Wieland adds metals manager to executive staff

Uwe Schmidt, a veteran of the recycled-content copper and red metals sector, has joined the Germany-based Wieland Group as a senior vice president and executive committee member and will lead Weiland’s Global Metal Management operations.

Schmidt will start in his new position in August.

“This central department is responsible for procuring metals such as scrap, cathodes and formats for the copper supplier's business units and production sites worldwide,” Wieland says of its Global Metal Management unit. “Schmidt and his team will also oversee the sale of recycled metals to third parties."

The newly hired executive has spent about 30 years in the metals industry, gaining experience with metal trading, recycling and downstream metal processing companies.

Companies for which Schmidt has worked include Diehl Metall, based in Röthenbach an der Pegnitz, Germany; SMH Süddeutsche Metallhandelsgesellschaft, also based in Röthenbach an der Pegnitz; and Montanwerke Brixlegg, where for the last six years he worked as a board member and chief commercial officer at that Austrian secondary copper smelting firm, which uses 100 percent-recycled raw materials.

“With Uwe Schmidt, I am delighted to have gained an absolute expert in sustainable metal procurement for Wieland,” Wieland Group CEO Erwin Mayr says. “Uwe is known within the copper industry as a visionary thought leader in recycling and sustainability and aligns perfectly with our ambition to set the benchmark in these areas of the global copper industry.”

The Wieland Group, with assets in the United States that include a scrap-fed refinery in Shelbyville, Kentucky; recycled-content brass mills in East Alton, Illinois, and Montpelier, Ohio; plus additional tube mills, rerolling mills, metal recycling facilities and service centers.

The company refers to “the sustainable closure of the copper cycle and the complete use of recycled material” as the most significant lever for reducing CO₂ emissions, saying its goal is for Wieland Group products to contain 90 percent recycled material by 2030.