Cory PycherNU BBA 2012, Entrepreneurship major
Recipient of the Entrepreneurship Management Award at Honors Convocation, April 2012.
Cory came to NU from Alma Michigan and he started his business as he was still in high school. Cory started Mid-Michigan Metal Recyclers (MMMR) when he recognized a need that was not being met in the marketplace. Electronic waste is an ever growing business and Cory recognized that early on. It is illegal to dispose of electronic waste through the regular waste disposal methods. Electronics also contain many valuable components including gold, silver, platinum, palladium and many more. These factors lead Cory to establish MMMR. He continue to run MMMR during his time at Northwood (2008-2012) using it as a vehicle to help fund his education.
It was at Northwood that Cory was able to establish a relationship with Marc and Jeannie Schupan. Marc and Jeannie Schupan established a scholarship for entrepreneurship students at Northwood and Cory was one of the first recipients of that scholarship. Marc Schupan is the CEO of Schupan and Sons Inc. which is headquartered in Kalamazoo Michigan and does business on national and international level. Schupan and Sons was not in the electronic recycling side of the business however they were looking at it seriously as it was a good fit for the company. Between Cory’s graduation for Northwood in May of 2012 and August 2013 Schupan and MMMR were in regular communication and negotiation and on August 18, 2013, Schupan and Sons Industrial Recycling purchased Mid-Michigan Metal Recyclers to be effective September 1, 2013. Cory agreed to be named the General Manager of the new Schupan & Sons Industrial Recycling – Escrap Division. That first year the company had four employees and was processing 800 pounds of electronic scrap per day, four years later the division is generating multi-million dollar annual sales volume with 75 employees and is scraping around 40,000 pounds per day.
Cory was able to utilize the knowledge and skill set that he developed in the entrepreneurship program to build his business and when the time came he was able to recognize the opportunity presented in the marketplace with the sale of the company to Schupan. Today Cory is still growing this company, now as a division of a much larger company, but still in the entrepreneurial spirit in which MMMR was started. After the sale of MMMR to Schupan, Cory moved to the Kalamazoo area where he met and is now married to the love of his life, Norma where they are growing their family as well as the business.
