In Episode 302 of Cliff’s Notes, Tungco CEO Cliff Nance sits down with Phil Rosenberg, Senior Executive and commercial director of the metals and alloy division at ICD Group and a longtime friend of the Nance family. The conversation moves from a five-generation scrap dynasty to the high-dollar, low-volume world of aerospace alloys — with plenty of ReMA convention nostalgia in between.
■ Watch Episode 302 on YouTube:
Five Generations of Rosenbergs in Scrap
Phil’s family story starts with his great-great-grandfather Rachmiel Rosenberg, who arrived in Chicago from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s with nothing but the clothes on his back. The family built a rags business out of necessity, which evolved into tin recycling, then automotive recycling, then — by the 1970s — one of the largest non-ferrous scrap recyclers in the Chicago area, separating copper and lead cable for Commonwealth Edison.
Phil’s son Jason recently became the sixth generation. After earning an MBA and a law degree and working in consulting, Jason told his father the work felt detached — scrap, by contrast, felt real. When Jason announced the move at his great-grandfather’s 90th birthday and revealed his new company’s name — Six Roses, for being the sixth Rosenberg in scrap — there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
Relationships in a Now-Transparent Market
Phil’s perspective on how the buying side of the business has changed is one of the episode’s strongest threads. He came up driving I-95 from Maine to Miami and back, tearing pages out of the Yellow Pages to find scrapyards before a competitor could. Pricing on metals like tungsten, copper, and tantalum is now public and instantly accessible — which means the old informational edge is gone, and what differentiates a buyer today is trust and relationship, not who knows the secret number.
ICD Group: The Niche World of Aerospace Alloys
Phil’s division at ICD specializes in nickel, cobalt, tungsten, molybdenum, and titanium alloys destined almost entirely for aerospace applications — a high-dollar, low-volume corner of the recycling industry where materials can run hundreds of dollars a pound. ICD itself spans mines, processors, a melt shop, and recycling facilities across the U.S., Australia, China, and Europe, giving Phil’s team visibility across the full supply chain for the exotic metals that keep aircraft in the air.
Also, If you missed it, this is where it all started — watch the launch of Project 74 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpytM1EbKLo
