kripke Enterprises,Inc.- Toledo

We have built our business on one singular mission: We do exactly what we say we are going to do . KEI is a non-ferrous scrap brokerage business specializing mainly in aluminum. We provide many value added benefits such as hedging, trucking, storage, quick money when needed, etc. We have a reputation in the industry which is second to none.

The principals at KEI are Larry and Matt Kripke. Larry began in the scrap business over 35 years ago at Sherwin Metals with his father, Sherwin and brothers, Harley and Bobby. Larry graduated in 1965 from the University of Michigan Business School and then came back to Toledo to enter the family business.

In 1976, Sherwin Metals merged with Tuschman Steel to form Kripke-Tuschman Industries. Larry became head of all non-ferrous operations. In 1983, Kripke-Tuschman completed a sale to Omnisource Corporation. Larry moved up within Omnisource and eventually became head of the Ohio non-ferrous trading group. At different periods in his non-ferrous career, Larry ran a secondary smelter, a copper granulating line, a hedging operation, and numerous other aluminum and copper operations. In 1993, Larry left Omnisource and started his own company Kripke Enterprises, Inc.

In 1994, Kripke Enterprises grew to the point where he needed additional help. His wife, Joanie kept the books and Linda Yohe handled the freight movements and logistics.

In October of 1994, Larry's oldest son Matt joined the business.

Matt graduated from the University of Michigan Business School in 1990. He worked for 5 years in direct sales and opened offices for Vector Marketing in Toledo, London (England), and Pittsburgh. When the opportunity came to join the family business, he left Vector to come home to Toledo. Matt has become very knowledgeable in all aspects of non-ferrous trading, especially aluminum hedging relationships.

Since 1994, the company has grown into one of the country's premiere Non-Ferrous brokerages, now employing five additional traders Marvin Finkelstein, Andy Golding, Chad Kripke, Eric Phillips and Todd Engle.

We pride ourselves on running an efficient, honest business. This is only possible due to the high caliber of people that we have in our office.

KEI sells the industry's strongest hand-held sorting magnet through its site Upgradescrap.com. KEI formed Upgradescrap.com to provide the scrap metal industry with magnets to help reduce the contamination of non-ferrous scrap and to boost its value.

KEI understands the challenges of working in a hands-on industry where scrap metal workers are accumulating an enormous supply of metal and working with it directly. Factors such as time and quality can easily be overlooked, and result in rejected loads and an unnecessary loss of profits. To combat those issues, KEI developed the industry's strongest hand-held sorting magnet.