Trust precious commodity to Gannon

SHOWING METAL: Gannon & Scott CEO Ken Dionne, left, and General Manager Joseph Peixoto in front of the company’s environmental filtration system. This year, the company opened a 93,000-square-foot addition that doubles the Cranston facility’s capacity. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
SHOWING METAL: Gannon & Scott CEO Ken Dionne, left, and General Manager Joseph Peixoto in front of the company’s environmental filtration system. This year, the company opened a 93,000-square-foot addition that doubles the Cranston facility’s capacity. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

For Gannon & Scott, recycling precious metals found in everything from electronic and medical devices to jewelry has changed over the years, but making transactions based on trust has not.
Founded in 1919 by former office manager John Gannon and partner Fred P. Scott, the company continually expanded its presence in Rhode Island and then, in 2000, doubled its capacity with the acquisition of a state-of-the-art, 42,000-square-foot processing facility in Phoenix, Ariz., said CEO Ken Dionne.
“There is a finite supply of precious metals on Earth and the main source is mining, but it’s very expensive to mine, so it’s more cost-effective to take metals that have been used and recycle them,” said Dionne. “That’s where we fit in.”
The global business of recycling precious metals is the reverse of manufacturing, General Manager Joseph Peixoto said.
“We take an unknown pile of scrap, process it and make it a known amount of precious metal,” like gold, silver or palladium, he said. “We usually take a finished product and bring it down to a raw material that ultimately can be reused.”
At the end of 2013, the company opened a 93,000-square-foot addition costing nearly $9 million that doubles the Cranston facility’s capacity to thermally reduce metals using technologically advanced and proven pollution controls. The new facility is expected to increase the workforce of 75 by 20 percent.
Today John Gannon’s grandson, John “Jack” Gannon, and his children, David Gannon and Margaret Gannon-Jones, are owners.
The commitment to efficient and environmentally safe and clean recycling of precious metals is espoused in the company’s corporate social-responsibility policy, said Dionne and Chief Financial Officer John King. That this material is processed in an environmentally safe manner is a given, and underscores the broader sense of reliability the company works to impart, they said.
“At Gannon & Scott, we believe that trust is the fundamental condition by which all business is conducted,” reads the online version of the policy. “Our No. 1 priority has been and continues to be our clients. Our corporate commitment is to be transparent and honest at all times with our customers in hopes of building and maintaining trust through the duration of the business relationship.” Using environmentally compliant equipment helps minimize the risk to clients, who have the satisfaction of knowing that materials are compliant with all regulations, said King.
At the end of every day, none of the material processed in the new plant contaminates the environment, nor is it exported to under-developed countries that have less-stringent environmental-protection laws, Dionne said. As the recycled material is repurposed, it also helps preserve the Earth’s natural resources, he said.
Customers typically get a financial settlement for the physical metal that Gannon & Scott recovers, said King. That can be in dollars or in a transfer of metals credit, he said. The firm therefore provides liquidity in a highly competitive marketplace, engendering trust in that way also.
“We may not get paid for the material for three, four, five months,” he said. “That’s one of our strengths and the role we play in this particular market.”
Besides other refiners, who constitute 15 percent of Gannon & Scott’s business, other types of customers include the federal government and electronic, semiconductor and circuit-board manufacturers, Peixoto said.
Reflective glass from mirrors yields volumes of silver, he added. A used or scrapped cellphone might yield electronic chips with precious metals, plastic and other metals that are extracted, he said.
The new addition at 45 Sharp Drive also is powered by a roof of solar panels, which will eventually help offset the high cost of some of the equipment, which are energy hogs, Dionne said. He expects the $1.2 million investment on an acre of solar panels to pay for itself in about four years.
Gannon & Scott, working with Beaumont Solar Company, was awarded a solar-power distributed-generation standard contract administered by the Office of Energy Resources and National Grid and approved by the R.I. Public Utilities Commission.
“That adds to what we’re doing and trying to say about Gannon & Scott going forward,” Dionne said. “We’re doing it right.” •

COMPANY PROFILE
Gannon & Scott
OWNER: John and David Gannon and Margaret Gannon-Jones
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Precious metals recycling
LOCATION: 33 Kenney Drive, Cranston
EMPLOYEES: 75
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1919
ANNUAL SALES: WND

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