Listen to this article 5 min
See Correction/Clarification at the end of this article.
Ryan McAdams didn't understand why his parents gave him the nickname "miser" as a kid, despite his propensity for collecting random items and figuring out their value. But it now makes sense to him as an adult.
McAdams is the founder and CEO of Amermin LLC, an Austin-based recycling company that takes waste generated by industries like oil, gas and aerospace and then refines it into critical materials not primarily found in the United States — essentially returning them to the domestic supply chain.
Amermin generated $13 million in revenue last year and projects $17 million this year. It has racked up a who's who of companies that it works with, including Cedar Park-based rocket maker Firefly Aerospace Inc., Bastrop-based tunneling startup The Boring Co., and energy, oil and gas giants like Halliburton Co., Schlumberger NV and Baker Hughes Co.
That growth has prompted Amermin to break ground on a 75-acre property at 419 County Road 218 in Briggs, a small town in Burnet County north of Austin that is home to Firefly's Rocket Ranch. Amermin is aiming to open two 22,000-square-foot buildings at the site by June 2025 that will employ roughly 50 to 75 people. Over the next decade, the campus could have up to 10 similarly size buildings and 850 employees.
"I think we've reached a pretty critical stage in our company's growth where we're going to have to take that next step, or otherwise we'll plateau," McAdams said.
He likened his company to a "scrap yard." It takes in and processes waste and then refines it into materials such as copper, tungsten, cobalt, nickel and more, with the aim of selling it back to manufacturers. McAdams said his company cuts its customers' costs by more than 40%.
Amermin estimated that it has recycled 45 million pounds of materials to date. It recycled 1.5 million pounds of tungsten in 2023 and is projected to double that in 2024. The company said it has saved 33 million pounds of carbon dioxide that would have been released into the atmosphere from mining operations, and more than 102 million pounds of carbon dioxide that would have been released by shipping raw materials to the U.S.
"Treasure hunting is my favorite part of my job. Stuff that they used to pay to have hauled off, we now pay them for that waste stream because we'll figure out how to get it back into the supply chain," McAdams said.
The expansion marks a key accomplishment for a company McAdams started in his garage in 2017 when he was 29 years old. He said growing up in the Austin and Houston areas meant he could not avoid the oil and gas industries. He'd take industry waste, pull it apart and refine into rare minerals, and "became obsessed," he said.
The company eventually grew into a storage unit, and then a warehouse in Round Rock. But now it operates out of a small office in Austin and has two recycling operations near the city: a 12,000-square-foot facility on roughly three acres in Del Valle that's focused on waste recycling, and a 40,000-square-foot facility on five acres in Lampasas that serves as the company's sorting and chemical processing center. It has about 65 employees and an additional site in Fort Worth, and it also does some work in Mexico.
The Briggs site will add to that, with McAdams saying "we can never have enough space." The first phase is aimed to help the company focus on tungsten recycling, and the second phase will be focused on graphite and e-waste. Future phases will include production and manufacturing of pure metal powders and cathodes, recycling of aerospace alloy waste and, potentially, recycling of electric vehicle batteries. The full buildout could take 10 years, but McAdams said he's hoping to reach 850 employees in half that time.
What separates Amermin from others that recycle critical materials and minerals is that "we take everything," he said. Even if the material doesn't have value, or companies would typically pay to have it hauled off, Amermin will take it for free and figure out what to do with it. For instance, McAdams said he's currently in the process of trying to figure out how to make oil and gas waste into thermo-protection systems for aircraft.
"We find value in everything," McAdams said. "If it's got an element to it, we'll figure it out. We may not make money off of it, but we'll make sure it's not going into a landfill."
He added that the company has not had many issues with procurement. Companies have been willing to work with it because of the push toward sustainability. Amermin mainly sources from companies in Texas but also deals with some as far away as the Middle East and South Asia. And it's adding new customers routinely.
"Once people started seeing the return, they would go to other companies and spread the word, which is good. Word of mouth is probably the best thing you could possibly do to get new customers," McAdams said.
Firefly marketing director Risa Schnautz said the aerospace company works with Amermin to recycle machine scraps, including metal scrap materials like copper and alloys from its machine shop. The materials are melted down and reconstituted, and Firefly buys them back at a reduced rate.
"These environmentally friendly initiatives are important to Firefly as we continue to find ways to further reduce waste and think proactively about solutions that protect our environment," Schnautz said.
If Amermin has had any issues, they've stemmed from fast growth. Amermin was on the Austin Business Journal's 2023 Fast 50, a list of local companies that have experienced the highest growth over a three-year-period.
McAdams said Amermin is always on the lookout for more warehouse employees. It has little to no debt, he said, but is keeping a close eye on cash flow and is seeking investors.
"Getting into growth and really partnering with people outside of the business is really key," McAdams said.
The business fills a fill a void in an essential industry. The Department of Energy estimated that more than 80 percent of the country's supply of critical minerals comes from foreign sources, including China. Those materials are used for daily staples like laptops or cell phones, but also in defense systems and advanced manufacturing.
Amermin representatives have met with members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. John Carter, a Republican whose district includes the Briggs site. Carter shared a picture of the meeting in March, saying he was glad to welcome them to his office to "discuss their work in recycling metals for the technology, aerospace, agriculture, medicine, construction, automotive, defense, and renewable energy industries."
McAdams said his company has applied for grants through the U.S. Department of Energy and is hoping to win incentives to help with future expansion, although it hasn't received anything yet.
Amermin was interested in Briggs because of its proximity to Firefly, he said, which just signed a contract with Northrup Grumman Corp. The availability of land was a plus, he said, as was the county's business-friendly nature.
"Recycling isn't the cleanest, best job ever. It can get dirty. So we have to have our space," McAdams said. "We want to make sure we do it the right way. We don't want to move into a building we don't have control over."
And he said the company is excited in general to be in the Austin area, where a variety of industries have experienced big waves of growth — offering new forms of waste for Amermin to try to recycle.
"In Austin, it's kind of like a hodgepodge, and it's new, it's fresh," McAdams said.
Correction/Clarification
This story has been updated to accurately reflect what Amermin recycles.
