foreign 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 we are the original recyclers no suits required just guts and hard work here is your host brett eckhart in this podcast i was able to sit down with john sacco the man who talked me into doing my first ever podcast i figured it was only fitting to get john to sit down on my podcast and flip the script on him and put him on the hot seat we talked family scrap business and life it was a good one take a listen are we popping these now yes wait until we start the vote this is the start of the podcast it’s official a scrap life i’m here with john sacco sierra friend equipment sales everything in between and guess what we’re going to sit here drink a beer or two and just talk scrap i love industry you know this first time i’ve been on the other side of a microphone in the podcasting world because i you know i know got a plug pile of

scrap real quick but brad i remember you being so reluctant to come on pile of scrap now look at you this is the most awesome office i’m so jealous i appreciate it man so the beer for two things the beer is a company out of california which is where you’re from absolutely you guys are out of vista california so they have a brewing uh facility in vista and they moved and built one a few years back in nampa idaho so i felt what better of a beer it’s an aluminum can beautiful perfect and one in napa idaho and one in uh california nice so it’s cold too well done on the cold beer thank you i love you yeah yeah yeah he does the uh the yeti does the trick so this kind of being one of our first scrap life podcasts you know first of all i want to say thank you you’re kind of the guy that got me in to doing the podcast um i was doing linkedin and doing some other social media stuff promoting our business and just trying to you know portray and show people my love for

the scrap industry i grew up in this industry i grew up in this business the trucking business the pipe business and uh i’ve always just kind of described kind of what i do it’s what i love um and you and i connect on linkedin yep you know we own a bunch of your equipment yes sir and we love that equipment and you and i started just conversing and you hit me up and said hey you want to be on a pile of crap and i was you could tell sorry i was pretty relaxed you didn’t want it you didn’t want to not but you also knew here was the thing about you brett darren doane who you know as well who darren has produced a lot of stuff for sierra for a lot of our content he he just would point out how much of an animal you were on linkedin and yeah and you are and you still are and you’re just incredible with what your information and so he goes let’s we gotta do brett eckhart i said okay i’ll call him back oh brett’s just kind of you know he’s not

sure he goes brett’s gonna do it brett will do it just stay on him and then you kind of call me he said okay yeah and then after the okay it’s like here you are and you’ve done recycle idaho now scrap but i’m telling you this is badass thank you this is so cool i called lindsay who’s the head of our marketing at sierra i said i want one of these yeah i want a podcast right i want a podcast but you always travel i go i don’t care i do solo podcasts yeah and i’ve been doing them at my house with my garden in the background but i’d like to have one at sierra because there’s sometimes i have a lot of thoughts mm-hmm i like to do it there and you know like if people want to come through that you want to see the 1100 in your yard and they want to see it operate and and obviously they’re in the scrap business or else they wouldn’t be looking at the 1100 you can just say hey let’s let’s let’s sit down let’s talk you could use it you could

not use it it could be a five minute podcast to be an hour podcast and maybe they just want to use it to promote their business maybe you want to maybe you guys both agree and it’s great and you go out and put it on you know i mean content yeah it’s a good let me ask you the driver how much has it helped your business can you measure it or can you just feel it i can feel it you know what i love about it is take away even the business side of it and you brought this up to me and i and it’s really hit home one of the last times you were in town and we were no we were talking on the phone and we were talking about uh camaraderie and just your your ability to get you know your guys and your gals on board and just everybody loving what they’re doing and appreciating taking pictures look look where i’m at today look what i’m doing look at the equipment i’m running look at this the stuff we’re handling today and then everybody they buy in into what you’ve

been trying to tell them like hey the scrap business is a lifestyle it’s it’s the industry we operate in and it may not be for everybody but what it is it’s something that you can all do together have fun and just it’s like team sports why i love team sports so much because that’s what it is but that that social media aspect helps everybody kind of put their two cents in and it drives the bus for your business from a culture standpoint if you’re doing it the right way and if you really believe if you truly believe in what you’re doing i think that comes through if you don’t believe you can you see posts on linkedin where somebody’s just doing it to try and they’re just uh yeah i just you know we’re we’re open for business if you want to come by like right you know no energy behind it yeah let me ask you this because when i tell a story when i first started posting it was january of 2019 by february 5th everybody in my company wanted to shoot me yeah okay they just thought it was embarrassing and

five days later we sold a baler because of a post yeah how about you when you started i curious you know for me what was what’s pretty cool is i’ve been able because you know we’re we’re in idaho and we like to think we run a pretty good operation and but you know because where we’re at you know you may not get the exposure that some of your the bigger companies get or we’re at where you know depend on what you what you know we don’t have any big shredders or crazy big operations we’re just kind of you know we’re pretty compact we’re spread out and we just try and you know do it our way and do and do it the right way but i’ve been able to identify a bunch of opportunities of material to sell people to i you know i post material for sale a lot and um equipment that we’re using and what we’re doing so i’ve really been able to identify just a bunch of different connections that that are like ancillary bolt-on pieces of our business that are really been able to help you know drive

you know all the stuff around our business so it’s not even just you know is it making your sales go up a crazy amount not as much as you know i mean we’re we’re sales driven because we’re a commodities business but we’re also super relationship driven which is your brand now yeah which is which is big so you know one reason you know when i talked to you the other day and i was like hey man we got i want to get you on you got me into this like you’re gonna have to pay the piper now right so i’m like it’s official yeah i couldn’t wait to get here what are you talking about you’re gonna have to come to idaho and we’re gonna shoot a scrap life because the scrap industry is it’s a way of life it’s a it’s super important to to me my family my friends you know everybody that works with us and for us and i want to find real scrap guys real scrap gals like people that the scrap industry has changed their life like or made their life better or maybe people that didn’t even

think that they were going to be in the scrap business and somehow just ended up in it and then it’s just like oh i’m glad i found this and i have two friends who aren’t in the business but they’re in the business because they um they’d love to describe it darren don’t okay darren you know incredible production creative agency he loves to scrap business it’s in his blood he doesn’t process a pound of scrap yeah but he loves it jason shanker the economist okay prestige uh prestige economics mm-hmm dude loves scratching us it’s just funny it’s he’s never processed a pound ship but he loves it but once he found the people and he found the way in he’s like oh this is this is good the people are good i mean there’s something there’s something here so why don’t you give us a little background on your family sure and just kind of how how the hell you end up in the scrap business you personally yeah well it’s it’s kind of interesting in a lot of different ways first my dad after world war ii he had a his best friend

uh that he met during world war ii a guy named morris rosenberg he was from brooklyn new york my dad an immigrant from italy was in in new york and north bergen new jersey then and they enlist in 1942 and when they got out his buddy got out of a world war ii um in early or late 1945 and my dad got out on february 3rd 1946 why i remember february third i was born on february 3rd so it’s kind of a trip yeah uh so they got out and they went out in california they got on army transport which you could fly free and went out to air base out in hanford california and you know big produce area with the central valley of california and somehow they got into the bag business and they moved from hanford to bakersfield which was the big city from it was fresno bakersfield and hanford was in between and so they moved to bakersfield with opportunity was it which is closer to l.a so bag like burlap burlap bags use burlap bags for potato bags onion bags old uh bagging we used to get for

coffee bean bags you know from the brazilian coffee bag the cocoa bean bags from nestle and for the people who probably so because you guys are big ag over there in california huge people think about california la san diego they forget about how and you and i were talking about this earlier today how much ag is over there so you start going back to the bag business that was a big well the agonist well still is i mean in the central valley from bakersfield way up to sacramento and the san joaquin valley is just it’s the bread basket i mean it’s producing so much of the food that is distributed all over the the world from table grapes to carrots to lettuces your your row crops your tomatoes which was row cup peppers uh potatoes onions and then they have a lot of tree fruit and table grapes pistachios almonds you know all your melons it’s it’s amazing amount of produce that comes out of san joaquin so back to what happened was is when my dad and his partner would go out to these old the farms and buy up their used burlap

bags if they traded burlap bags used bags it’s a form of recycling you know but it was it wasn’t metal yeah and they’d go out to the farms and they’d have used radiators and use batteries and my dad tells us always told us the story is that he you bought batteries truck batteries at the time for a dollar apiece and so he offered this one guy yeah you know um we buy batteries and then he goes how much the guy farmer goes well how much you pay he goes a dollar he goes yeah but this one’s no good my dad said okay 50 cents he was going to pay him for a dollar yeah because well you know i’ll give you 50 cents and so started okay now not only were you buying bags you’re buying radiators then you’re buying batteries and then we had all this land at sierra and bakersfield this back acreage uh that really was just dirt and we had some auto parts and but then that got us involved into uh scrap and in 1959 we started the scrap business i wasn’t born but that’s you know so we

celebrated our 60 years in scrap metal and recyclables we do because we do paper and some plastics and of course all the non-ferrous and all the iron grades yes so what year did he did he immigrate he came to america in 1935 as a 13 year old boy from southern town southern italy a little in the region of basilicata which was by calabria it’s not sicily it’s just the southern part and came to america from montemoro in 1935. you know what i love about like like the immigration stories people that is i think right now what’s going on and there’s there’s a lot of challenges going on in the society right now but people forget that there’s a lot of people that still want to come to this country as there’s there’s a lot of people out there that are upset that they’re here and the way that they they perceive they’re getting treated and and there’s and some of them are justifiably upset but there’s a lot of people that still want to come here and they’re trying to come here because no matter how bad you think it might be there’s

a lot of people in a lot of country out there that have it even worse and you don’t have the opportunity that that people like your dad saw you know and he came up here at 13. his father his father came to america for the first time in 1911 and that he would bounce back from new york to italy new york to italy and um eventually you know 1935 was the height of the depression but italy was dead okay there was nothing happening especially in south and today there’s a huge dynamic in italy the northern part of italy is an industrial powerhouse yeah southern italy from okay now you have a lot of tourism but you go to a lot of these villa there is no industry okay there there’s still you have like before covet 19 okay you had like 20 something percent unemployment in the south two percent unemployment in the north yeah wow and so terrain also southern italy is super hilly uh very difficult to build a 100 000 square foot factory or a million square foot amazon warehouse right northern italy there’s that certain zone and it’s flat i

mean there’s still mountains but there’s a lot of flat land and that’s where a lot of their uh factories are you know again like take ferrari for instance you know it’s a handmade vehicle but that’s all up in northern italy a lot of your cnc equipment is made in uh by lake como in a town called varese there’s a lot of that there’s a lot of equipment coming in italy a lot of different industries food packaging uh cnc equipment for manufacturing and and of course the shears and the portable balers that we sell now we manufacture the two rams in georgia but we got that coming in so anyway so back to my dad’s story so when they started getting scrap and they got into the scrap we’ve had aggregate packaging we did cotton bagging and ties uh california used to bail two and a half million bales a year or grow and bale two and a half million bales a year of cotton and we supplied them all the burlap bagging and this the wire and the bands that would go around those bales the old fat now today it’s it’s a polypropylene

that covers it but it used to be burlap yeah and um so this is in the this is in the 50s this is in the 50s and it grew into the 60s and in the 70s i would say early 70s it was probably the height of the the cotton industry and as far then we sold into arizona bagging and ties but california the west side the water got real expensive baling cotton or growing cotton became unprofitable started shrinking you had a lot of this was the first time you had a lot of bagging coming in from asia okay complete bagging okay and you were competing as an american manufacturer of bagging we couldn’t compete so we got out of that we had the scrap metal yard and we got out of that in 1987. 87 and then we started the equipment company so which is which is the whole i mean probably sierra is probably more in my opinion probably more well-known for the equipment you know but the the beauty of what you guys the way you guys have done it is you guys understand what the scrap guy fights so we

do what you do every day brett and when you that that slogan hits home because you know you you have an 1100 yard you have a material you have a non-ferrous two ram baylor like you all this all the equipment that you’re promoting and selling you’re also using so you can you’ve been able to work the kinks and do all that so how does a guy go from the bag business to then the scrap business to where now you’re an international equipment sales company okay so how that’s gotta be well it’s a pretty funny story in a lot of respects for me on a personal level my dad went to italy in 1983 okay i was in my senior year uh at usc university of southern california and so i came home one weekend and he’s showing me i’m gonna buy this baler i went what why are you buying a baler out of italy yeah well i timed it with my dad was a big guy about his watch timing things time time time and says it’s twice as fast as this american-made one okay whatever so he buys it and

so he brings it in and we have this big mountain of appliances and sheet iron so he starts bailing it now he has to sell the bales and his friend terry gluckoff was the uh buyer at justin’s still no oh yeah it was judson steele and so he invited him down because you guys see this new baler and of course everybody thought my dad was out of his mind what are you doing buying this baler from italy yeah so he gets going and and a couple people buy this baler from him okay now this is 1983 84 85 now in 1986 so he so just real quick so people started buying the baler they liked the bather that he had yeah and so then they came and saw it and they my dad sold it to him so he’s like oh yeah i could have got a job right the old i know a guy who can get you one of those so the the the the italian manufacturer who was in a small town in italy thought my dad was out of his mind you’re not going to sell these machines or southerners

he’s in northern italy okay and he he told my dad uh okay yeah you’re gonna have a distributorship if you sell two a year well we sell some years we sell well over a hundred units so it’s kind of funny from two to where it was so so here’s what but there was this ins interesting transition my dad’s partner 42 years wanted out the aggregate packaging he didn’t really care for the scrap business didn’t think the equipment business would mount to anything yeah and um so my dad’s selling sierra bag company and um so i’m not really into scrap i really wasn’t i was raised bailing burlap bags i ran the baler but for burlap bags in the summer okay and now i’m selling balers it’s just kind of nutty if you really think about it so there was big old upstroke baylor and we used to have to get inside it and push i always thought what if this thing automatically turned on but anyway yeah so it’s no lock out tagging yeah no no okay so in 1980 1986 um early 86 my dad’s process of buying out his partner and i

really didn’t feel like i had a home in the scrap side because i really didn’t understand it so i was filling out i had an application i was going to go go to hamburger university i was going to buy a mcdonald’s that was my goal i had to go to hamburger university first yeah so then my dad comes into my office and i got the application i’m filling it out had my deposit checked i mean this is a true story comes and looks over my cubicle and goes what did you take at usc and here’s a guy who never even finished high school right he goes marketing i go yeah so he throws the brochures of these bailers from medrumac on my desk and says well then market these bailers you couldn’t say anything i can’t say well dad i want to buy a mcdonald’s that wasn’t going to fly he just finished paying pretty big money for my education at the time and she says market these bailers that’s how it all started for me wow he got out we got out of aggregate packaging didn’t really know much about scrap look i’m

the least mechanical dude you’ve ever met i’m not that far behind you dude i don’t know in a car is yeah i’m not that yeah i’m not i’m not that far behind so but marketing was something i knew yeah it was just braille was marketing yeah business right right but not so uh that’s how it all started so with your dad so your dad had a business partner right right and his business partner was kind of like okay i’m good it was an age thing or just the business had resolution yeah it was it was both age aggregate packaging was diminishing uh our ability to compete against foreign man uh asian manufacturers of bags okay and he didn’t believe in the equipment he just thought yeah okay well because everybody thought my dad was crazy i remember mr masui who was the president of hugo new told my dad he goes oh what are you doing selling these machines you know it was a japanese accent my dad said he goes oh ben you’re crazy selling this and and the guys from moseley machinery try to my dad says well why don’t you guys

sell this and you guys say you’re in an equipment business mosley used to make shares and true rand baylor and uh i never found the letter but i remember ray newsom who was the president of mosley sent my dad a letter saying ah ben you know i’m sorry this bailer just won’t sell in america yeah of course yeah i mean what would your competitor say well but you know they had the rights to it they had the rights to do it’s like the people probably how about the record labels rape record label companies that turn down the beatles yeah okay they turned them down yeah there were several people who turned that band down and i don’t think they’re gonna make it well it’s all is like all in the eye of the beholder it’s like any business or any deal right it’s like if you have a certain thing and you’re like i can make that work i mean like what’s this beer worth well depends on if somebody really likes that beer or if they’re if that’s their flavor or not right the right guy it’s worth five dollars to the wrong

guy it’s not worth 10 cents my dad was a true believer brett he was a believer in the equipment and a believer that a small baler and then the sheer baylor combo sure baler logger combo was needed by small medium-sized scrap guys because back then really the big equipment manufacturers and only the big big yards could afford it so my dad saw this niche that nobody else saw and he attacked it and he believed and i came up my first ad was introducing the italian ingenuity that says arrivederci to the competition i sold equipment from that that’s awesome minute i guess i can market this stuff yeah yeah and so because my dad was such a believer and because he goes he knew the business and i knew some of the business but you know as you got going and you know you learned by operating every day as we do still you know you just learn so much that’s how it all got there and it just grew you know i just go so you guys are family business family business and start as a family business still a family business absolutely

and that’s what a lot of this industry is is family businesses and it’s not i mean there’s a lot of you know there’s a lot of corporate you know there’s some big publicly traded companies out there but you know if you went nationwide and even if you start going into other countries you start to realize it’s still small and primarily family-owned multi-generation family business and i think a lot of people take a lot of pride in that that that they are and i think i think you guys you guys do that same you know your your second second little phil who you know yeah and so you know a lot of the old uh scrap processor you know the original metal guys in america were predominantly jewish okay and then with some italians and some portuguese and then a couple randoms that’s how it was episode broke down and uh the old you know i learned this from traveling back in the early 80s when you so you when i traveled to a lot of these places where the the grandfather and the father were still in the business you know and

but they the the father who was second generation raised their kids to be doctors lawyers and other things okay and so a lot of those people all sudden their kids were successful lawyers and now they didn’t have an exit plan so that’s why you saw a lot of consolidation because there was also nobody to hand the business off to because they raised their kids to be doctors and lawyers and other things and they did but there’s still a lot even in your situation i mean you’re talking just talking about i mean you your dad was a scrap guy and equipment guy and you went to school and you’re gonna own a mcdonald’s until he kind of said hey yeah he didn’t yeah he if i guess ultimately if i wanted to i could have but look my dad gave me everything i had yeah i owe everything to my mother and father okay my father he was the man okay he was a dude he was an amazing man oh everything i did everything i ever got is from him and i’m in a similar boat and so there’s a sense there was a

sense of obligation and i don’t regret it what worked out pretty good it worked out real good yeah it’s worked out i mean and here’s the thing like not everybody’s blessed i always say like i was saying this to you earlier i’m was blessed with really good dna i got it my dad my mom it taught me how to go through good times bad times how to manage how to you know how to still have a life but still run a quality operation and so i mean not everybody’s blessed with great dna no and then my brother i i i failed to mention my brother i don’t know because i’m back to the family business okay let’s stay on it my my thing is is in your situation i was born with a sister who want to be a school teacher so i’m it’s me as far as a family business um and i what i call basically that my work brothers guys that i’ve hired that i’ve known because i didn’t have any brothers and my sister want to be a schoolteacher and she’s a great school teacher my wife’s a school teacher

it’s in their blood that’s what they know and they love it and i have more power to them so you have an older brother yes i have two older brothers in the business one in the business so give me a little background on phil okay and kind of how you guys have found a way to operate a family business because that’s a tough dynamic a family and business together especially with brothers you guys found a way to to do it well that’s how smart my dad was because see like i said when i say i owe everything to my dad is because when we started the equipment company in 86 we still had the scrap business right so my dad put my brother in charge of the scrap metal business put me in charge of the equipment business separation of duties yeah i you know and the one thing about my brother philip is the most loyal and honest human i mean the best business partner you could have i mean there’s is you talk about getting back so phil you know he ran the scrap yard i ran the equipment business um and

you know for how many years now since 86 what are we 34 years now doing this so blessed to have the training and the tutelage of my father until he passed away cancer in 2009 and he was there every day in the office okay he my dad died at 87 but he was the youngest 87 year old you ever met dude was just full of it man the dude you had more i mean if you traveled with my dad he’d wear you out yeah oh he was go go go go go and uh so he was there every day so the blessings i’ve had i had from 86 to 2009 to have him every day in the office and his ability to you know teach advise and also gave me the reins yeah and he gave my brother the reigns and so bless and so because philip and i had separations of duties if you will never had any never had an issue does it give you guys the opportunity to kind of feed off each other so like maybe let’s say there’s some years when the equipment sales are dynamite and there’s some

years like you get that 06 to 08 run where i mean you know scraps dynamite but obviously when scrap’s good that’s when equipment’s getting boss so then everybody’s absolutely 100 and we have fed off each other the equipment company grew to be it’s about three to four times the size of the scrap company but you know there’s challenges during bad times obviously there but in the end it was a supportive thing he supported me because i had to get out and travel and he had to stay behind yeah i became uh off you know i got involved with israel the institute of scrap recycling industries and became an office that became chairman i needed his support without my brother supporting me because there was a lot of time i had to be out of the office doing israeli work right yeah but there he was there so i was i am blessed to have to have a partner and my brother phillip because we’re 50 50 on the scrap yard 50 50 and the quaint company okay well in that way that there’s that way if you’re winning he’s winning and if he’s winning

you’re winning absolutely and it gives you that i mean that’s why if you’re ever to do a joint venture i mean i go back to like our joint venture days when we were we were a joint venture partner with schnitzer right right and which people you know when we when we joint venture partner with schinser they were not a publicly traded company you know that was when dr leonard was still there and terry glueckoff and jim goodrich they put that deal together which you guys you know terry glue very well yeah and they put that they kind of manufacture and put that deal together and when they did it it was a 50 50 joint venture so if you’re winning we’re winning vice versa that that support was was there you know when we when when they gave us the opportunity to buy our 50 percent back um in 2016 um at the height at the bottom i call it yeah exactly yeah the height of the bottom you know and and i i think a lot of people for that you know kirshman and henderson and man just a lot of people that

that were able to kind of push that through and help us become a hundred percent family-owned business again um you know when i go back and i think about you know you and your brother and a family owned and have that 50 50 to where you’re cheering each other on not saying oh what’s your cut i’m 75 25 or i’m half in half out you know i mean that’s where you get those those real wins yeah it is well we we and because we had the separate because you had the completely different he had to run the scrappy either right you can’t do both okay and i think that’s where the win-win came and and again another huge blessing was the genius of my father who figured man put you over here and put you over here this will work out good yeah and it did it’s worked out amazing i mean so your your dad when you say he came to the office every day or you know up until he turned 87 or whatever that was right at what point how old were you when he kind of gave you

the reigns yeah i’m gonna show up here every day but what how at what point was he basically like i’m gonna show up and if you have a question give me a call um but until if you unless you call me i’m just gonna let you make the best decision you can make gosh that’s really hard to say win because my dad always had we called it a grip i mean he he he he always knew what was going on he let me run day to day from almost from the very start okay and you know the numbers always proved out whether i was doing my job right yeah yeah the financials always proved whether yeah what was happening the numbers um but he was like say he was just so great he you know my dad had a saying give enough give give somebody enough rope they’ll hang themselves and so he kept giving me rope i didn’t hang myself he kept giving me more i guess so it’s it’s you know it’s hard to say i would think in the last few years of his life was when he the last year

of his life before he got cancer was i think ultimately when he finally did this let go and then of course when he got diagnosed with cancer he died five months after that um and it’s interesting and why because you bring up an interesting question the relationship when he was dying of cancer we never talked about it he knew it i knew it never talked about it but i’d go visit him every day after work you know he was at home at that point and chemo just knocked the crud out of him and he had to stop chemo because it was one of the other was going to kill him yeah might as well try to have a quality of life for what remaining time so i’d go over there and he’d shoot everybody off and sit down he says okay have you done this done have you done this done don’t forget about this okay this and we would go through this checklist we never talked about death but i think he he knew i could do some of these things and that i was the guy he went to at the end

to make sure some of these little things had to get done and the stuff that didn’t have anything with work it was just some of them had to do well i mean some did but there was other stuff that was just tidying up all the loose all these little loose ends had to be taken care of and uh we talked about that i’d go anyways all right okay not go go back and report okay this is done good good yeah yeah it’s and and the reason i asked that question is because you know my dad you know my dad’s retired and my mom and dad are both retired and i think about like how blessed i am because you you get these small family-owned businesses and even if it’s scrap business or scrap industry or not and they their parents have a really hard time getting out of the way so even though your father was involved he still got out of your way and let you build the business you know and i think about all the time with even with my with my story is i’ve my dad got was just

basically said hey here like go get it done like you’ve made enough good decisions at this point like i trust you you’re going to make some bad decisions but i think you’re going to make enough good ones so he gave me basically i you know i’ve heard it called like the air cover he gave me the air cover sure to run the business knowing that he was kind of sitting there you know like if i ever had a question if i ran into an issue i could be like hey what do you think about xyz and i think that’s a huge huge advantage i used my dad all the time for that right yeah that was that was the fascinating thing when i look back at this and as i’m thinking as you asked the question we’d go to my dad um my general sales manager and i will go oh dad you know what do you think about this and what do you think about that and this this and this and he was he was so right all the time that’s what’s so crazy yeah like how white he was just about

a lot of stuff do you think that’s experience or absolutely well he’s seen it before or he just kind of could see where the train was going or what he just had a gift yeah experience of course life experience this guy had been you know been in a war that creates a ton of uh opportunities he was never scared you know my dad was never scared yeah because i you know what i think this is this is i mean people have been in war or people that have been from underprivileged countries they’re not scared to go to zero they came from zero exactly and i think when you if you’re ever at the point where you’re afraid to go to zero you’ve gone too far right okay so and i i liken it too that this is if if you feel like you’re you’re so stretched that if going to zero is gonna break is gonna break you then you’ve gone too far so i always use my equilibrium equilibrium as what where is my zero you know as you get older and you have kids and you have a family your zero moves

up where your obligations right correct but if you if you’ve come from a war-torn country or you’ve immigrated over you your zero is is significantly lower than a lot of other people so your ability to go to zero is it almost gives you that extra like what’s the worst that could happen i’m ready to go that’s just so spot on you couldn’t have said it any better there’s nothing to add you nailed it so with your dad i mean i think that’s you know that’s where he was he was never scared and he believed the other side is he believed in himself his ability to build a business he believed in the product and he believed that he had generations you know he had kids coming that were that are ready to that he could you you might have to force your hand a little bit but you’re ready to go like so you take over and and build you know you’re a coach okay yeah you coach your kids and i’ve i love coaching so and the reason i bring this up is how many times you’ve told your kids or whoever

you is on it you got to believe get up here you’re going to hit this ball but you got to believe you’re going to hit this ball yeah my dad believed we were going to be successful in the machinery business because he knew enough to know that what the product we had was good he believed we should start manufacturing two ram balers which we we built the factory he never got to see it it was completed in october 2008 at the height of the bottom never got to see the factory we built because he in january he got diagnosed with cancer and so he never saw it but he believed that that’s where we needed to be we need to be building two ramblers unafraid you know for me it was like whoa geez this big investment oh my goodness yeah how many people can you sell these two there’s a lot of our customers what are you afraid about huh you know i you know how many times what are you afraid about you’re like hey cause you’re like well i’m looking at these numbers and they’re pretty big and you know there’s

a lot of debt here involved and to get this thing going and then you start running them and so who on the was your dad also an accountant was it was he also on the accounting side or did you guys have you know was your mother ever involved in the business my mother was never involved she uh she raised five children that was tough enough as it is that’s a job my dad just had an immense amount of common sense he always used to say his left pocket was accounts receivable his right pocket was accounts payable and his back pocket was net cash yeah okay so if one started outweighing the other he needed a balance he knew he knew he just knew he he he understood inventory receivables and payables he understood that which i mean going back to you know school and whatever else you can all the geometry and trigonometry in the world but i think what the world lacks to a certain extent is basic math especially when it comes to business payables receivables and net cash that’s all pluses and minus that that’s not we’re not we’re not solving

no you know we’re not building skyscrapers no and then having to know workloads on the beam at floor 88 yeah it’s it’s what’s what do you have coming in what do you have going out and what’s it going to take to get to the next the next step my dad just had that amazing ability to know that just like some of the old old-timers man they’re all the old-timers in this industry and like you say you talk about family bret how many of the old-timers barely finished high school yeah and ran some pretty doggone successful businesses oh yeah i mean my grandpa had fifth grade education and you know was able to kind of was able to build a business you know and then my gran my dad came along with a high school education and built a bigger business and i i think about that and you know this big push to go to college whatever else to each its own i mean that’s that’s you know if that that’s what you want to do that that’s on you um but it’s not necessary you it but it does take

a lot of hustle it does take a lot of grit which is kind of what i’ve always said about the scrap industry is it takes a lot of hustle it takes a lot of grit it’s not easy it’s like that i put a post out the other day if it was easy everybody would do it right it’s not easy i mean the torch cut iron to go take a 500 000 loan out on a piece of equipment hope you can buy enough scrap to feed it i mean stuff like that i mean it takes a a fairly big sometimes big cojones to actually step up and say all right i think i believed myself to build a business big enough to to do it i was my dad he like said he believed he he never doubted do you think his your business the business partner the ex business partner ever looked back and was regretted no he was he was tired okay he was old uh not old in age mind you my dad started we started the equipment company when my dad was 65 years old okay most people at 65 are

called the parachute cord right yeah so his partner was a year older he was 66 he wasn’t in the best of health and it was just you know it’s time to you know it’s a it’s a fascinating question because a few months before his old partner died he called me i stayed in contact with him he would call me it was one christmas eve he called me and we were talking and he told me something that i’ll never forget so told me he was proud of me he told me i knew that equipment was good he goes but i just he goes i was old tired i couldn’t do it but you know he was we were talking about the good times because my dad and him actually lived next door to each other and we talked about how we played softball in the street we were talking about all these good times how we played golf together and he says i guess he goes you know you always remember the good times john he said and he says i guess it’s some form of self-preservation he didn’t regret it he he needed

to get out yeah his health his health failed he passed away and he was either 89 or 90. so you know it wasn’t but a few years after we after he sold out that he passed away from cancer and um no he didn’t regret it but when he told me he was proud of me that that was uh that’s cool yeah he was a good man yeah he was a mensch okay he he was a good dude he he he was a he was a good man he just was a good man my dad’s old partner no wonder they had mind you they were business partners for 42 years and you don’t stay partners with somebody that long whether it’s family members or somebody unless there’s something there yeah you have a lot of trust and just a lot of faith in each other that each person is pulling their weight and there’s a reason why you’re both still you know you’re both still going right i mean if you’re partnered with somebody for 40 something years i mean we were partners with schnitzer for 20 years and you look back and you’re like

there’s some good times there’s some bad times that you always figured out a way to work it out you know 20 years is a long time that’s just the same i remember when all that happened that just for you to say 20 years it doesn’t seem just shy i was 97 when we were back when we bought um when we stitcher bought 50 of united metals at the time that was when uh terry glueckoff and jim goodrich were with schnitzer and we were um part of the deal was we bought a sierra shear 700 the stationary that we looked at today put the we they gave us enough money to buy the sierra shear they gave us some cash flow to buy scrap to feed it and that was their purchase of 50 of the business which is what retired my grandfather so that was our first experience with sierra shear via terry and terry glukov was the guy who first saw the baylor and says i know somebody who could buy it was his brother yeah it’s just crazy how this all comes full circle i know and then here you and i

are sitting here talking about it and i think that’s that’s what’s cool about the scrap industry is it’s not so big that we can’t have that conversation like oh this is how this worked you know this guy this guy you know it’s not that the industry is i mean it’s it’s a lot bigger than most people know that’s a huge interest yeah but it’s still small enough because it’s so many family-owned operations and businesses that are all fairly intertwined the recycling industry as a whole metal paper and all the other things 70 billion a year industry in the united states yeah yeah that’s big the number one export item in california by weight is recyclables now ag products are the number one dollar value yeah weight number one is recyclables yeah and and there for a long time it was recyclables and then it was even trash i mean we you know there was it was kind of both and then obviously that’s kind of slowed down we figured out a way to process more of that what we used to be just trash and now we found a way to turn into

a recyclable which is definitely what kind of increases that volume yeah our industry is from from the metals to all the different items that recycling has gone to i mean you and i are metal guys okay for the most part you know that’s that’s kind of so we cut cut our teeth i mean you cut your teeth and i’m still that’s that’s my jam you know the first piece of equipment i ever operated was a broom my dad made me sweet you know that was it yeah yeah it was if there’s a time for leaning there’s a time for cleaning yeah it was the old uh the old saying so when you last time you were here you you asked me the question and so i think it’s i it’s only fair that i you know like return the favor is so you ask me about my boys right right you say hey what about your boys you know your third generation what do you think and i basically i think you know my answer was at the time and i think still is is i’m just going to kind of let them do

what they think is best you know i’m not going to push them one way or the other i’m going to show them what this industry has to offer and if that works for them great if it doesn’t then i want them to live their life all right you have two kids i have a daughter 21. okay son 17. so my question to you is you have a family-owned business you’ve got a you’ve got a brother involved who has a son right that basically works for you and on the equipment side correct and how do you see that going for you guys in your family business you know this for me okay i had kids late um my son is going to be 18 here in july i am 58 so i’m 40 years older than my dad was 40 years older than me he’s a really good golfer and i want him to follow his dream of trying to play pro golf that’s a dream but he there’s something there he has something that makes me believe as a father he can do it i don’t know why maybe it’s they say oh

you live in vicaria so you’re son but there’s something there my daughter and so i want him to follow that dream first my daughter’s 21 she’s going to be a senior at usc and she’s a big city girl okay and she’s she’s one of her girlfriends told me last summer when she interned with me says giovanna’s hardcore and i didn’t really know how to do that you’re like who is that good good or bad but she’s tough yeah she’s that’s good tough ladies so she has an interest okay that’s a compliment yeah no no it really is she’s uh she has an internship this summer with boeing and but she likes the big city um and i want her to follow her dreams my dream is for my kids to follow their dreams yeah of course every parent wants their kid to be what happy right so i’m not going anywhere little phil is you know my my uh my nephew is he’s such a great kid he’s a good dude he’s he’s really how i i mean kind of other than linkedin started interacting with you but i really spent the most of

my time interacting with phil yeah i enjoy the out of hanging out there yeah little phil’s just he’s a great kid and so and he and my son and my daughter really they’re like brother and sister they really as cousins first cousins they’re just they love each other um so it’s too early yeah it’s too early my daughter i know has no interest in the business as it is now if she came to me and said what up absolutely come on in she’s come she worked with me in the marketing department last year she’s the one who started the the the podcast she was behind the scenes to figure out how to get the logo done with lindsey and and bridget they got how to how to do everything to get everything ready so i could actually have a podcast because you just don’t put out a podcast yeah oh yeah there’s not nothing to get on spotify and apple you have to uh itunes you you have to uh there’s some things you got to do and jovana really did that so my son um we’ll see now he’s worked down there at

sierra in the summer and he works in the parks department he works real hard yeah but you know we’ll see what happens i i don’t put the expectations that you’re coming in here yeah i’m the same way like so you and i see the eye like i don’t i mean obviously my kids are a little bit younger but i’m i’m i have zero expectations other than for them to be happy but i also don’t want them to i also don’t want to clear so many obstacles for them that they don’t know how to clear the obstacles themselves i yeah and there’s like they gotta learn to do things themselves yeah there’s like a sweet spot in there of you know i want them to be able to clear some of their own obstacles giovanna is a high jumper when you talk about clearing hurdles that girl can she had she’s worked an internship in berlin last summer she’s worked in the year summer before internship in dc she was a semester abroad and had to come home because of co-vid 19 which really was a disaster for her i really feel bad she

she she’s hugely competent in traveling so i think she’s she’s going to end up in a big corporation doing big things i really do yeah or she might start her own thing but i see geo really working in a big corporation traveling the world and being big yeah and you never know like i always say like people change like you could get to 25 8 20 or 29 30 years old whatever that age is and be like you know i i want to go back home i want to i want to run that gig it happens it could be you know and you might and it might catch you out of the blue or it might be like i’m good dad you look like you’re having fun keep grinding keep doing what you’re doing like i’m not coming back to rescue you like bakersfield isn’t exactly the greatest place uh the most exciting place if you will especially if you like the city yeah geo loves big city yeah and uh your son is still he’s he’s definitely you know he john carl was a very laid back dude he’s he and little phil

are a lot alike with their their their personalities yeah john carlo everybody loves john he’s just one of those guys people like because he’s just got a lay he’s very laid back very intense when he competes yeah but he’s a very laid back kid and he’s got a great brain he’s a negotiator i mean he he teaches me things about he kid knows how to negotiate already yeah tell you get that because i’m the worst but little phil mate has made his way into the industry yeah you know little phil you know a little like little phil and john carlo have a lot in common so they’re a lot they’re a lot alike and they’re how old because phil is little phil turned on june 2nd little phil turned 32 years old oh he’s yeah okay and so carl’s gonna be 18. there’s this big gap yeah but they love each other and they get along with each other and they they went fishing together your older brother younger brother i don’t see it or they are no they’re too far the age is too far apart little phil loves john carlin and john

carl kind of worships him and there’s this relationship uh where little phil does nurture john carlo and uh so it’s it’s a really solid relationship that’s good it’s good it’s a really it’s a really good one i i tell you straight so hey we’ll see what happens brad it’s a fair question yeah i just don’t know and it’s early and yeah if you had the crystal ball then then we would we wouldn’t be selling scrap every day for them but we had a crystal ball i don’t think we’d be even sitting here today exactly exactly so if i mean the last thing is for me is i mean from the scrap industry is hugely important to me and obviously it’s hugely important to you it’s so important to you that you know you’re involved in misery and obviously your own deal with sierra and scrap business as well not just equipment but if you i mean if you had to give anybody you know some piece of advice it might be just what it what does the scrap industry mean to you and what has it taught you and like if there was one

big takeaway from just from the industry as a whole like what what’s like what really resonates with it it takes toughness okay that’s one of the things but my dad i’m gonna go back to something that the scrap industry has my dad talk told me and i would tell anybody it it’s about your word without your word on her you got nothing he said boys he told me when we sat down we got involved he goes you know you you can screw the scrap guy one time but that’s all you get and you’re done and my word my advice to anybody who enters this business just do what you say you’re going to do and you can be very successful by being straight being honest if you’re going to tell somebody you’re going to buy their material and pay them you buy the material and you pay them so my advice is in this industry your word is your bond and without it you cannot succeed in this industry cannot and that’s i mean that’s great advice in the fact that it’s still pretty old school i mean you still do with a lot

of old school people that there’s a lot of handshake deals and you know i’ve heard you discuss them on podcasts and there’s very many handshake deals that are still being done but on scrap on the scrap business trading scrap there’s a lot of handshake deals there’s a ton of handshake deals that get done because people say if i told you i’m going to do it if i even if i had to sell my house to get it done i already told you i was going to do and i committed to doing it and i’m going to do it i mean it’s a great industry look we are suppliers of we’re an essential business supplying raw materials to critical manufacturing yep steel industry packaging industry medical supplies without copper without aluminum steel paper how do you package take a ventilator okay covet 19. okay well there’s electronics in that well you need copper right and you got to package that when you finish building it right there’s plastic in it right they’re steel probably on a steel roller aluminum a little ton of aluminum in those ventilators so think about it yeah without our industry

that stuff doesn’t get made so our industry makes automobiles you can’t you can’t make anything without recyclables okay forget it now there’s some virgin materials sure but for the most part you can’t make any this aluminum can what’s it gonna be made out of aluminum yep so as far as an industry goes and the longevity of an industry as long as they’re making cars out of steel aluminum and stongs lights still use you know electricity still using copper as long as computers still have copper and aluminum and all the different metals in them and plastics in them our industry is going to be there yep and it’ll be more important than ever as the years go by well we can’t put it in the ground can’t we nope that’s not a solution besides we’re a commodity business we’re not a waste business we’re a commodity business our industry is going to last so if you can get into this industry and you have a word of honor and you work hard you can succeed i agree 100 percent that will end on that one right yeah brett thank you sir this is so awesome

to be on this side of the microphone and not asking all the questions we didn’t have the script we just went for it right on that’s awesome thank you man thank you for coming out this is awesome the effort man yeah i appreciate it and you got to drink a beer from a company that’s got a facility in california and in idaho and terry gluckoff’s son steve has a scrap yard in vista california oh yeah yeah he used to be in uh portland tacoma yeah yeah tacoma cowback and yeah grew up in fresno yeah all over the place small world map yeah right on brett thank you