AER expands to Pacific Northwest

ITAD company AER Worldwide’s newest location in Hillsboro, Oregon, brings the company closer to existing clients and opens new doors in the “Silicon Forest.”

The 15,000-square-foot facility has in-house technical testing and data sanitization and will handle data center equipment and personal electronics from companies, said Gretchen Stenson, AER business development manager. AER both refurbishes and resells devices and offers secure destruction. 

“We do a lot of close-to-source processing, which is the best thing possible for the environment as well as clients’ pocketbooks,” she told E-Scrap News. “We do have a few clients up there in the Silicon Forest area.” 

AER has its headquarters in California, processing sites with industrial shredders in Texas and South Carolina and other facilities in Malaysia, India, the Netherlands and Mexico. 

The Oregon location, which started up in January, takes in material, refurbishes what it can and then provides a “top level tear down” of items to be recycled, Stenson said. Heavy materials that don’t need shredding, such as empty steel racks or the lids of servers, are sent to local recyclers. Anything that does need shredding gets shipped to the AER facility in El Paso, Texas. 

The facility currently has the capacity to handle about 100 pallets of material at a time but could install pallet racking and easily boost that capacity to 500 pallets, Stenson said. 

The company is in discussions with new clients, Stenson said, including some local school districts. The Oregon facility also has a truck that it can do pickups with for local clients, preserving the secure chain of custody. 

Looking to the future, Stenson said the vision is to have a staff of 10 to 15 people in the next five years and potentially a swing shift to process even more material. The facility has the space for a small shredder as well, but Stenson said that determination would be made over time, as AER sees what the need in the area is and explores the necessary permitting. 

“We’re really excited to be up in the Pacific Northwest, and we’re looking forward to seeing what business relations develop from it,” she added.