why not? That is what you
write a short or well then I was better than I thought of with. Yes you said why not and there's
a lot of times we do things in our lives. Why not? So this is for the why not moment and I will tell you
that the curator that kind of has blocked us through this told us she gets is it a thousand
asks a week and she rejects 99% of them. I don't know about y'all but I've never really been in the
1% group for much. What's amazing is when we started working with her and he was Kathleen how
the energy and the excitement she has for what she's discovered about our industry.
You know we're in it every day and don't realize how fast I mean it's in my blood I do realize it
now and I wouldn't be so long if I didn't love it completely but in our tire for our time to be so
passionate about it after only talking with us a few times and learning about it was just so exciting
to see and she helped drive this because they only make an announcement once a year with collections
that they're going to start and I think it's what like 20 or 30 and of all the thousands that they
get in and it was pretty amazing and I get Becky so much credit because the passion she's brought to
this and the persistence and it's been phenomenal. Well I wanted to try and do this as quickly as
possible my mother is 91 years young and you know she is the last of her generation so I wanted to
try and get this done quickly and what I've realized is nothing in Washington has done very quickly
but now the passion that that Robin and I had and the the curators that worked with us were some amazing
people they literally are the guardians of our history they really are and we have met some
just truly fine people it's been an experience that I don't want to do it again but
they walked all over the shredder in Kansas City I mean yeah that's part of the deal is they actually
go they see feel touch and hear everything and then they really we used them yeah and walked all over
our shredder that's that's how you get them excited and but you have to do a lot of things
to get them on a plane to come see you Robert Ryan met with them the summer before and I mean it's
a big process but I think both were very humbled and it is a long process but it's certainly worth it
I mean it again it's cool like the little driven means and things that's really cool but the other
thing is that it is also triggered other opportunities when we were walking around we're going to host
a celebration of the industry actually next month at the Smithsonian connected to the unveiling of
a collection and right near where we're going to have the reception is something called spark lab
and it's basically for youth to get interested in basically innovation STEM education etc but
related to the mission of the American History Museum and one of things we've talked to about is
the Spark Lab will be open when we have the reception but they're going to develop they're looking
at developing activities for kids around recycling maybe designed for recycling and so we've had a
longstanding partnership with Jason Learning on the k-12 curriculum that we have as well as other work
we're doing with them are annual video a poster contest and so we're connecting Jason learning a
nonprofit on STEM education that's been a mission recycling now for like 12 years with the Smithsonian
that will hopefully blossom into even more activities that will raise awareness about the industry
and this is also happening at the same time that we're launching a campaign around America's made
out of recycled materials that will debut in Washington February when we're all together so there's
a lot going on and it's really very exciting who really is and and again I can't thank Becky enough for
optimism persistence and leadership through all of this thank you Becky for having the idea on this
because you could have easily just let that shredder get cut up and remounted to be honest right it could
have easily been in somebody's car or dishwasher or you know the one that will mention is our
partnership with Nucor throughout this they were so excited with the opportunity to be part of
this historical part with the Smithsonian and they have been nothing but supportive they were the ones
that donated the pieces of the shredder they were the ones that allowed the Smithsonian to come
and look and feel and touch and the story is this this partnership of steelmaking and recycling
coming together and the important and America is such a amazing place that allows people to do this
to innovate to solve problems and to go beyond I mean we are the greatest country in the world
in my opinion I'm just very very lucky to have friends like y'all and and and a company and people
that I work with so I mean it really there's a lot of people behind me and the men and women who
have run those pro-alorizers over the years are very respectful for me very it's pretty
incredible to see what technology your family's technology has built led into what Nucor has been
able to build with that technology and then the support that they've provided as well as kind of
unintentionally I guess I'm wearing the the Nucor green today and in an honor of that for right
I'm I'm wasn't sure if you were being a little unintentionally it just showcases to your point
and circling back to what Robin mentioned earlier the electric arc furnace the way that we have
the steel industry stood up in the United States now is predominantly the electric arc furnace
which has a lower carbon footprint because it uses less energy because it can from recycled
materials that come from machines like the Prolerizer and it wouldn't have been possible to have
that lower carbon footprint without things like that not only an economical opportunity it also
provides an environmental one at the same time and it really does set up the United States to be
in a very great position on a variety of fronts and the Smithsonian and now going to be able to tell the masses
that know we are in a really great spot for manufacturing specifically metals and we can do it
from a very you know I had to use the word green but I am wearing that jacket today
but I just want everybody to know and you'll know this when you see the video that's that's
going to be presented the environmental impact has been around for a long time we both and worried
about environmental impacts for decades in decades this is not something that is new to your
generation it was around in the 50s and that's what you're going to learn I mean you're going to see
a letter from Lady Bird Johnson to my uncles thanking them for the autotrader so it's the
environment you're going to see a watercolor that was done in the 70s by my family they had an
artist do it that talks about recycling in the environment this is not a new buzz word I mean we've
known about this I do want to lead you with one quick funny story though yes I have boxed up a
bunch of the artifacts that I had here for the Prolerizer paintings drawings picture stuff like that
and I sent them out last week to Washington DC via FedEx you know where I'm going with this right
who know one of the boxes was received at the Smithsonian and the other one was not
so I all do inquire what happened to the box the box that they received have been damaged slightly
look like it had been through some problems the second box is in Maryland at one of their stations
and it was also damaged so you know they're telling me well I need to file a a loss on it and it was
insured I'm like you can't ensure what I sent no but can you tell me what kind of conditions it's
and because their pictures it the frames are broken it's no big deal at least I can get that the
artifact I want back she said actually putting me on hold and she comes back and she said oh no ma'am
um it's it's damaged I mean we scrapped it and I said excuse me you did what
and she said we scrapped it I said do you even know what that word means you scrapped it tell me
what condition it's in can it be salvaged because scrapped is not a word that you really understand
right and so they are trying to get back to me to find out if it was scrapped or salvaged wow
and these were photos and they what are the original letter from lady bryd Johnson that is making
at lbj's library okay that was that or in our these are pictures that they were news articles
I'm sure I can go back and they weren't the originals anyway right the word and spot it was
funny that she used the word scrapped right shout out to FedEx well we'll ask for a sponsorship
after this gets edited you know I mean just I mean how I mean we we packed this thing it was beautiful
I mean you could have stored a crystal vase in there and somehow they found a way not just to
break it but to tell me they scrapped it so yeah no and it is infuriating to hear some of the
metaphors that get associated with our industries that make it into mainstream terminology you're not
whole other podcast on trust me oh for sure I've been knows all of yeah for sure well I really hope that
they find everything that's been salvaged saved to some extent it's amazing what you can do with
Photoshop these days we can save it before we go is there anything that we haven't touched on
that you want to to bring up from a particular topic or point about the polarizer about the
industry about the event that's coming up next month or technically maybe this month if we're
releasing it February I'll just doubt first of all congratulations on your new podcast for
focusing on advanced manufacturing and it is so appropriate that we're here on this podcast
talking about the Prolerizer which is the foundation for so much innovation that has occurred in
the industry it's a great example itself of innovation over the years but our industry is continually
innovating and supporting the advancement of manufacturing sustainable manufacturing and
that global supply chain and so I appreciate the opportunity that we've had today and it's
talked to you and I hope that will have a follow up maybe sometime in the next couple of weeks or
months to talk about some other examples of what's happening in the industry that are promoting
advancement manufacturing and the securement of our supply chain so thank you very much and look
for once for another another discussion hopefully sometime soon.
Jennifer thank you again I think this sheds a light on not just our history but where we're going
to in the future. I do want to thank you both for coming on and I do appreciate all of the
information, the knowledge, the stories that you've been able to share with us today.
It brings us to the end of today's metals and advanced manufacturing podcast episode
a big thank you to Rob and Wiener and Becky Proler for sharing their inside stories and expertise.
It's been inspiring to reflect on the legacy of the Prolerizer and its transformative impact
on the recycling industry and discuss the innovation shaping the future of metals and manufacturing
and for those eager to see this piece of history up close the Smithsonian's National Museum
of American History will host a reception to officially introduce the Prolerizer into its
collection at the end of February. It's a great opportunity to celebrate this milestone and learn
more about the innovation that continues to drive our industry forward. So thank you for tuning in
and as always stay curious and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible in metals and
manufacturing. Until next time.