Super model: the Cohen and Kogon families design a winning auto recycling model with Atlanta-based Pull-A-Part.

The Cohen and Kogon families have deep scrap roots in the Atlanta area, but in the mid-1990s, several family members started a side venture that has subsequently changed their focus.

At that time, Alan Cohen and his cousins Mark Cohen and Marty Kogon, the co-owners of the former Central Metals Co., purchased an auto salvage business in northern Atlanta, in part to provide feedstock for the Central Metals shredding plant.

Later that decade, the family members sold Central Metals but hung on to the salvage yard, which they have nurtured and grown into Pull-A-Part LLC, a retail chain that will soon have more than 20 locations throughout the Eastern United States.

SCRAP AND SUPPLY. Three generations of the Cohen family helped build Central Metals, which by the 1990s was one of the largest scrap recycling firms in the Atlanta market.

Morris Cohen began collecting and processing scrap metal in the Atlanta area in 1915, starting a business that grew first under his leadership, and then under the leadership of his sons Gerald and Bernard.

In the post-World War II years, Gerald and Bernard built up the company's volume, its capital equipment capacity and its willingness to bring new ideas to the market.

Throughout their careers, they also taught the scrap business to their sons and nephews Alan and Mark Cohen and Marry Kogon.

This third generation of family members combined their scrap backgrounds along with university degrees and stints with outside companies to bring yet more innovation and systematic thinking to the operations of Central Metals. "We came into Central with the idea that we could do some things to bring the company into the late 20th Century and early on embraced systems that streamlined physical and mechanical processes."

The trio also stayed alert to recycling-related opportunities. Among the ventures spearheaded by the family was the purchase of an auto salvage and dismantling operation in northern Atlanta.

"The intention was to purchase the company to provide feedstock for the Central Metals shredder," recalls Alan. He notes, however, that a single auto parts operation never supplied more than 3 or 4 percent of the shredder's feedstock in any given month.

Nevertheless, when the families sold Central Metals Co. to the former Recycling Industries Inc. in the late 1990s, they retained their separate ownership in the auto parts company.

Their exit from the scrap business allowed the Cohens and Kogons to focus on their do-it-yourself auto parts company, and began what Alan Cohen refers to as a second career that has succeeded as an enterprise and "keeps me off the streets," he quips.

THE RIGHT ATMOSPHERE. Mark, Marty and Alan have now had more than a decade to consider the differences and the similarities between running a scrap company and running a used auto parts facility, and there are several of each, they say.

Mark Cohen admits he misses aspects of the scrap business. "I enjoyed the challenge of processing material and redesigning equipment," he remarks. "There were many more unique problems each day in the scrap business--each load had its problems, and each equipment breakdown had its cause."

The management and growth of Pull-A-Part, on the contrary, has involved creating extensive core systems that can be seamlessly carried from one retail location to another, just as any large retailer seeks to establish.

Helping establish those systems is the next generation of family members, which includes Alan's son Gregg Cohen and Marty's son Ross Kogon.

Management systems still start and end with people, notes Marty. "Ultimately, everything that goes right in an organization gets down to people. Having the right corporate culture, which I think we do have, has to be coupled with hiring and nurturing the right kinds of people."

Both the right systems and people are critical, as currently Pull-A-Part is in various stages of readying 13 new locations in several different states. "There is a whole process involved," says Ross. "Acquiring property, preparing it, building inventory, publicizing, training people--that's a lot of what we do here [at the corporate headquarters]," he comments.

One can best get an understanding of how the extensive integrated systems work together by visiting one the of the existing Pull-A-Part retail stores.

A visitor to Pull-A-Part's south Atlanta location, in Conley, Ga., not far from Hartsfield International Airport, pulls into a large parking lot that includes a driveway that runs past a payment center for those who are bringing in end-of-life vehicles.

As in the scrap business, at Pull-A-Part customers are necessary on both the buy and sell side. Pull-A-Part likes to have about 2,000 obsolete vehicles on site at each of its locations, and each vehicle spends only two to three months on display for do-it-yourselfers as inventory before being scrapped.

To keep the inventory turning over, a steady diet of obsolete vehicles needs to come in each business day.

While some customers are there to sell an old vehicle, a larger number pay a $1 cover charge to have access to the 2,000 vehicles standing idle on the 23-acre lot.

These customers range from do-it-yourselfers who need to repair their car to get to work the next day to hobbyists to freelance "neighborhood" mechanics to bargain hunters who harvest parts at Pull-A-Part they believe they can resell on E-Bay for a tidy profit margin.

Whatever there reason for being there, they'll need to bring their own tools and be ready to get their hands dirty.

Customers are greeted in a friendly manner as they enter, and they can either use a self-serve computer to find a car by make, model and year, or they can get help from an employee--especially if they'd like to seek cross-matches of parts from different models and years.

The electronic database is one of the systems that is key to helping customers enjoy their Pull-A-Part experience, as is the orderly system of rows and sections that puts like-branded autos in the same place.

This orderly system combined with the massive inventory of some 2,000 cars and a friendly, helpful greeting from staff members adds up to the "three Ss" that are critical to the Pull-A-Part model--service, selection and systems.

To use the term "repeat customers" is an understatement regarding the communities that have developed around each Pull-A-Part location.

Alan Cohen notes that customers routinely help each other out, whether providing an extra pair of hands or offering technical advice on extracting a stubborn part. The regulars at the Conley location, as at other established Pull-A-Part sites, know each other by sight or by name.

"I think our customers like each other," says Mark. "There is a degree of camaraderie between customers, and even if they don't find their part, they may leave here having had a good time or having gained some knowledge."

For the Pull-A-Part model to work economically, the company cannot supply roaming advisors or helpers out on the lot--it is clearly a "do-it-yourself" venture for the customer. But the community atmosphere at a location can still provide a safety net.

Says Ross, "Customers from very different backgrounds will joke back and forth here and borrow and give back each others' tools. In the right environment, people are inclined to help each other."

And the company has even developed "groupies," notes Alan, who take pride in visiting each new Pull-A-Part location when it opens.

Do-it-yourself customers who at some other businesses have had to trip over scattered parts and haggle over price have fallen head over heals with Pull-A-Part's orderly rows of cars staged on clean gravel and the flat pricing system--there is one price for fenders and another for alternators, whether they come from a Dodge, a Honda or a Mercedes.

The pricing structure goes back to systems analysis. The flat rates help ensure that the cashier lanes at the exit flow quickly, providing a smooth, friendly transaction when customers leave to match the friendly greeting they received when they arrived.

ROADMAP. That the scrap business provided unique challenges each day is something that is missed by some of the Cohens and Kogons.

The contrasting observation is that Pull-A-Part is centered on systems and a business model that can be replicated in other places. And replicating the model is precisely what is now keeping the Cohens, the Kogons and a growing office staff at the company's Atlanta headquarters busy.

"Our systems not only allow us to operate, but also to grow and duplicate," says Mark. "Running a location is anything but simple, but the systems make it look that way.

Similarly, having a model to replicate could cause it to appear that opening subsequent locations is fairly simple, but that is also not the case. A growing staff that includes scrap industry veteran Steve Levetan oversees a process that includes studying regional markets, acquiring land, earning the proper permits, construction, acquiring initial inventory and training people.

And that process is by no means identical in each new city, notes Alan. "Each location you start is a risk; it's a new venture and you have to get it right. You've got to find the cars and the customers before your systems play their part."

While Pull-A-Part is pleased to have 13 new locations underway, there have been hurdles along the way. "The blind alleys are the location of sites, the challenges of zoning--the effort that is expended, and then you might end up with an empty bag," says Mark.

The growing and dedicated corporate staff, however, is helping to see into those blind alleys a little bit better, as are the contributions of fourth-generation family members Gregg Cohen and Ross Kogon.

Prior to joining Pull-A-Part, Ross had worked for Ernst & Young and Gregg with Heineken, where each was able to learn about systems and commerce on a global scale.

"As the company grows, the systems will continue to evolve," Gregg comments. "We have to keep a firm eye on that."

And deploying the systems still requires the human touch, notes Marty. "Management by walking around still applies," he comments. "So we have regional people, or our corporate people who pay visits. We're doing a lot of traveling. You can't just leave a manager out on an island by themselves."

With growth comes challenges, but the officers of Pull-A-Part far prefer those types of challenges compared to ones that would be related to a stagnant business.

"To keep growing--that's the goal," says Ross. Adds Alan: "We don't think we've exhausted the possibility of expansion."

The long-term options, as spelled out by Marry, are many. "We are building value, and if in fact we build value and the situation is such that we ought to take this public, we can be prepared to do that. If we want to run it the way we are, we can do that too. Our plan is to grow a company to create value. Beyond that everything else will take care of itself. We want to run a great company."

Steady and manageable growth is on the menu for the foreseeable future. "Things continue to move forward in a fashion that we feel like we have control over, and we will continue that," says Alan.

In addition to being engaged in a profitable enterprise, Marty admits to another motive behind Pull-A-Part's growth: "We're having too much fun to stop now. We come to work every day and have the ability to do something exciting, and we're having fun."

THE ELDER STATESMAN

Pull-A-Part LLC is being led by third-and fourth-generation members of the Cohen and Kogon families descended from Morns Cohen, who started collecting scrap metal in Atlanta in 1915.

There remains involved one member of the second generation, however: Morris's son Gerald Cohen, now 89 years old.

Gerald has a metallurgy background that served him well not only in his role with the Atlanta scrap company started by his father--Central Metals Co.--but also during a stint in the 1940s at an iron foundry in Anniston, Ala.

Although the family sold Central Metals Co. in the late 1990s, Gerald says he has never completely left the scrap industry behind. "It's in your blood--it's in your system," he statutes.

He has remained involved with Pull-A-Part as his sons, nephews and grandsons have managed its growth which allows him to say, "I haven't missed the scrap industry because I'm still in it."

The pride he feels in the success of Pull-A-Part as his evident in his response to the question of what has made that firm successful. "First of all, they receive people in a friendly, business-like manner."

The systems that have been put in place are admired by Gerald as well. "The modern technology and terminology of the operation is impressive--they are running just like any successful retail business."

KEEP IT CLEAN

Auto salvage operations, like scrap yards, are not necessarily enterprises that adjacent properly owners greet with open arms.

The Cohen and Kogon family members who run Pull-A-Part LLC, Atlanta, are aware of this and take any and all steps to be anything but a nuisance of a neighbor.

Fencing and landscaping surround Pull-A-Part properties, which feature some 20 acres of obsolete automobiles arranged in neat, orderly rows.

Further fencing surrounds the vehicle preparation area (where batteries and mercury switches are removed and fluids are drained and recycled), the retention pond and the auto crusher.

The system has been designed to make Pull-A-Part close to a zero-waste operation. Oil-based fluids are drained and stored for future recycling, while anti-freeze is drained and reconstituted for resale on site.

Batteries and mercury switches are sent to recycling facilities. Autos that have been picked over and spent their 60 to 75 days on the lot are crushed and sod to a scrap recycler.

"The only thing that leaves here for the landfill is our office waste," says Alan Cohen.

By law, the company maintains retaining ponds to capture all storm runoff But the Pull-A-Part system's ability to avoid fluid spills s affirmed by what tends to happen at those ponds. "We are proud of the fact that we have all kinds of wildlife that exist in and around our sites," notes Alan.

The company's Conley, Ga., location encountered an interesting type of wildlife problem when a local police patrolman heard unfamiliar and fairly loud noises one evening. The source of the loud, persistent noise? The mating cries of frogs who had settled in at the Pull-A-Part retention pond.

The author is editor in chief of Recycling Today and can be contacted at [e-mail].