Mom’s lifelong mission to champion the industry and help the individual recyclers made a huge impression on me.

yard and the pride they had in owning it. As a result, she was invited to several receptions at the White House and asked to serve on the President’s National Beautification Committee. Mom’s lifelong mission to champion the industry and help individual recyclers made a huge impres- sion on me. She was the best business mentor a young woman could have asked for, and a continu- ation of her work is the reason I’m here today. I con- tinue to remain very passionate about the industry. Everything we do at Hotlines is run through the

filter, “will this help the recyclers?” If the answer isn’t ‘yes,’ then we don’t do it. It’s that simple. I hope as we continue to offer services to the industry, such as our Hotlines Network or AutoMatch for PartsTrader, in some way I’m continuing in mom’s footsteps. Perhaps the best advice I’ve received in my career in the industry came from my business part-

ner, Mike Vande Voort. He frequently says, “Our ‘master’ is the recycler. We’re not in this to profit from the insurance carriers, the large consolidators, or collecting and re-selling the recycler’s data. We’re in it for the recycler. Period.”

Sherri Heckenast CEO

St. Louis U-Pic-A-Part www.upicapart.com 25 years in industry

industry was trying to gain respect from fellow co- workers being the boss’s daughter, not the son. Regardless of son or daughter, I have seen that being in that role automatically comes with a lack of respect until you’ve done your work. At a young age, I became the boss of a very large business and was more or less thrown into it. Of course, I thought at the time that I could handle it.

W

hen I was younger, one of my largest obstacles in this

November-December 2015 | Automotive Recycling 43