Minimizing downtime with responsive service

When Frailey’s Recycling needed a baler in 2022, the company learned that most manufacturers would not be able to deliver for a year, a timeline that wasn’t acceptable for the metal recycling company. That’s when Jeran Frailey, the company’s owner, found out that Columbia Industries LLC could deliver its Kodiak baler within six weeks. Frailey was sold.

For those unfamiliar with Columbia Industries, the Starkville, Mississippi, company is a heavy steel custom designer and fabricator that started by building trailers. For more than 50 years, the company has provided solutions that transform and are trusted by industries worldwide, including solid waste, oil and gas, aerospace and recycling. That includes its Kodiak baler. Columbia worked closely with scrapyard owners and operators to engineer and design the baler.

“A baler is a baler,” Frailey says. But what really stands out to Frailey is Columbia’s reliable service and support.

“The biggest thing I look for is service. Uptime is key in the scrap business. If your equipment goes down, and it will go down, you are losing money. I want to make sure a company I am working with has a strong service side that I can rely on,” he adds.

“Things are bound to go wrong when you are in the scrap business, and when it does, they are on-site fast and have the parts there very quickly,” Frailey says. “Their service guys have stayed for weeks at a time to make sure things are moving strong.

“They have been there every time we needed them, and I have built a level of trust with them.” – Jeran Frailey

“They have been there every time we needed them, and I have built a level of trust with them.”

He’s been so satisfied with Columbia Industries’ support, Frailey, the third generation of the Frailey family to own and operate the Oklahoma-based company, has installed two Kodiak balers: one in Tulsa and one in Chouteau. The Kodiaks process everything from appliances to catalytic converters, handling roughly five to six semitrucks of material per day, he says.

In the nearly four years since he installed his first Kodiak, Frailey says Columbia has asked him for feedback on the baler, which the company is using as it develops the next generation of Kodiak baler to be released later this year in time for the Recycled Materials Association (ReMA) convention, The Show, April 13-16.

Frailey is happy to be a repeat customer of Columbia Industries the next time he needs a baler.

“They showed me who they are through their service, and that would be the leading factor in working with them in the future," he says.