Seymour Padnos

Seymour Padnos, a philanthropist and businessman who helped lead his family’s recycling company for more than 60 years, died Wednesday. He was 99. Padnos was born on Oct. 17, 1920, the first child of Louis and Helen Padnos. Louis Padnos immigrated to the U.S. from Russia as a teenager and started his business in 1905, using a horse and wagon to sell dry goods and trade for scrap in West Michigan, the Upper Peninsula and Northern Wisconsin. Padnos attended Holland High School and earned a bachelor’s degree from Hope College in 1943. By the 1940s, Padnos and his younger brother, Stuart, had taken over from their parents and began running the company, By 1948, the company — at the time known as the Louis Padnos Iron & Metal Company — owned two mobile cranes, 15 vehicles, and had 30 employees. Padnos served as the company’s CEO and later took over as chairmen, a position he held for 60 years. Padnos, according to his obit, is survived by his “wife of 72 years, Esther (Roth), and their four children Mitchell (wife Karen), Shelley (wife Carol Sarosik), Bill (life-partner Margy Kaye), Cindy (husband Jim Redmond) and grandson Louis Padnos.”