welcome to a scrap life a podcast solely focused on the hustlers Grinders operators and business owners who live and breathe the scrap metal industry every day here is your host Brett eard all right another episode of uh scrap life you guys know at this point like I only with people that got hustle like we talked about it earlier like I’m I’m TI I’m if you are in this business and you’re a go-getter and you’re like getting done like then a I want to talk to you B I want to be friends with you and c I want to do business with you right so I’m sitting here with Blake Dorset and John Wright from sheer Works um nice enough to invite me to this nice office man you guys you guys are living right over here I like it thanks for the invite yeah absolutely appreciate you coming down here appreciate your time as well so give me like a like like I know it’s like a side note but this is like kind of what you call like Innovative co-working type space like where you got Tech Guys in here and

just kind of a bunch of uh I mean it’s a huge building right would you say it was the old was the old sear building old SE building yeah SE building it’s a partnership between the city and uh the university here in town to try to promote startup activity so all kinds of businesses from engineering to Tech to you know guys are cutting up scrap metal yeah so it’s like your corporate office and then you guys have your big shop where you’re doing all your maintenance and everything else on the your equipment um you said like 20 miles from here yeah it’s probably it’s 20 M 20 30 minutes from here where we keep that’s our Ops office that’s where we you know basically keep equipment parts and things like that move equipment in off separate jobs or whatever it’s coming back through town yeah we’ll bring in to be able to give it a little bit of a tuneup you know get the blades back rolling and build up that type of thing and we’ll get and like that’s I can’t wait to get into that just because that’s more my speed like

that side of it on the the equipment side and and what it takes to actually run a business and especially the size that you guys are but more what’s more interesting to me like is what the power of LinkedIn right the power of social media the Power is how you and I met it’s how I met a lot of people but it’s definitely how you and I met and I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as a company and I feel like I’m pretty well versed in this industry but even I like who feel like I know what’s going on didn’t know there was a company out there that will bring a Shear to a small mediumsized yard and and we’ll get into like what you guys do on a on a on a national level on a bigger basis but that there was a company out there that I could that could bring a Shear in cut what do you guys think he cut like 3,000 ton for us in our yard within what a month I mean you guys went through that like like a hot knife through

butter but the only reason I knew that is because of LinkedIn cuz you reached out to me and said hey Brett I got a Shear up in your area so tell that story like we were just talking about earlier how you and I met I’m super just for everybody out there yeah we actually we were actually doing the job there in Plymouth you know was cutting up a lot of rail cars for a customer and it was getting close to the end you know was trying to figure out here we are in Birmingham Alabama you know to try to figure out okay we’re out west here in Plymouth Utah all how can we start working the machine back to where it needs to go so I was talking with the customers and say hey you know anybody around here yeah I got a guy r that car so all right if you don’t mind share me his number so I think that’s when I contacted you you know me you started talking and we started going through the numbers right like we kind of it said you know you guys go by the ton

you go you know and you’re like no no no no like we don’t do it that way that’s right like we do it this way and kind of took me a minute cuz the old school way of doing it and I say old school because hey this is what it cost you per ton to do something and that’s way we can kind of calculate it out you know as uh as as Facility Owners like oh this is what my but but until you got actually come in and start cutting and you and you you you kind of said I can do this and I can do that and I was like man if this guy can do all the he says he can do then then I’ll believe it when I see it like I was like I’m that guy right like if that Stakes that good I’m going to try to see it that’s right that’s right and I’ll be I’ll be dipped if you didn’t do it faster than you said you can do it well and that’s one of the things that we try to do you know like the story

I was telling you you know we try to you know we try to do things a little different you know and you know when me and you started talking about on the day rate deal I believed in our system and our people and things that we put out there then I knew it was going to work you know and it was being able to of course get you to buy in that it would work than us getting out there to do the job and and it actually worked out and which I knew it would work out but you know you cut a lot of iron before you met me absolutely absolutely so it worked out to be a pretty good deal cuz we cut what three yards mve around there good twin cut our twin yard too yeah it was I mean it it worked out awesome for me and I just want people to know like that’s how you and I met and became friends right but I’m super curious just for for everybody else out there how’ the two of you meet like tell me like kind of the origin of sheer

works like how did it start that’s that that’s what I want to know I’ll jump in there I know I was doing a big rail job not far you know north of town here and uh at the time when I was in the business process and it where we come from you can’t rent material handlers back then so I was in need of a material handler we was cutting a lot of rail cars trying to load scrap so I called one of the dealers we dealt with and I said um hey I’m looking to rent a material handler well we don’t rent material handlers I said okay you said but I know a guy that’s got one which that guy was John at the time you know uh so I ended up calling John and uh we got to talking with each other and ended up renting me the material handler and I kept it for I just really never left never left never so we actually I stayed on that job for a good while and yeah it was and you C me at the right time I was in the process of

getting uh I had been in the garbage business for about 10 years and along the way it ended up in the recycling business she and scrap shred and scrap and anyway part of my deal getting out of that was that I could continue on doing things in that world and the recycling world and uh met you leasing equipment so I still had some specialty equipment so material handlers shears um I still had a shredder at the time but uh yeah we we got to know each other through leasing some equipment to you and pretty quickly thereafter we looked at we partnered on a couple jobs and I was like man this the world I came out of was scaling businesses and you know I there was big opportunity there for what you were doing and so that was that was the beginning 20 2019 yeah 2019 yep and I was already into the scrap business and you know I started in scrap business through Trucking yeah you know yeah tell me that because that that that’s intriguing to me so you started on the trucking side yeah I started on the trucking side my

first truck that I ever bought I mean I give $4,500 for it to go to the bank to get a loan to be able to get it you know my dad was in the trucking business and uh he was in the freight company so I bought a freight truck and was had went to the bank got a loan for it and I ended up had it baring a flat bed I started off hauling cross ties and I it dried up then I was going to go in scrap business well I found a scrap trailer at a local scrap yard here that they had in the scrap yard they was fixing the scrap it and I said I won’t I won’t buy that trailer and I said no you’re not going to buy that trailer I said yeah I want I want to buy it I can put it on the road no long story short I ended up buying it $7500 so I ended up getting a $10,000 loan cuz it’s aluminum dump trer it was beat to pieces you know so I had to go and get that extra money to

put a steel liner in it so I ended up buying that you know going to get the loan on it not sweating not knowing where what am I fixing to do here you know how am I going to sit here and even pay for this thing you know it was 200 $50 a month whatever pay 300 whatever it was it was yeah I was sweating it you know so I started there at the local company and started running their scrap and one thing left to I bought another truck I bought another truck so and that’s how I sort of got started in the scrap business and that’s how I was able Word of Mouth find out you know who different players were to build the customers that I was working with you know so long story short I ended up selling all my trucks and I bought my first year shear and machine together for 60 Grand is what kind machine it was a kamatsu exactly what you would think for 60 Grand yep it was a it was a it was what we call a rolling total yeah you know it was something

that oh man this thing is going to be good you know it was H $60,000 I bought it and U still have that year to this day you don’t have the carryer you know carrier was so ended up buying it and the first week the rotate motor went out on the Cal and I’m sitting there thinking oh man what am I going to do now you know got bunch of buddies of mine we all got together and end up fixing it and went along three more weeks and I had a guy come out there and tell me he said uh look at Mair he said wait he said uh he fixing be in trouble said what are you talking about he said man if you don’t do buildup on this thing you’re going to see what trouble’s going to be it was almost wore down to the guide blade bolts to that’s how much buildup it needed oh wow so I ended up having to bite the bullet and it stayed in the shop and spent $35,000 on just welding over 40 hours of welding face hard face all that kind of

good stuff so the shear side of it it I had to learn the hard way on the shear side you know I didn’t know nothing about no I know I can it’s cut and scrap I can do that you know so uh actually got that up going and got that back in the mix and ended up selling the carrier buying another one and U thought it was going to be a big bad and it was a small machine as well but I didn’t know sizes you know it was it was an upgrade from what I had so are you are your first generation second generation uh it’s it’s I when I come into the scrap none of my family was in the scrap you know my dad was a truck driver mcgr so you were a second generation truck driver that’s exactly right EXA then you then you went down a level to join us in the scrap that’s right yeah I had to learn all of that kind of stuff the hard way for sure you know so I’ve had to learn the hard way and just listening and learning and looking and

talking and all that kind of thing so you know I ended up getting that one then I bought another machine then I bought another machine and when me and John met up is when I had three 2019 yeah 2019 I had three shears going and there goes to our story where me and John met John give me a little bit of background I’m curious how does a guy get get uh go from from waste from landfills to scrap to where you’re at today yeah so I had never sold I don’t think I knew what scrap metal was when I got in the garbage business but I bought a landfill during the financial crisis here in Birmingham and we made our bank payment the first probably year with we had guys on the ground with boots and gloves and just the oldfashioned way dump a load out go through a rolloff load pull all the scrap metal out stick in the dumpster Hal to the scrapyard yeah and that was the first scrap I’d ever you know first scrap I’d ever messed with ended up um hiring the guy that was our buyer at Schnitzer

uh who we were selling to I was like man this is I like this this is pretty cool you know and was like we got scales we got everything we need to start buying some scrap and so we uh so we did we started um brokering some loads from we buy you know we’ buy like two IE beams and stick them on a borrowed flat bed and you know haul them over from Georgia and make $1,000 doar on I’m like dang that is awesome yeah yeah you know yeah and so it just kind of Grew From there um most of my scrap business up until up until um partnering with Blake was really in conjunction all in support of our waste business and so we we recycled paper Plastics um a little bit of tire recycling that you and I talked about but um kind of jumped off the deep end the metal recycling in 2012 and bought a small Shredder um which the timing was miserable miserable on um but you learn a lot of stuff during those times you know and and I think along the way no matter what business

you’re in you you realize you’re like you know what that’s a good little niche right there and I’ve got a mean I’ve got a spreadsheet where I put numbers together to do exactly what Blake and I are doing now back in 2012 long before he and I had met and the niche was processing for somebody else running shears yeah running mobile shears for for other for other folks and I think I you know for me the I like the service business I like it more than owning the commodity and you know that’s one of the things that you know Blake and I have learned just like it’s important not to compete with your customer and so we’re not in the business of buy and sell and scrap in fact we we we do everything we can do not to be the owners of whatever is we’re cutting sure that was one of the things like I appreciated like when we when we first met and you were like hey man like I’m here just to cut and process you know the the the more I can cut for you the the more you can

buy the more you can make and I’m I’m not in your business right Ian we I you know Nick and I have had this conversation about some of our demolition customers like I don’t want to be in the demolition business I want to support the demo guy right I want to bring a Shear in bring it bring the trucks the trailers and so you guys go I don’t want to take any food off your plate put as much food on there I’m gonna help you eat it right but but put the but put as much food on as you want I don’t want to be the guy to take it off unless you ask me to come in and do do something but cuz I think that’s important and I think that like what you guys have like one of the reasons why I was excited to do this podcast is because you guys crush it on a operations level but I don’t think that a lot of people know exactly what you do like and and I know what you do because I’ve you we’ve been down the path right like i’ I’ve

brought you into the yards now I think there’s some big players out there that that are using your services today cuz I know for a fact if you when you guys met you had three Shar and today you have we have 30 plus shares in the fleet as of now and you don’t have 30 plus shares cuz you’re not working them right because everybody knows the cost of a Shear especially the size of shears that you guys are running everything from a 995 we got 2055 you know that that’s the biggest one that we have you know then we got, 1500 we got some 1,000 95s all the way down to a 400 size yeah you know so we got a quite a good range of different size shares so I think about like you know Partnerships and whatever else I mean the only way those work in in my opinion is you probably have to have like some kind of clear like Lanes right like the road goes the same direction but like here’s your lane and here’s your lane I mean do you guys how do you guys divide up like

what happens on a daily basis I mean what’s your kind of what’s your lane and what’s your lane John well I’ll I’ll I’ll go from back from when I first started you know I was just a guy hey I I knew I just wanted to get out there I just wanted to make money I just wanted to get out there and try to make a go out but did I have systems not the first one you know I had a notebook that I wrote with me and if I had a conversation I wrote some of that kind of stuff down so you know that was and I think that’s where me and John’s been good at you know I knew I knew I wanted to get out to there I wanted to be on the ground I wanted to be in operations I wanted to be face of the customers I wanted to make all this stuff happen mhm but to where we are now yeah John was able to come in and when we partnered up I mean he was at a big you know corporation that he had and things he had

systems and stuff put in place he knew how to build it to all right it’s three all right look we’re going to six now we’re going to 12 you know he had all of that he was able to show me that path forward you know to be able to put things in place for us to be able to scale where we are today so I mean that’s where I think on our job our roles in the sh works that’s where I look at it you know once we’re every every single day we talk about decisions and things like that we’re you know it’s not just a one path this is all you do you know type deal so we’re we talk on a daily basis I think yeah and I think one of the things that you know Blake and I both have in common is that I got started sleep on the floor at our first landfill for months on airbud you know and so when you start like that where you’re just I mean literally living in the operation I mean you just you learn the ins and the outs and so

you know Blake is a phenomenal operations guy and you know I enjoy I enjoy the operations world but honestly the scaling part is the part that I really enjoy the most and so it’s been awesome I mean Blake’s done a Just Killer job getting out there getting our name out there and just performing on the work because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how good you are at systems and processes and marketing and any of that I mean it comes down to it you got to you got to just do the work you got to cut the scrap you know it’s all about tons in and tons out and so that’s where you it’s it’s a great partnership between the two of us and I think that there’s a support mechanism that all those underline the marketing and the this and the that but the reality of it is the customer only sees did you get done which a what you said you’re going to get done Y and B did you you know did you perform and and and and at like what level of in Integrity honesty and all

those things right and I think even for me like I do podcast like mostly with people I do business with or I have a relationship with or like I have some interest in trying to figure out what they’re doing or how they’re doing something but that was probably even my biggest hurdle to get over was like so you’re going to come in here you’re going to charge me x amount of money per day and you’re going to just cut and I got to trust you that you’re going to cut for me that’s right yeah and I was like I was like and we T we went back for for a while I was like how many tons do you think you can cut and I’m like this kind of iron like this you know like and it’s a like it’s a unique hurdle to get over because it’s our industry is old school right but like there things are changing like mindsets are changing like um there’s just a lot of things are moving and I think that’s one of them is like you know we talk about like a day rate a ton

rate uh you know and I’ve had guys come in and and run torching crews in our yard right outside torching Crews and they say oh we cut it for x amount of ton x amount of ton and I said okay and then they got four guys there then one day they got one guy there and then they got two guys that got going and you’re like even if I’m only getting if I’m getting a steal of a deal on the per ton basis it doesn’t do me any good because I’ve got space tied up I’ve got oxygen bleeding off I’ve got all these things the market moving the Market’s moving either you know one way or the other I’ve got more scrap coming in and so the when I think about it I’m like the per ton figures in but only if you got enough guys to keep up with the the flow the T the tons coming in so you can keep up with your trucks and the tons going out and and I think that’s kind of like something that our industry’s had to we talk about on the marketing side a

lot like as a as an industry we need to be better about marketing ourselves like all the positivity that we’re that we’re doing right for our local communities on the national level country like you know putting news putting recycled steel back into the system but I think there’s a few other things that have to be kind of thought through and it’s like uptime right Sak and I have this conversation all the time like what’s one of Sierra’s biggest advantages like they’re Parts yeah for sure the Parts they they they I mean their machines are what they are for Dodge Chevy like we don’t make they don’t make a good truck but can you service that equipment can the part be there can I get back on the road can I get my equipment back up and running which is one thing you know that you guys have talked about you know I mean the just the the volume of parts that You’ stock for that reason right I mean give me a little bit of a a lay of the land on like on your shears and your parts and your you know your

service and kind of how that works for you well I know with you know we try to standardize what we basically run to make that Parts keeping a lot easier yeah you know we try to standardized equipment we standardized the shears that we run which is allow us no matter where we’re at you know we’re going to keep blades you know at our office I mean one time we’ve had 40 to 50 sets of blades on hand you know to be able to eliminate the down time we’ve got we’ve had cylinders swivels region blocks even shears available you know and when you go to somewhere if you’re trying to sell on the uptime you know hey this is we’re going to be we’re going to come in here and we’re going to process we’re going to have spare things that’s going to come with that machine as in a set of blades yeah you know and things like of course you can’t have everything equipment’s going to break you know so you’re definitely going to need those parts and one of the things that we try to do is to stock that stuff to

where you can get it there overnight maybe a day something like that to where you’re not down months at a time weeks at a time and things like that if we’re sitting there we go to a new customer and we put a machine out there and next thing you know we’re two days in and we’re sitting there down because of a region block or something like that well by the time we call try to get somewhere oh let me go and get it Shield nobody wins nobody’s winning in that yeah that’s exactly right we’re we’re not processing the scrap for the customer you know when it’s not look we’re not making money cuz we’re not working yeah you can’t bu you can’t build them for hours you’re not working absolutely absolutely so we try to keep the normal wear parts and stuff like that that we know just by the shears that we’ve been running the amount of shears you know we try to we got a system in place cuz we know what’s going to come we know in 3500 hours you better be getting that cylinder out to be able to get

it resealed you’re getting it out to resal we’re going to have another one put in there while that one’s going to be resealed yeah to eliminate the downtime because it it it sucks for everybody you know yeah 100% for us and the customer you’re not getting the tons process which they’re still bringing tons in if you’re not being able to process it for them to ship it out that’s tough on their end yeah 100% like you said nobody wins and the fact that a lot of people are like well at least I mean if they only cut 50 ton today then I guess I don’t only have to pay for 50 ton but you bought a 100 absolutely if you bought 100 ton and only 50 got cut now you got 50 and now you’re falling behind right and then all of a sudden you know I I heard I’ve heard it said you know J rovit says it you know at alter and I’ve heard George Adams say it we shred the ground every we want to shred to the ground every day we want to we want to sell against the market

we’re buying in right well it’s hard to sell against the market you’re buying in whether you’re a mill or a scrapyard or whatever if you can’t if your shit’s unprepared and I’d rather have a pile of prepared iron because I know if I can get trucks or rail cars you know that’s as good as gone right if that’s unprepared to sit there in a big ass pile that’s just dead money absolutely well the other thing you don’t want to do is have your buyers take their foot off the throttle buying scrap because you’re worried you can’t get it out the back door yeah and so you know just having confidence that you’re going to get the tons you’re going get the tons out like you’re talking about I it’s it’s huge it’s huge it’s the difference in you know maybe an extra 10% on the buy side that you have the confidence to actually pull the trigger on yeah especially I mean it nobody has a crystal ball on like where the market goes or like what’s going on but I mean ultimately if you’re not hedging which most people on the ferah side

are not hedging I mean so your your hedge is your ability to get material out the door right and and most as much as much as lot of us would like to believe the materials coming in prepared ready to go like that ain’t coming got like that’s why we have all the equipment we do but I mean much like I think about your business and if I’m wrong like don’t like don’t shoot me but um but still buy me dinner um I’ll buy you dinner but but if I mean but if it’s similar to like a reason why a trucking company has um we own trucks right we’re we’re a trucking company but I still use I don’t know we probably 20% of the loads outbound or we run through Brokers right so I still have the ability to move material but but I still bring in an outside Source because I can’t move all of it right so I feel like your guys’s business is kind of evolved to help you know you might have started with the smaller you know scrap processor you know the small metal recyclers and then you guys

have kind of started to move up the food chain a little bit into some of these you know larger outfits steel mills that need help on the processing side and has that really been like the Catalyst for your guys like growth lately yeah I mean I mean I would say it is I mean of course that’s you know like we talked about earlier you know that’s that’s a place that you want to you know everybody’s got goals yeah you know you want to set your goals you know and that’s our goal to be able to do to get to that point and we’ve gotten into that you know we got a few places that we’re doing that right now but in the end goal I mean that’s where it is to be able to work on the the larger volumes to be able to put our services out there to show that I know we can I know this is something that we can do this is something that we eat and breathe this is what we do it’s processing you know any material handling processing this is what we do across the board

and so I I think that that is I mean that’s the goal to where we’re trying to get to yeah absolutely I mean we love the longer term opportunities when they’re there and honestly they’re they are easier on us and the customer because mobilization is not insignificant when you’re talking about moving machines around the country so as our Footprints grown and we’ve had more machines available scattered around it gets a little bit easier you know you’re moving hopefully hopefully not everything’s coming from Birmingham Alabama yeah but uh but still mob’s a big deal and so the longer you know the longer we’re there the uh the easier it is to average that cost over tons I me really like for you guys the the where you guys provide I mean I say the the best service wherever you guys go you guys are going to provide you know a a great service but where your sweet spot really is is somebody is consistently bringing in pretty good volume of tons that need processed and whether it’s a say a steel mill for to be reprocessed or or say a larger volume yard who they

can put their buyers out there and say go buy the tons we know we can process them we can use some of our equipment over here on say the stationary Shear side and the shredder side we’ve got you know works over here processing cutting whatever extra tons you guys can bring in and it’s a it’s a consistency level right so you’re not having a mob yep correct that’s right yep for sure and I think like we talked about earlier you know you was asking you know where’s how do you fit into a situation like that you know if a yard’s buying 9,000 tons and they got the buyers out there but they got the capability of buying 12,000 tons yeah guess what we want to be you know we look at it as a partnership we want to try to get in there and lock arms he you can depend on us to get in there to help you get to where you can bring in 12,000 tons you know we want to be in there lock arms let’s get in there let’s get this out but it all starts with

trust you know once they get in there they trust the system that we doing they know hey okay these guys right here we know they’re going to get after it you know they’re going to get after so that puts all right buyers or whoever it may be might have customer that they used to deal with now they kind of H we can’t deal with it because we can’t get the material out you know that’s some of the things that you know I think that we can try to add value to a facility to help them process the tons or if it needs to be even on the burner side you know or a material handler you know we we run all of those type things to be able to help somebody to reach another goal that they’re trying to reach well we like to say we’re right sized I mean you’re right we started with you know really small local scrapyards yeah and but you know more than our more than half of our Revenue comes from onsite work at steel mills now um but we’ve also got customers that have a couple of

burners yeah you know in one location and that that works too there a custom fit operation for whatever that the customer needs it’s more of a custom dialed in no like there’s no plan a plan b or plan C and nothing else work 100% we really come in almost like Consultants we come in they say here’s the problem we got you know Blake uh me you know some of our team will come in walk the yard look at the issue and figure out what is the what is the most optimal way to process that scrap what’s the right size machine what are the support needs that can be a huge deal for us just in how many tons you can get in and out is how well is it supported and so whether the yard or the the mill is going to support us themselves or we bring our own equipment in to support ourselves um you know we kind of come in there and just assess that whole thing and say this is what we think you need you what’s your goal how many tons do you need to get out yeah and

then we just kind of you know we rightsize the operation for whatever that goal is and the great news is we can scale it up and down a little bit too we come into a lot of situations where customers gotten really behind and for there’s a lot of reasons why they get behind but you know they’re behind and so we’ll throw a bunch of resources at it get them caught up to some level and then we can scale that back a little bit and try to keep you know a machine or two out there for the Long Haul yeah um but those are all you it’s all according to what customers TR Toom I think about it like the way the way like we quote a say A Car Crushing job right like let’s say there’s 20 loads of of car bodies there and my mind say okay and it’s the middle of the month I’m like okay I’m I’m trying to gauge my price off of how many cars I can Crush how many cars I can deliver to the shredder this month trying to figure out which way the Market’s going to

go so I know kind of give myself a buffer or if I know I can get all those cars out this month I know what I can pay and it’s probably I I’ll be more aggressive on the number which probably is going to give me a better shot of buying the scrap right so when I think about it like the difference say a buyer that can buy 10,000 ton and a buyer that say I can feel comfortable buying 12 or 14 because I know I can get those tons processed loaded on the ship or loaded by a rail whatever I can get them out then that’s a like a crazy advantage on the buy side yes like people think about the processing that what you guys do is is an advantage like on the cell side but like there is a really big advantage on the buy side because it’s a confidence level that you’re going to be able to get you know and like so let’s say if I show up and and you got a sheer two at my yard or or my uh my facility my meal and I’m like

okay I I I I’ve got XYZ I I got a big demo job coming up like I’m gonna get 5,000 ton extra this month for the next five months because I got this huge demo I got the bid on then you guys can bring in two three more shears set them down for the next months knowing I can get material 100% we’ve seen that with the steel mills too is that you know some of the Mills since we’ve been in there have been able to up the percentage of their own internal home scrap that they melt which helps them not have to go into the market and buy buy tons yeah which is a huge deal for them right but it’s a confidence thing too right I mean you they’re not going to run out of scrap and so it gives them the confidence to go you know what if we can move that you know move that needle up from 9% to 12% well that moves to for them cost wise having to go out and buy the tons instead of remelting for sure I that’s like that was kind of like

my like one of the reasons why I want to do this podcast more than anything was just because you guys do have like an interesting Niche like it’s that not a lot of people maybe understand or know or kind of understand like all the aspects and so that’s why I was like dude we need to people need to know like they need to know like this is even an available service but like what made you guys think that like what kind of like what was the light bul moment for you that you’re like hey like there’s something here that’s not getting done what was that thing or just just straight up like I just want to get a sh like I I I knew on uh you know when I first started you know I was like man there’s you know like I said I knew nothing about scrap it was Zero you know I we had yeah I had to cut it up oh it goes to the meal you know top deal so you know even when me and John got together you know me and John looked back you know I

know my part you know we sat there and look at you know I’m sitting there thinking man we had three I had three of them going would I ever thought were running 35 shares right now and fixing to add more and all that kind of stuff I looked back and I was like I knew it could be out there and me and John talk about it I said you know I knew we could do it cuz I knew there was something out there I knew that was a pain point that people had yeah you know I said but you know growing it the way we have right now I said I probably wouldn’t have thought we’d be to the point to where we are right now but that goes back to believing in what you’re doing you know and having a relationship locking arms and building trust I mean building trust with people I think is a big time to understand that you’re coming in there telling them about the services that you got and actually doing the work that you’re say you’re going to do yeah and I think that’s that’s my take

on it for sure was there like a light bulb moment for you like you said you kind of started putting some strs together there was you knew mean long yeah that was a long I mean you know back in in 2012 I did that but really I mean when Blake and I started cutting for these guys you go on site and you talk to the customers and I think what what I realized was there were some very large Mill service companies out there four or five of them and they were really good at processing slag and that was kind of the world they played in and scrap metal was in processing the scrap seemed to kind of be an ancillary thing for them mhm M then there were some smaller operations that had some burners maybe a few shears but there was kind of this middle there’s this middle territory where nobody really seemed to either have the expertise maybe the smaller guys had some expertise but they couldn’t scale to the bigger opportunities and the big guys this was kind of an afterthought for them and so we would go in and almost

every yard that we would go to somebody was unhappy with their processing and you know we just I don’t know it it I don’t think there was any big Epiphany but it was just the more we did the more he R you know there there is there was an opportunity in the market for a high quality service provider for sure and so we just started small we’re like you know what for us to do this and to do it really well like we’re going to have a good name like there’s an old proverb that says the good name is better than great riches yeah and like we were like we’re going to do this and we’re going to have a good name doing it and if we can’t do it really well we’re not going to do it at all and so we just we set our business model up that way like really early on and priced it that way and staffed it that way and and gave it a war with a few sheares and decided if it doesn’t work we’re going to go out of business quick and do something different

well and ultimately like I mean from 19 to say 24 I mean four years working on the fifth year as a partnership I assume I mean you guys have scaled depends on who you talk to I mean you can say exponentially quick or you guys have scaled at a pace that you guys can still do good work right and I think that I mean that speaks to I think it speaks to your relationship but it speaks to the the fact that you want to do good work that’s right that’s right 100% And I think that’s you know you could go and throw a lot of resources out at a lot of things but you want to throw the right resources to be able to do a good job you know Tope deal you know so I’ll I’ll agree with you there for sure I mean we grown at a pace to where I think we believed in what we were doing we knew it was a you know the process worked and we’ve been able to grow it you know we you’d get to a point say okay we either got to do something

or next thing you know all right let’s we move to the next level and we’ve just made a commitment that we’re not going to grow any faster than we can do it really well that’s right 100% And so yeah and we’ve that’s what we’ve kind of stuck to and plan to continue stick to there’s no reason to get ahead of ourselves on this thing no I I think I told I’ve said this to a lot of people I mean I and I’ve said it for a long time in this is why I was never afraid to put like what we were doing on social media because anybody can go buy a piece of property anybody can go buy all the fancy coggans and material handlers and shears and all the you want right and you set up right next door to me but you still got to beat me at what I’m good at which is doing what I said I’m going to do I got good people to run the equipment and if you can beat me at all that then you deserve to win but no no Quality Equipment is going to

beat me no you know better location is going to beat me at the end of the day like you got have all the things and then you got to have the people and the Integrity to back the deal up that’s right like that’s right 100% And that’s just like always you know people like well why don’t you get in this why don’t you get in this you know we stick to our lane that’s right you know this is what we do we we process scrap we run shears we process and handle scrap that’s what we do we don’t get all let’s try this let’s try that and all that kind of good stuff we stick to our lane and that’s what we do that’s what we eat breathe and sleep that’s right I mean every every week we have production meetings every Tuesday you know we have sales meeting after that you know we got every single thing that with systems put in place just to keep us on that path that production meeting is we go account by account and go well how was production did we hit our numbers yeah and so

we just keep everybody everybody in the company all the way down to the operators who are incentivized to hit hit their numbers all the you know from top to bottom focused on tons in and tons out yeah because that’s really like what you guys are hanging your hat on is because if you guys are going to kind of reverse the model and around I mean right I mean that’s truly what you’re doing is you’re saying like we don’t believe in the per ton because we believe in this is what we know we can do we’re going to put good equipment we’re going to put good guys and we’re going to get we’re going to process scrap right if you’re going to do that and you’re going to hang your hat on that then you better be damn good at what you do that’s right 100% the great news is like Blake said you know if you want a scrapyard you got to be good at a whole bunch of different things you got to just well you got to sell well you got to operate well you got to bail and all the things

you’re doing right for us this is all we do and you we we we process scrap metal and the things that support that process yep like you guys aren’t the Swiss army knife with a little baby scissors and a little tweez like you guys are exactly right get in there get after it n you the one night that sucker sharp and you’re like this is where we are we don’t have all the tools and every now then you got to put it on a wet Rock You Know for sure so that’s that’s sort of where we’re at you know and there’s there’s other things you know we do a lot of Mobile Job yeah you know uh Hey a company of uh that we do business with hey I got a job that’s coming up you know it might be 2 200 tons it’s an offsite job guess what they don’t want to their equipment’s on their processing at their yard you know hey guess what yeah they can go out and rent this rent that try to put operators in there I mean so we we help out on that side as well

you know hey we can go same with cutting rail cars yeah same with cutting rail cars we cut a lot of rail cars same exact thing you know we’ll go in there onsite wherever it is whatever the customer Blake if you got rail cars you want to sit there and cut them hey Blake this is size we want to cut hey get after it you know so we do that a lot too and U you know customers want to keep parts and things like that so whatever they want to keep whatever however they want to do it they’re going to pave the path for us hey this I want this this this and this that’s what we’re going to do yeah you know so that’s that’s some of the things that we do along with just trying to work at yards and things like that offsite jobs we’ll m in a material handler Shear burners Supply trucks whatever we need to do whatever the opportunity that presents itself right I mean it goes back to being a custom cutting operation absolutely it’s customized to fit I mean what what you can do absolutely and

there’s a lot of different things that I learn stuff every day you know there’s a lot of different opportunities and things that you can process that I years ago I didn’t even know what they were you know you s can y’all cut Ingot what’s Ingot you know next thing you know you look at a mix laab or something like that you know now we’ve we’ve done so much of it we use robotic torches to cut Ingot all the time yeah we have I mean we been versatile to be to basically keep stay open-minded you know what I mean we’re not say we can say we can do everything well we can go out to there and look at it and that’s where I like to go I like to walk the yard let’s see okay if you’re using burners for cutting this right here and I’m sitting there thinking goly you got four burners cutting right there and I’m sitting there running through the numbers hard four burners he’s doing gas oxygen burners and all that I’m sitting there running through the number I said a she can cut that easy yeah you

know now you’re eliminating the safety Factor we’re always going to have to have burners I mean everybody your’s not going to cut everything everybody knows that so you got to have run a bunch of things like that right I mean have to yeah we don’t well I mean we have a bunch of burners at Workforce yeah we own all the equipment the Torches all the that makes that world go around and it’s the same thing on the Torches side we’re not going to go out there one hose in the torch we’re going to have plenty of taals we’re going to have a backup torch we’re going to have backup hoses just to go to the up time we talked about yeah just to stay up and go and to be able to process scrap that’s what we’re there to do and that’s what we’re going to do so what’s the I mean I asked you this before but like what what difference you what differ differentiates you guys from the other guy that want the other meal service company I think I already know the answer but I because I think you just said

it but yeah I think it’s it’s the predictable uptime and it’s the tons in and tons out having the confidence that when we tell you we’re going to do something Integrity is a huge part of everything we do and you can know that we’re going to bring the right tool in for the job because we came in and we looked at your mat we didn’t just say hey look we’re a hammer looking for a nail we got a hammer to sell yeah maybe it’ll work for you you know we we’re going to take the right piece of equipment with the right people with the right training and we’re going to process what you got and get the tons out to meet the goals you got that’s right and we’re going to have the stuff to be able to back up what we’re sitting there to be able to tell you know what I mean just like what we talked about earlier we’re going to have all the other stuff that goes along with that you know we’re going to we’re going to put the stuff out there to make us the most successful that

we can be yeah you know to eliminate all the downtime that might come into play when something does go wrong that we’ve got redundancy there that’s you know to bring something else in and keep you going yeah and if it and you know we talked about this earlier it’s even if it cost us money yeah we’re going to do it I mean because that’s what we set out to be able to do I mean it’s a it’s a pride thing is what I look at you know if I sit there from day one when me and you talk I told you what I was going to do and we lived up to it you know it’s a pride thing on my end and I know it is on John for whatever we sell we’re going to lay out there it don’t matter if it cost us money to move something else there if it’s a failure on a piece of equipment equipment’s going to break down you know it’s going to happen for sure and if it’s something big and whatever we got to do even if it cost us Transportation we’re going to

do it we’re going to move stuff in there to keep this operation going and I think you you lived at firstand with us well I I I was going to say mine is like you’re the you’re the you’re the Bowie Knife Man like if you want cut like call you like at the end of the day like back to it for me is I I’m doing this podcast with you I kind of know your story but I enjoy like having everybody else like understand what you guys do because you didn’t know me from Adam and I didn’t know you from Adam and it just worked out that you had a Shear close to one of my yards that had a few thousand tons that needed cut and it we connected and it worked out everything you said you did you were going to do you did and more and so I’m like one of these days man I’m going get your ass on a podcast and it was like for two years I we’ve been like back and forth like I see you in Vegas at iy or Nashville I’m like yeah yeah we

getting done we getting done and now you made me drive all the way to go Birmingham Alabama to get it done but Nick and I made the trip and uh we’re happy we did but honestly guys like thank you for taking the time um I love doing this podcast because there’s so many pieces and like facets to our business that people like services or whatever that maybe people not even know exist out there right and some of the stuff I’ve lived firsthand some of it I’ve still learn about every day but you know I appreciate you guys taking the time and and been good friendship it’s been a good relationship and um this is this is what I love to do man man I appreciate it thanks for coming all the way appreciate you coming all the way down here Sor it’s it’s raining here but at least it’s not the white stuff for sure so we at least got your guys Southern you guys come up to our we got you out of that anyway so at least we’re in the 60s today so at least 60 we’ll be that’s exactly right but

I appreciate you AB appreciate what you do for us and hey likewise man and someday we’re going to we’re going to do we’re going to figure some have some more work for you if I can buy some scrap in these markets but I’m going to get it done might have talk Nick about that I know yeah as soon as he’s done uh doing a podcast we’ll actually go buy some scrap again but appreciate you guys do than thank you guys all right yes sir