This article is from the Keynote Featuring Gary Cohn session during ISRI2021. Many of the programs available in ISRI2021 will remain available to convention registrants through May 20 on demand. The exhibit hall will remain open during that time as well.
Shelley Padnos and David Borsuk, respectively, are the recipients of the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award, presented during the Keynote Featuring Gary Cohn session at ISRI2021.
The first woman to hold national office at ISRI, and ISRI’s first female president, Padnos is a trailblazer in the recycling industry. The current chair of the executive committee of the Board for PADNOS in Holland, Mich., she began her career at PADNOS (previously Louis Padnos Iron & Metal) in 1984 as an account executive. She rose through the ranks to executive vice president & chief administrative officer.
In 1998, Padnos became the first, and currently only, female chair of ISRI. During her time with the association, she has also served as the secretary/treasurer of ISRI’s Michigan Chapter, as well as chair of the Legislative Committee, ISRI secretary/treasurer, vice chair, and chair-elect. “It is truly an honor to be recognized by my peers for the work that I have done with ISRI, and it is made even more meaningful by the fact that my father, Seymour, and my uncle, Stuart, were the very first recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award,” Padnos says. “I feel privileged to carry on a family legacy.”
Most recently serving as senior advisor at Sadoff Iron & Metal Company, David Borsuk has been in the metals recycling industry for more than 50 years. Essentially born into the industry, Borsuk held various roles during his career with Sadoff Iron & Metal. He began working as a construction manager and dispatcher. After going into Maintenance, Repair, Operations (MRO) purchasing and working at another division, he returned to Sadoff Iron & Metal and oversaw the company’s industrial marketing, which grew into managing its key industrial accounts.
Early on during his time with the company, Borsuk got involved in environmental and legislative regulatory affairs. In the 1990s, when Sadoff Iron & Metal became the first scrap processing facility in Wisconsin be certified by the International Organization for Standardization (STO), Borusk managed the quality department. Later in his career, Borsuk was exclusively involved in environmental and legislative affairs. He managed some industrial accounts and also worked closely with some of Sadoff Iron & Metal’s foundry accounts.
Having accomplished so much in his career, Borsuk hopes his legacy is as an advocate. “I think [the legacy I’d like to leave] is that I was an advocate, both for Sadoff Iron & Metal, as well as for our industry. I also tried to continually commit [us] to excellence,” Borsuk told Scrap News.
You can read more about Padnos and Borsuk in their respective Faces of ISRI articles, which can be found here and here.
ISRI’s Lifetime Achievement Award is given annually by ISRI’s Chair to bestow recognition and honor upon an individual(s) in the scrap recycling industry whose name and deeds are synonymous with integrity and the pursuit of excellence, and who has made significant contributions over their lifetime to the scrap recycling industry and/or the association. The award criteria can be found here.
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