Federal Metal adds trading veteran

Bedford, Ohio-based Federal Metal Co. has hired Scott Woods to become its lead buyer of scrap aluminum-copper radiators (ACRs). ACRs also are known as the “talk” grade in Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) specifications.

The company says Woods will “help procure the units needed to supply multiple processing facilities and growing demand.” The announcement comes just days after Federal Metal also announced its $17.8 million investment in a new facility in Arkansas specifically equipped to process ACRs.

For the last 13 years, Woods has been a scrap buyer for Bermco Aluminum, Birmingham, Alabama. That firm is a secondary aluminum alloys producer serving the automotive industry. Earlier this month, owner Toyota Tsusho closed the Bermco facility, according to Federal Metal.

Prior to working at Bermco, Woods spent 17 years as a scrap buyer for A. Tenenbaum Co. in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and Arkansas Aluminum Alloys in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He is a former board member of the Gulf Coast Chapter of ISRI.

“Federal Metal is a great family-owned business with an outstanding reputation nationally,” says Woods, who will continue to work from Birmingham. “I am excited to join this team. For me, the fit was as much about culture and integrity as anything else, and to know I am going to work every day for an organization that makes good on its promises.”

“As we continue to increase our volumes and capabilities, Scott’s tremendous skill, experience, relationships and judgment will further strengthen our already talented commercial team,” says Peter Nagusky, president and CEO of Federal Metal Co. “There are major new investments targeting domestic mill, foundry and refining capacity for the first time in more than a generation, and we have every intention of being a key part of the supply chain. Scott plays a very important role in that.”

In 2019, Federal Metal, a producer of copper-based cast alloys since 1913, began processing ACRs to supply what it calls its “growing brass and bronze ingot making operations with high-quality copper for its alloys, and to provide [aluminum] rolling mills with high-purity direct melt materials to help lower their metal costs and meet rigid chemistry specifications.”

In September of last year, the company acquired the assets of the former Colonial Metals Co. in Columbia, Pennsylvania, which it now operates as a second melt shop. The purchase was made from the SA Alloys subsidiary of California-based SA Recycling, which owned the facility briefly.

Most recently, Federal Metal announced its investment in North Little Rock, Arkansas, where it is building what it calls “a new, state-of-the-art processing facility that will be capable of recycling more than 3,000 metric tons per month of post-consumer aluminum copper radiators.”