Fortune Group earns sustainability award

The Naperville, Illinois, location of Fortune Group has been named as a recipient of the 2015 AT&T Supplier Sustainability Award. Fortune says it was honored for its work on the transportation, recovery and recycling strategy of AT&T’s electronic scrap to help minimize the company's environmental impact in 2015. The award has been designed to recognize suppliers for their support of AT&T and its goals toward sustainable operations.

“Supplier sustainability is a top priority at AT&T, and we’re proud to work with companies that take it as seriously as we do,” says Susan A. Johnson, senior vice president, global supply chain, at AT&T. “Our 2015 award winners set new standards for sustainable business practices and are helping AT&T drive the industry to be more environmentally responsible.”

Fortune Group says it is one of only four suppliers to receive the 2015 AT&T Sustainability Supplier Award. The company helped handle the recycling of 54 million pounds of materials generated by AT&T in 2015 and supported AT&T’s supplier sustainability goals and initiatives during the year.

According to Mark Matza, president of Fortune Metal Midwest, “Since 1998, business with AT&T has expanded from a single region to nationwide, largely because of the mentoring of AT&T. Similar to the movie ‘Dances with Wolves,’ Fortune’s lieutenants spend so much time with our customers they start to recognize with AT&T more than Fortune. But this is what has resulted is such good service. AT&T demands that their byproducts are handled safely, and without future liability, which is the most important part of what Fortune does. We compliment AT&T for their commitment to the Environment and Data Destruction.”

Started in 1985 by Norman Ng in New York, privately held Fortune Group now operates 16 facilities covering any spot in the United States within a day’s transportation, according to the company. As its customers expanded into Asia and Mexico, Fortune followed them by opening six facilities there.