Our CEO, Jordan Schupan, recently sat down with Stu Kagan on Born Scrappy, the podcast for people who buy, process, trade and move scrap metal. It was Jordan’s first podcast as a guest. His dad, Chairman Marc Schupan, was on the show back in Season 3, so it’s now a two-generation streak.
Jordan told the story of how Schupan grew from a five-person scrapyard in Kalamazoo, started in 1968, into a third-generation family company with 600 people across 18 locations. He also shared what he’s focused on as CEO. Most of the conversation came back to the people who make Schupan work. Here are a few highlights.
Asked for his favorite quote, Jordan picked one he thinks comes from Charlie Munger: “Trust is the most powerful economic force in the world.”
He sees it in our history. “We provided trust in an industry that was harder to have trust in,” he said, and he sees our future in building even more trust and transparency across the metal supply chain.
He sees it in our people, too. Some of our team members have been at Schupan longer than Jordan has been alive. “It’s not an accident,” he said. “It’s because they’ve trusted how they’re going to be treated.”
Trust is also how Jordan ended up here. In 2016, our COO, Tom Emmerich, came out to see him in California to tell him we were starting a trading business, and that it might be a good time to come home. Jordan joined in January 2017. He called Tom “an incredible leader” who helped build the foundation of our beverage business, and credited Andy McKee, President of Schupan Materials Trading, with building out our trading business.
Before Schupan, Jordan traded options in Chicago and sold enterprise software in California. When he decided to come back in 2017, he was close to joining another fast-growing tech company. What tipped it was the chance to make a difference at a family company that truly cares about its people. “The better we do, the more we can do for our people,” he said.
He also believes most decisions make sense once you understand the context behind them. “Every individual is trying to make a decision that’s good for them, good for their families and good for the business,” he said. When something doesn’t add up, he looks at the incentives and culture around it before blaming the person.
A lot of how Schupan works has always been understood without being written down. Part of Jordan’s focus now is “making these things that were implicit, explicit,” so it’s easier for everyone here to see how their work makes a difference.
Building culture across 18 locations is harder than in one yard, and Jordan was open that it’s something we’re always working on. His goal is clear, though: “I want 600 engaged people that are incentivized to see and solve problems.”
He calls that being “truth seekers.” That means caring enough about each other to be honest about what could be better. “We attack the problem, not the person,” he said. “You could see red on a spreadsheet, and that’s not an attack. That’s, how do we learn from this?”
He also knows where culture is felt most. “The culture people experience every day is who they’re working next to and who their direct leader is,” he said. That’s why developing leaders and empowering people are at the top of his list.
Stu closed with a few quick questions:
The episode also covers Jordan’s path from sweeping floors in our yard to trading options and selling software, what the CEO transition with Marc has been like, and why he sees AI as a big opportunity for companies that work in the physical world.
Thank you to Stu Kagan and the Born Scrappy team for the conversation.
