Why It All Started
AFTER THE REVOLUTION, THE CLEAN-UP
Nearly 40 Years After Helping Launch the Personal Electronics Era, Maryland Couple Comes Full Circle to Recycle Its Considerable Waste
Steve and Arleen Chafitz are electronics pioneers, responsible for introducing some of the world's most innovative personal electronic devices to American consumers.
While personal electronic devices created a global communications and information revolution, they also became obsolete at increasingly rapid rates. The result, Steve Chafitz now says, "It's a potential environmental nightmare of stunning magnitude whose impact is just beginning to be assessed".
"When we saw how much electronic equipment was being discarded carelessly, it was shocking how it was hurting the environment and it was evident that the opportunity was there to be at the beginning of a new business wave", Arleen Chafitz says. "It gives us a chance to give back. We helped create some of these products and we want to make sure that they don't hurt the environment".
Their company, Chafitz Electronic Specialty Center, grew into one of the country's leading consumer electronic retailers and mail-order companies. They were the first to introduce many of the amazing personal electronic products which have defined the Information Era, including the first pocket calculators, the first digital watches, the first video games, the first personal computers, the first consumer VCRs and video cameras, and even the first Sony Walkman.
By the late 70s, Steve and Arleen Chafitz had built a very successful mail-order business that was written about in Business Week, Forbes, the Washington Post, Time, the Wall Street Journal, and others. Steve's penchant for developing ground-breaking new products and his ability to form warm personal relationships with customers won him an international following.
"The basic thing is you have to be responsive to the needs of the customer, you have to know a lot more than your clients about what you're doing, and you have to be transparent", Chafitz says. "If they have a problem, you say, 'that’s not a problem; we're here to fix it.' My philosophy has always been to give our customers service above and beyond what they get with others and they always know that if we tell them we're going to do it, we're going to do it".
Steve and Arleen Chafitz are applying the same personal touch and visionary thinking to their new venture, e-End™. Headquartered in Frederick, MD, e-End offers businesses a full-service "electronics end-of-life process" that includes pick-up, transportation with an unbroken chain of custody, data destruction, and hazardous waste disposal of all types of electronics of any size.
"Unless hard drives are physically destroyed with specialized equipment or very specific software is used to purge the data, confidential information can still be recovered from discarded or stockpiled computers", Steve Chafitz says.
e-End provides companies with a complete program of environmental compliance, data destruction and sanitization, safeguarding and equipment recycling in conformance with federal, state and local regulations. Their Zero Landfill Policy guarantees that no material they process ends up in a landfill.
