Queen City Recycling owner receives SBA honor

Michelle Coffino, the owner and CEO of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Queen City Metal Recycling & Salvage, has been named by the Washington-based United States Small Business Administration (SBA) as its North Carolina Small Business Person of the Year for 2017.

A March 2017 letter from the SBA to Coffino cites her “hard work, innovative ideas and dedication to [her] employees and community” that helped Coffino “build an outstanding business that has strengthened” the North Carolina economy.

In April 2016, Coffino was named one of Charlotte’s 50 most influential women by The Mecklenburg Times. 

The SBA credited Coffino for giving back to the local community through the Second Chance employment program, summer scholarships for underprivileged children and donations to charities that benefited from the company’s Recycling Metal to Recycle Lives event (the Charlotte Rescue Mission, Charlotte Men's shelter, Timeout Youth and the Crisis Assistance Ministry).

Queen City Metal also had donated more than 300 bicycles to a local man who refurbishes them and presents them to underprivileged children at local schools.

A hairstylist for more than 30 years, Coffino established Queen City Metal Recycling & Salvage in July 2013 when she purchased the former Gilbert Iron & Steel in Charlotte.