foreign welcome to a scrap life a podcast solely focus 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 episode i connect with my buddy brad rudover detroit scrap via my first ever zoom podcast the two of us been talking about getting together to drink a couple pbrs in a can and do a podcast but kovitz messed that up so we had to go to zoom as he’s in canada and i’m in the u.s had a lot of fun shooting this with brad about his history in the scrap industry and his newest venture scrap university check it out first zoom episode of the scrap live i get the opportunity we’re gonna go international on this one i wore my american flag hat just for you bud um mr brad rudover detroit’s crap good morning man good to good to have you on oh man it’s uh it’s wonderful uh thank you for uh you know letting a foreign country onto your show uh

up here in canadia indiana uh i love it i love to get across the damn border because of this uh silliness that’s happening i know well we’ve been talking about doing a podcast for a while now and we’re kind of trying to be patient and do our thing and and kind of see if if we could wait this thing out and get together in person drink a couple of pbrs in a can but we’re set we’re about to settle for coffee and a zoom call and just try and do what we do a sign of the times if you will uh obviously hey when we when we connect in person it’s a it’s a lot of fun uh i think we’re both on that same level uh where we just enjoy our life and and you specifically blast it out every single day um it’s it’s wonderful seeing your messages of positivity i’m the same you know it’s like so so yeah obviously this in the future when we do this together in the same room crushing back pvr in a can people yeah aluminum cans no bottles and so so this is cool

hey sign of the times okay we’re in the middle of a pandemic okay we gotta deal with the technology that we have it’s wonderful the technology that we have yeah and you know the best part about all this new technology at some point somebody has to recycle it you know and that’s where we come in it’s key it’s key so yeah i mean more people are sitting at home using computers buying uh technology i mean all of that has metal you know like even the laptop that i’m on right now my macbook air is made of aluminum yes sir yes sir so brad just speak just for everybody’s sake and and probably as much for my own sake can you just give me a little bit of history on yourself you know how you know i always say you know part of the scrap life podcast is just finding people that are true blue scrap guys gals that like live and breathe the industry and truly have a passion for it so i know you you kind of have deep roots in the scrap industry and and that’s one thing you and i have

always connected on but can you give everybody this listening a little bit of background on you and you know and your scrap industry roots it’s like uh street cred you know yeah yeah man yeah 100 dog life scrap life you know it’s all uh intertwined uh yeah and that that’s right you know it was like so you and i have a very similar story you know and it’s like uh to find someone that was born on a bale of bright and shiny you know it’s uh it’s rare you know and so uh that i was uh tell you the truth never ever want to be in this industry man never ever um the way things ran in detroit i’ll tell you man it was it was it’s pretty gross you know like uh dog eat dog you know backstabbing it was like just i told my dad i’m like i want nothing to do with this business because i i’ll tell you brett i’ve been in so many dirty dingy warehouses in detroit yeah my dad’s included uh he’d have to go in packing you know legit every morning like my grandfather used to

go in to our warehouse he’d carry two different wallets okay one in his back pocket one up here okay in the event he got mugged he gives the one in his back pocket that has no cash in it right yeah so that’s the neighborhood i’m from that’s the scrap business that i knew and so i was like nah uh yeah this isn’t for me so the fact that you know we’re doing this today um it’s wonderful like that i was able to kind of move to the west coast and get reintroduced to a different vibe okay yeah and hey i have a lot of friends back in detroit that are in the scrap business and um you know they’re they’re doing their thing uh and the business has changed okay so you grew up in detroit downtown detroit area right in the heart of it um you know my dad’s warehouse instead of like a nice address on it or you know like you’d have like your brass maybe uh is spray paint just tagged with spray paint 411 fork street you know like i don’t know that just speaks to like where i’m

from and like it was just uh you know there’s so many stories that i can tell about you know guys filling up uh you know water beds and putting them in the back of their pickup truck and weighing on a scale and then popping them on their way in the yard yeah yeah yeah and that’s all i’m saying is like so i wasn’t even supposed to be here if you think about it and the fact that i was able to kind of go no i can see this industry is is really wonderful and i was able to get involved with you know a good organization um when i moved to the west coast like the davis family really let me kind of have full reign of the facility and i just said okay i’m going to take an academic approach to this now i’m not going to think like i’m in detroit okay let’s study this learn let’s just try and become the best at everything right basically become like a student of the game right like it’s uh you have to you know as things change and as the the industry change changes

you have to become a true student of the game to stay relevant you know you can’t the school way while it still exists to a certain extent for some people if you stay old school and you never change you never grow as a person as a business whatever it is you gotta continue to to develop well it’s funny that you mentioned that old school thinking is like i just had a call like a consulting call last week with a 100 year old company in new york and they’re just saying like we need to break out of our old ways of doing business and so i’m working with them to kind of bring them up to speed and so that was that was kind of the approach that i took brett is like i came out of you know college where i was studying and then i you know kind of just brought that same attitude into the scrap business i said well i just want to learn everything you know like and i guess i just assume that that’s how everybody does it like because it was like really my first per se job

and uh it turns out that that wasn’t the case most people were just punching the clock and hey you know like yeah yeah and so that was kind of interesting for me that i i just i wanted to learn every commodity i wanted to learn every piece of machinery i want to learn every process why so that i could then share that with others you know and so that was like just my whole career and it it really gave me great opportunities to get involved with um israel and then the canadian version is cary where i became the president of the bc chapter you know and like so yeah um talk about like a cool thing to do like i mean hey a lot of people have their have their way of saying like volunteering takes up your time and you’re not getting paid for it i’ll tell you volunteering has made my career has made my entire life it’s it’s profound it just goes to show you like to me or there’s two things when they say like rust when it gets in your veins like scrap gets in your veins early in

life no matter how much you want to shun the industry or whatever just because you didn’t like the way it was being operated where you were from it’s still found you found a way it found a way back in your bloodstream and you could you couldn’t get out of it you were stuck but that’s because you found a you know you found another mousetrap you found another way of doing business in the same industry that was more appealing to you because i think that there’s a lot of people that like the old-school way of scrap they like you know just the grit grind like the old-school way of of doing and i say like to if that’s your way of doing it and that’s you you feel like that’s your way of operating your business and that’s good for you by all means like keep doing it but you’re going to lose out some on some of the younger generation people that they like the industry they want to be in it but there’s more to it than just um handling everything manual and doing everything as basic as you would in

1960 there’s always a better way to do stuff it’s funny that you you mention it like that is like so like like you’re right the the iron running through your blood it’s like um i have childhood memories of my dad’s dirty dingy warehouse like legit and it’s just etched in there and as much as i went into the it business like so i i had like a com company out of college and as that project was kind of coming to a completion i just said dad you know like i want to do something different being in front of a computer i mean it’s funny in front of a computer today but i was just working in front of a computer you know as a tech company and i just said you know dad i i want to you know do something you know outside or whatever and he said well get in the scrap business and i was like yeah well i think his whole plan was that i would go back to detroit like once i kind of get my feet wet in the industry and so um what’s really cool um and

what really helped me transition from the tech world into the scrap business and bring my tech knowledge with me it was the tangible nature okay so you send pictures all the time of this is a load of you know truck wheels going down the road or car wheels going over to bill you know and it’s tangible and you recognize that right and you see it and so like at the end of your day you watched material get processed you watched loads go down the road and turn it into cash right and so when you’re in front of a computer all day programming or or providing web content or whatever the heck you’re doing it’s not necessarily as tangible as physical items that we handle so your point is right there brett and as like a as a guy on the production side like and i think you know you recognize this um be growing up in the business people see a load of copper chops or a load of aluminum wheels go down the road and all they can think about what’s that load worth oh that loads worth twenty thousand dollars or that’s

that loads worth 150 000 or whatever it is but the guys that really are in it every day that are truly operating their businesses they know all the pieces of the puzzle that it took to make that load worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars they know how many customers had to get handled all the equipment that had to get bought to run it through the chop line to get it into a box to get it on a truck to get it delivered to the mill and so i look at it as like a in a weird like way i look at it as a as a work of art i look at it as like i know all the background that went into that load and what had to happen to get that load to the consumer and it’s not just 150 000 and and like right and so that’s the idea is like once you can think like abstract like you do you’re like okay i can see i remember that customer with the pickup truck that dumped 200 pounds of birch cliff but i also remember buying a few bales from

the guy off the street you know um yeah you can see you can visualize that whole load right and so i want to take your point a step further and go look at the impact that you had on all of the people involved in that process and so you often talk about your employees like your team you’re like i’m nothing it’s my team and so you gotta think of that as like those truckloads that you’re sending down the road how many families okay how many families did you help by sending that scrap down the road by recycling you know i was like yeah that’s how i look at it you know i was like so again it’s that mental shift from like simply looking at financial gain you know me me me instead giving giving giving and how many families did i help today like how many people work for you brad yeah uh all in by a couple hundred so think of all of those families that you’re helping yeah and i think that’s the big that’s the big thing is why i when i talk about pressure or when i talk about

you know like the way my the way i look at things is you know when the whole kobit and all this stuff hits like i take that pressure on my shoulders and i say okay like our goal is to get through all this not lay anybody off keep everybody full-time employed and keep going right luckily um we are pretty diversified in our business entities to a certain extent but also luckily you know all of our business entities were able to still operate partly because of the state we live in and partly because of the industries we operate and just the combination so luckily we were able to weather the storm you know don’t you think that comes from your philosophy right is like yeah i think for sure yeah right it’s like you you’re the one that’s the first to say hey this is the time to invest in our business this is the time to get people going this is the time to help people right yeah stressful period you know where you know it’s it’s definitely a psychological battle that we’re going through here and you and i had to talk

back in the summer right we had to talk in the summer about your posts that you put out and what did i say to you you know i just said keep it going like you don’t be positive yeah well but i said like you don’t fully know the impact of what you’re writing on the internet like and so um i just think it’s awesome dude you know like well i mean unless you know what i want to go back to uh and you know i some people i think at the beginning like we’re kind of questioning like a lot of there’s some of this oh and a lot half of the i would post on linkedin or on on different uh social media websites and i mean i post who i sell the material too like what’s going on and some of it i’m sure raised some eyebrows internally like our insurance guy our insurance guy like hey you guys should be posting a picture of rec truck i’m like it it is what it is like this is life this is the business that we’re in and if we only post all the

good to me it’s like a fake facade right but but dude like that’s what that’s what it’s become like why do you have a filter on your instagram phone or whatever to make you beautified you know like that’s just our world now is like everyone wants to just talk it’s like it’s like the gambler that only talks about his wins you know it’s like oh i won 10 g’s the other day what did you lose the day before no i know i know i know and so like hey um when people criticize or look at your what you’re doing you know critically it tells you that you’re doing something right but where i’m where i was going with that was how i met you right like part of the reason that you and i connected was i was posting some stuff on linkedin or whatever and then you and i connected we have some mutual um friends like oh mr inman down in cass and some guys out to billy boy yeah who i did have here a couple of months ago yeah but uh so we have some mutual friends in the industry

and then that kind of helped us connect and but a lot of it was just i think by by you putting yourself out there and being honest about your business and what you have going on i think you attract similar people or similar minded people which was my goal right i’m like i want people that love it love doing as much as i love doing it that have similar interests similar goals as i do and that will get business eventually you know and i think that that it’s been super beneficial for me because i met a ton of great people throughout the journey and i feel like i’m just scratching the surface like i’m not even you know i’m not even deep yet i’m just scratching the surface and making some awesome connection friends for life the way i see it i mean i i know for a fact that you and i whether we do business or not we have a ton in common and we’ll always we’ll always have you know something to talk about well it’s funny is like i i feel that like it it’s it’s transitioned right so it’s

gone from like hey dude like uh you know i’ll buy some of your scrap and get you into different markets too i don’t even think like we talk about buying or selling you’re just like here book a load book a load whatever but yeah we’re more like just talking about how we see life how we can help other people how we see this business kind of changing growing like our conversation about your copper reclaim the other day um yeah i i think that’s just such an innovative idea you know like it makes complete sense and you know you’re kind of like well i don’t know like it’s gonna i’m like no dude it’s a freaking awesome idea you know yeah so so in order to you know progress in your business you have to progress as a person too and so what you’re saying is like hey look at all the wonderful people i’ve met right 100 yeah by just being yourself like you’re not trying to pretend to be like this ceo and you’re wearing a suit every day it’s like no forget it like i’m just i’m just brett and i’m just

the dude you know it’s like i don’t even need a title man like it’s just like we know our stuff we want to make this industry better and we want to work with our friends yeah which kind of leads me into i mean and one of the reasons why i want to get you on a just because we haven’t been able to connect in person but the other reason was that that white board behind you and i i just because of your interest and and because of your i mean the interest and i say love for the industry i mean you’ve you’ve taken all the places you’ve worked and we had we haven’t even gotten into all the history of where you’ve worked and what you’ve done and we can do i don’t want to leave that out because i think that’s a huge part of of why you know that what’s happening built me into where i am today like i mean it’s 100 just like just like you you know like you you your history brings you to this point right and so it’s your street cred you said it before like

earlier that’s your street cred what gives you validity when you talk about different grades and what’s going on with the product the reason you know that is because of the experience you’ve had in the past so i wanna i wanna i do wanna go into scrap university like that’s a big hit list item for me but i want to really get back to like how what how did that evolve but where where did you go after you left you built the dot com deal where’d you go next and to go work on this in the scrap industry after the after your com job yeah and so like i said my my freaking dad man he pushed me into the scrap business uh yeah but it turned out to be wonderful as uh you know i met up with the davis trading and and the davis family and like i kind of had that street cred because you know has jewish dude from the scrap biz you know it’s like all right yeah cool go run our yard you know it was like it really they gave me full autonomy which is kind of rare

you know it was like i mean hey i also worked there for free i said hey i’ll work for free i just want to show you what i’m made of they’re like what i’m like yeah that’s just me dude you know like so um you know first i think i don’t even think i made it a month they’re just like all right we gotta pay you you know like so um and so that’s kind of uh like i said i took the academic approach to it and like they had been doing things like pencil and paper where were they where was that yard based out of it was like right in vancouver okay okay downtown vancouver um you know i i had moved out to the west coast to kind of be like a snowboard bum and you know yeah you know i figured oh i work so hard in college i need a break it’s like shut up you know hindsight 2020 you’re like oh okay maybe that wasn’t that hard yeah yeah yeah it was really tough like going to keg parties every weekend and it’s like and so uh no it

was very fortunate so i ended up um being with them for like 10 12 years it was a long period of time during which um you know they asked me hey do you want to get involved with carey which is again canadian association recycling industries um here in canada so it’s kind of the equivalent of israel right and so i said yeah sure you know like i had no idea what i was getting into yeah and it’s funny how it turns out it was like i ended up becoming the chapter president and typically your term is supposed to be like two years like i ended up doing it for like eight you know i’m like like it was either like a function of like i was a sucker or i was doing a good job you know like oh yeah but i i feel that it was a wonderful experience um i really um learned a lot about people you know like so i got to meet with all the different yard owners and employees and um just very beneficial for my career and then at the same time i got involved with israel

so i was on like the pacific northwest um board and so that was again just a great experience lucky um and volunteering you know so well you say lucky but i just say work you by working hard you create your own luck and i i don’t i i believe that there’s a certain amount of luck in life you know there’s something sometimes the the chips fall in your favor and if and but just because they fall in your favor doesn’t mean you’re smart enough to take advantage of them or understand that they are falling in your favor but i think the more you heart the harder you work the more sometimes those chips fall and give you opportunities to take advantage so there’s a there’s a hint of luck you know some happenstance that people be in the right room at the same time or some connections that you know that enable you to you know have a conversation with somebody you may not have had a conversation with previously but luck is a very finite piece of success in my book well and i i guess like you know here’s how i look

at it is like so um back in undergrad our business law professor stood up in front of our class and said if there’s one thing i can recommend that all of you do is learn how to play golf okay he said you’re going to sign more contracts you know in the pub at a golf course then you will in a boardroom right and so like for like a 20 year old kid to hear that you’re kind of like this guy is kind of out there you know but yeah through the volunteering like with carrie and israel golf made my career you know and like so that’s why i say it’s like you know i know you’re saying about luck and hard work and um you know i just it seems kind of trivial that golf would be the thing that makes your career you know blossom you know like so it’s it was very interesting and so you know real quick let me tell you a real just a side story off that sure so the first so when i graduated college uh my dad’s like i want to get you a graduation present

i’m like uh okay like that’s fine and you know i don’t know i don’t know what people get when they graduate college other than a job which is what i got yeah but my dad bought me a pair of uh set of golf clubs and he goes you’re gonna need these i never golf that much i got a little bit in high school it never was a big thing and never was a big piece of my um and but he he got him for a different reason he got him because hey you’re gonna need him for work for business and he goes and this is the one way that i can escape work for four hours be outside and just take a deep breath i think that was his reason for buying them for me was more like you might need a break at some point so go take a break and go pick golf balls or whatever or the business and i’ve realized it now as i’ve gotten a little bit older the flip side of golf which is the business aspect of it and i’m not a great golfer but i’ll go

and golf with vendors customers clients you know guys on our team and just that’s that that’s what we do so i just i’m just reiterating what your business professor told you was 100 correct where i come from as well well and and so there you go it’s like so you your dad saw the value in it and so like so you mentioned like a four-hour increment it’s like so how often do you guys spend four hours with anybody yeah like you have a captive audience and so you’re really getting to know someone on so many different levels you know like if they slice the ball in the woods are they going to throw their club and you’re going to go oh okay this guy is a hot head you know yeah you know like so it’s kind of like you really get to see someone’s character and so like it’s it’s it’s amazing like what the game of golf has done and so yeah like i used to organize tournaments and uh you know i’d get all of the scrap yards and i would get vendors you know like liber and all these

different uh companies that service our industry and i would always like think of it as like oh what is the best way for people to network you know so i would have like a yard with three other vendors right so that like then there’s business being conducted because like that’s like the important part of like getting together when when we could get together yeah exactly back in the olden days when you could actually play around the golf with a group of people when you could shake hands or take your ball out of the hole with your hand like yeah yeah back in the good old days and and so so yeah so brett like i mean really like um you know the jump in with the davis family into the associations then of course you meet all of these cool people uh you know my buddy greg schnitzer he kept pushing me he’s like dude come work for us and i’m like i don’t know if i want to be in the big corp you know like and yeah um and like it just kept coming like everyone kept saying like dude you’re you’re

a smart guy you know your stuff and i was like i don’t really know anything you know and like you kind of you know you just kind of like look at yourself as like hey i’m just doing a job like i don’t know like isn’t everyone on the same level and um and so eventually like sims you know lured me in and i went over there and um i was actually very intimidated you know like sims where it sins we’re at so there’s a sims outlet in vancouver like a shredder here and so as far as i was concerned i was kind of like in the minor leagues and i was going to the majors because it’s a shredder like shredder is kind of like the apex of our of our business right all right i don’t know what 40 50 million bucks for a shredder and a downstream like that’s substantial like they’re not in on every corner you know like maybe maybe on the east coast but yeah um but the the overall point was is like you know here i just i didn’t really think i was anything special like i

was like well just like you dude like i don’t know i grew up in scrap yards my family business like worked for some people like it’s the scrap business i’m like who cares you know like that’s kind of what my mentality was i was like oh it’s like garbage you know but then i started to realize like well no like i add value to this organization and so yeah they pulled me and they’re like hey we need you to like straighten out our non-ferrous department because like with schnitzer and sims no i mean hey come on they’re they’re shredder companies they’re focused on steel right the ferrous yeah and so non-ferrous is always kind of like this weird like step child sort of thing and so um and and like i guess you just don’t realize that you’re kind of like a special kind of unicorn if you know non-ferrous like i just again a series of incorrect assumptions you know like i just assume that everyone knows all the that i know right yeah 100 and so dude i get to sims and i’m like super intimidated i’m like oh

man i don’t know anything right yeah and i get there and i’m like so uh you know like is there like training or like no man you know your go i’m like go get it done so it was uh it was interesting then like you kind of start to go through the big orb and i was on like the you know continuous improvement national call and i’m like kind of hearing from all these different people again you just from my point of view i kept thinking that everyone’s like way smarter than me and like and like just because sometimes and sometimes in life you just people don’t give themselves enough credit right like and i think that’s probably like the the where you fell into is you just didn’t give yourself enough credit for how much you actually knew about the industry which is hard when you’re kind of a self-deprecating personality you know i have that that trade is it’s never all about me and it’s never all about what i know right and so you sometimes maybe don’t give yourself enough credit about what you do actually know well i think

it’s a mix brett is like so what you’re saying but then also the respect factor for other people that have made it into this great big organization you’re like well you must be in the major leagues for a reason you must be awesome you know yeah and then like you know then you start realizing like oh okay these people are not students of the game they’re just doing a job yeah and the bigger bigger company you go to and i’ve said this to other people whether it’s the scrap industry or not the bigger the organization that you go to people aren’t as swiss army knife as much of a swiss army knife as they are in a smaller organization right because it’s so big and there’s so many layers there’s so many levels there’s so many offshoots that you’re given a job as like uh you know whatever i mean give me a big job and a big you’re an accountant so you you’re just an accountant for the you’re in your business stand your lane right like you don’t touch anything else you don’t understand how everything else works but when you’re a

true operator when you’re a true like small business guy you have to be a swiss army knife because you can’t pay 20 people to do 20 different jobs you can pay for people to do 20 different jobs and so you do get the opportunity to do to become a true student of the game and understand all the processes that go along with it in that business as a whole now you may not know it as in depth as each person knows their job at that point but you still understand how the whole circle of life works in the scrap business it’s called more breadth than depth okay and so like do i know about accounting from like you know hey both you and i went to mba school we know a lot about of accounting like are we professional accountants no no okay but like the thing is is like you know coming from the davis family business okay to a big company like the biggest in the world it like it’s such a huge difference right and like what you’re saying is like you’re kind of like hey this is your little box

and you stay in it and so you know hey from a entrepreneurial family to working for an entrepreneurial family i had that mentality and so i go to the big show and i want to do everything i want my hand in marketing i want you know everything dude i’m trying to improve like how the scale works um curious about the shredder like you know and they’re like dude you’re the non-ferrous dude like stay in your lane and i’m like do people feel like you were stepping on their toes yeah yeah for sure and like but again like they they knew that of me coming in they’re like okay this dude is from this business you know like and they they were kind of trying to just steer me in one little direction i’m like well but i can help the organization in so many ways like i was trying to design like their roll-off bins you know they’re like what the are you talking about i’m like like go buy some dog like and that’s just my mentality is like i just want to try and make everything better like i mean

my dad told me about this design for roll off bins and i’m trying to explain it to them i’m like you put three strips of angle iron on the floor okay so it’s like that so when you drop something on the floor of your rolloff and you’re not punching a hole through it it lands on that angle iron they’re like oh that’s kind of a cool idea and like nothing happened i’m like like like come on you know dude yeah and like how long did you work there how long did you work at uh at sims i was there for three years um i learned the the corporate thing you know yeah and learn the corporate thing either you got it or you don’t i mean i tell people all the time like there’s those that can do the corporate thing and i got a lot of friends that do it are successful at it and they they find a way and i got a lot of friends that say that’s not for me i i’m not that’s not my jam i got respect for both sides i know for me it wouldn’t fit

for my the way i like to do things but there’s a lot of people out there that that just fits their wheelhouse um here’s here’s like an analogy for like the corporate game it’s like riding a mechanical bull okay like you know you’re gonna fall off at some point and you’re just holding on and going like all right where is this thing going right and like that’s just the churn that they have is like so it’s like you see people go from schnitz to sims to dj all over the place right it’s like so it’s like that turnover fact and like hey with you you’re like no like these are like my family like i want them to stay with me forever you know like once you hook on to like a really talented person you can’t let them go you just can’t you like you know the value you’re like hey if it’s money i’ll give you money if it’s vacation i’ll give you a vacation whatever you want you’re awesome for our thing um whereas i think like the corp just kind of is like a constant churn you know like they

they yeah that’s just how it is and and so like hey did i learn a heck of a lot of stuff for sure yeah lots of learning like um so i would almost say like hey it would be great for you to go work at a big corp for like a year and then you come back to your business your business will be better yeah so a little bit about me like when i like i took two spring breaks when i was in college people would go and do like these big fancy spring breaks in mexico or wherever i went to work at schnitzer oh all right spring breaks right like met bob phillips and our uh eric leonard schnitzer um the old school like schnitzer before it became public sure um and and i spent a week just in the office in the yard like just doing whatever i could to understand the corporate side of the business so not quite a full year but i did take two weeks out of it and out of my spring break two years in a row and just go do the dance and just see

how how it went and just so i could at least get a grasp of it well right and like so i think like one of the um one of the biggest things is like meetings you know it’s like so as like a small business like you’re kind of like well let’s just be productive let’s just go all day right and like i see your post you’re like we’re rolling on sunday night getting ready for monday and it’s like cool dude and so like with like the meetings um it kind of just keeps everybody on the same page i find it and like um once we started having meetings about meetings i said all right all right like that’s like i i asked him like wait a minute is this meeting about a previous meeting i’m like no dude that that’s not gonna work for me right but yeah you know if you can keep your meetings concise and your your group is together and you’re on the same page you kind of get laser focused right and so that was like the big jump that i noticed from small business to the big corp

and so i took that into my own business now and so we have like tuesday morning we have a google meet video call with all of our people and it’s awesome you know like we get like we talk about like what medals were successful at moving where the market’s at um you know like like it’s just it’s a good way for us to connect it’s really concise it’s like it doesn’t go over an hour right and like that’s like and so it just really gets everybody charged up on the same page so that’s really you know there’s formality from the big corp that i learned that i like but of course then you got to have your personality like our corporate culture is wearing rock and roll t-shirts every day you know like yeah you specialize in heavy metal music here because we’re in the heavy metal business so where’s so here is now like so you you’ve done that you’ve done the sims you’ve done the big the big corp thing tell me is what what motivated you to start detroit scrap um again it’s like that weird thing where you finally

break out of your shell you know you’re kind of like i don’t know anything i don’t know anything i don’t know anything and then like one day you’re just like i know a whole bunch of stuff right and then you kind of go um i think i can do this and so you know fortunate for me i have such an awesome friend uh in faisal who’s my partner um he’s been a broker for 16 years okay and he is just awesome at what he does like i think this month i think he’s shipped over 230 containers this month he’s doing it on his own like he’s a one-man show so um it’s impressive to be around like you’re a competitive guy i know that about you um i would mention just say like faisal is like one of the most competitive people i’ve ever met right and so but at the same time he’s super disciplined so you’re disciplined dude you get up at five in the morning you’re hitting the gym right so you guys would again hey you and i connected you and fazel would connect as well right it’s like

so it’s just like um as an entrepreneur i always liken it to like a fire breathing dragon like in the morning you’re just like you’re ready you know like you just know there’s gonna be so much opportunity for you to jump on and it’s just cool so like having a partner like that that could motivate me to be like hey dude i don’t know half of the that you know that’s what he would say to me even to today he’s like brad what’s this what’s this i’m like what dude like you’ve been doing this for 16 years he’s like well i don’t know the that you do and so you know like so it takes having a person like that in your life an influence in your life that says dude you’re awesome at what you do right and so that’s when you leverage you leverage each other’s strengths like your strength is your product knowledge and the the the connections you’ve made in the areas and in the businesses that you’ve uh dealt with and and and done business with and the connections you’ve made through carry and history and everything else so

you have that he brings to the table his ability to move material into certain markets the the fire breathing entrepreneur that’s like we can do more if i get someone that can identify the material and understand the pro that side of the business and that’s where when you get somebody like that you make those connections i mean it’s it’s it’s awesome and that’s that sounds like that’s how detroit scrap was you know they went together and that’s right is like so again it comes from that like respect side of things is like like i respect him and he respects me and like it’s like this weird thing where like we can now like finish each other’s senses and like it’s just it’s cool um and like it’s just so fortunate right it’s like so it’s kind of like you you have a nick on your team you know you’re just like you know what he’s capable of you know that he’s gonna be just rocking right and so it’s like one of those things and so you know then then you just build a team like so um the the coolest thing that you

can do as an entrepreneur is not about making money the coolest thing is about how you can help other people and their families you know it’s like like honestly that eventually will make you money it’s just it’s the long if you ever listen like gary vee talk about it i mean you give value you give value give value eventually that circle works its way back around the money comes if you’re not concentrating working on the money every day you’re just working on value knowledge building a good team and understanding your industry that the money part will take care of itself as long as you’re you know you have a good accountant on the back end managing it for you that’s another key to this proposal some barbecue sauce exactly yeah get that taken care of but then just give value give value teach help learn get the right team all the right people on the bus and then go um and that’s what it is brad is like so like um whenever you’re starting like a new venture you’re kind of like okay um you know i’m providing a good service you know we’re

making some bucks here and then you’re like all right well you know should i be like the chief cook and the head bottle washer like and just you know like when you’re starting out you’re working from five in the morning till midnight and it’s just like you go okay well i think we’re at the point now where you know we should get some help right and so for me hiring my friend craig like it was the coolest thing it was like like my partner failed he was like dude are you sure you want to pay that but i was like dude trust me trust me it’s like he’s gonna do so much for us he’s like okay i trust you and like the thing is is like not only does craig bring so much to the table for our business but how that’s impacted his family right and like so that’s how i see it and like that’s how you see it is like how many families can we help and so like instead of me like just hoarding oh man look at this money that we’re making it’s great i’m like no i

want to now give it i want to share it and it frees me up to do other stuff to drive the business and you’re right is like you give it and then more comes in and like that’s like a universal law you know like it’s 100 the love sorry yeah i know 100 buy equipment get more people build it build it out keep going and then help get people into a position where they have a career not a job they have something that they know isn’t going anywhere and they can depend on you to do your part and that’s the biggest thing as a small business owner from my standpoint is letting people know like this isn’t a job like i’m we’re building careers like we’re building something that when when you’re 60 something years old you look back and say i remember when we had two yards we had 30 people we had three trucks and now look what we’ve all built together so if there’s a person there’s a certain amount of money that’s involved in that there’s a certain amount of pride that’s involved in that we should look back and

you can it’s like building a house like you start with the foundation and you build the walls and then you insulate then you put the all the that goes into building the house before you put the roof on it and put the carpet in it and paint it and you look back you’re like we built that house like from start to finish we built it and that’s the the beauty of being a small business owner entrepreneur business builder whatever you want to call it that’s that’s the spot that’s the sweet spot it’s tangible like like we spoke about in the beginning is like the tangible nature of running a business is like you see that truck you see that wheel loader you see that material handler you know like and then you see the checks rolling into your bank and you’re like cool man it all makes sense and so that’s the thing is like so sharing you know like and providing service it like so it’s all about you know for me is like providing more services like so you know the the brokerage business is kind of uh gypsy like you know

it’s like um when the market’s up you’re getting like calls from india and china or wherever and then when the market’s down like those guys are gone right so i just kind of started thinking i’m like all right well how can i apply what i know to the brokerage business and more and provide more services like so uh i was talking to hank the other day right and you know um i was just explaining like you know we’re not price chuckers you know like we don’t just here here’s my price on this yeah i said to him i’m like we’re like relationship people you know it’s like so can we probably buy from way more yards than what we’re buying from for sure but you know what like we just deal with our friends you know yeah like we have that relationship dude when you and i structure deals the deal doesn’t even really come into the conversation like we’re talking about what we’re doing on the weekend how our wives are doing we’re talking personal stuff and then it’s like oh yeah oh oh right i i got a load of you know

batteries or whatever it’s like okay cool you know like that’s the thing like so so people do business with people they want to do business with anymore and i think that was one of the things i was talking to a guy across the country the other day um and he goes you know i’ve been doing this for 30 years and he goes for 40 years i don’t know he’s like he was 60 something years old and he said um we were talking about aluminum and he goes you know when i first started you know it was just such a top secret deal about who was shipping what where it was going how many pounds this and that he goes and then i started seeing you post where you were selling what you were selling who you were selling to and i was like yeah the internet it up the scrap business i mean everybody knows the price i mean you’re not i mean the difference between your price and the interstate battery guy price on batteries and the other guys price is pretty nominal it’s about the same so the reality of it is

is you’re going to start doing business with people you want to do business with so you better figure out the relationship component of your business go out and find like-minded individuals that if something does go sideways on a container or a load or whatever they’re going to call you as a friend and they want what’s best for your business and they’re going to say this is screwed up let’s fix it together let’s figure out how to keep this train moving or you’re just going to do business with a certain individual because you like doing business with them and i think that goes like the when the internet commoditizes all the information and says here’s the price this is what it is so now when i post on linkedin i’m promoting people that do me a good job and i’m promoting people’s businesses that i think run a quality shop and that’s the one of the reasons why i do it there’s no secrets everybody knows the price you know what’s going on but but again like progressive dude you’re progressive and so like like the old school is all about holding your cards

close to your chest right and like never revealing any information and never trying to help anybody hey i’ve seen it my whole career and i’m sure you’ve seen it too is like nobody wants to help you and it’s like so for me i’m like i’m reversing that for you you’re reversing that because like we’re just like this is this is not like a cooperative way of doing business this is like an uh adversarial way of doing business right and so um so even you know how how we structure deals is like i just say this is the price that i’m getting you know like that’s that’s our sell price this is my freight it’s like why can’t everybody just do that you know like yeah i just find that like um that old school way of negotiation has to go it has to go so let’s talk like that’s a perfect lead-in in my book because i want to finish up with with with probably the most crucial things that you you’ve been working on lately and how all these experiences from family owned business to the back end of a dot com

business to you know a small family-owned business where you got to run the whole deal to big corporate world to brokerage kind of brought you i think full circle to scrap university and i think that that’s why i want to make sure we went through the history back to the street cred because without the street cred without the history then scrap university is just another dot-com guy out there hoping to try and make some money on the scrap business right so that’s why it’s super crucial for me to walk walk the steps through it and so i’m gonna let you dive into scrap university for a few minutes just tell us what it’s about but i mean i’m just going to give you the platform and say let it rip um and and i like your format you know like we we spoke about how your format would roll on your podcast you said i kind of just free wheel it but if if you really look at your format it’s very linear and so i appreciate the fact that like you have that ability to kind of tie everything in and

you can see how this came about it’s like so now i’m like going back into the dot-com business you know and so but it’s not me it’s my partners right i have two very strong women partners that have made their way through this male dominated industry to be the top of what they do so it’s wonderful having them as my partners and then also like say for instance you and nick and all of the other friends at different yards that are becoming our quote-unquote experts right you know it’s like so i’m trying to involve everyone that i personally know hey obviously i’m not involving everyone in this thing because i just don’t know you but if anyone wants to be involved in our university and share what you know it’s wonderful things like so it’s like again changing that fundamental from i don’t share my information i hold it and if i go to my grave with this information that’s fine whereas for me i can’t so once this thing launches i can die the next day knowing that i did a wonderful service by sharing all this 43 years of information

right it’s valuable even if one person you know increases their knowledge and increases their income increases their career trajectory this one person i’ve done my job you know do i know do i know that it’s going to impact our entire industry for sure i do for sure i do like i know that like there’s really no real training out there and not only training but now it’s a certification like you can put that on your resume like you have no idea how many people i you know i would interview at at sims you know just for like you know a sweeper job or like a sorting job and i would say hey do you have any experience with metals and they’re like no i don’t even know what metal is you know like it’s i don’t i didn’t even know metal was recyclable like like it’s kind of like it blows your mind but then you kind of go okay well i guess i’m just from this business and i know it but if someone came in and they said that they have like their certified scrap metal professional degree csmp from scrap university

i’m like higher because i know they’ve gone through a training program they can hit the ground running whereas i find that it’s crazy and people wonder why do i have such big turnover it’s because you’re putting people out in a yard and telling them to figure it out yeah kind of like that family did to you said figure it out you’ve been here before but at least you had the background to get you to that point where a lot of people and we find this we’ve had this conversation internally was employee retention well if you just throw them to the wolves people are running around like ah what am i doing i don’t know they’re afraid to make a mistake but then they’re you know forklifts are going and people are doing and they’re like what is my role here you know and without a little bit of background to understand like the process and how everything works i think that’s the that’s the kicker and so i think what you’re describing with scrap university is the ability for an individual who might be interested in the scrap industry to go and kind of

take that first step like a almost like a trade school welder or plumber or whatever and say i’m willing to spend a little bit of money and scratch the surface and see if this isn’t something that i could get a little bit more into and if this isn’t a career path for me right well it it kind of like serves multiple purposes like so you touched on like the outside looking in and like so that’s certainly um one of like our biggest drivers i guess is like we want to educate the general public on hey this is all metal is recyclable one two is you can make plenty of money recycling metal right it’s like so um especially in a time like this where people have lost jobs income uh and like so now people are kind of like how do i make money i’m telling you man like if we just let people know how to recycle metal they can start you know going up and down picking up you know like uh you know down the back yard or like alley barbecues or whatever you load in your truck and you go

cash it in you know like i mean it’s like how much how much of scrap university is geared towards employee errs let’s say that the big the big corporate uh goliath of the world or the medium-sized uh scrap um recycling companies geared towards beginning stages of like pre-employment or you know the first week of employment hey go understand this and this is part of our training program to to get you more involved in our company right and so we like so this is our way of giving back to the industry is like so the first iteration that we’re making right now is actually for the industry okay and so it’s like for anywhere from a small two three people working at a small little scrap yard all the way up to schnitz and sims right is like so because hey i’ve had experience with both organizations and i know that they don’t have a training platform like this and so essentially what i’m why we came up with this program is because you know people are set up for failure right now okay and that’s the turnover so people get frustrated that

they go and ask like the senior guy and the senior guy won’t tell them anything you know or he’ll give them little bits of information okay and so we’re just like you know again it’s just like the brokerage business that i do same application here is like we’re gonna give clear truthful transparent information that you’re gonna get the real deal and then you’re gonna go oh okay i know how to upgrade number two to number one like it it’s like that’s not being taught that’s not available and so like when you go through our program you you you learn all the fundamentals you know i was like so commodity look you’re you’re tagline i figured out your tagline back to the fundamentals it is the fundamentals of scrap right that’s what it is so let me ask you this brett okay let me ask you this question so if you work in the scrap business do you think you should know how to identify metal 100 i mean it depends on your job but i think that i think that uh from us from when we’re talking about a huge corporation i think it

would be and maybe i i take but maybe i take my whole statement back maybe yes you should because then you understand the business and you understand the industry you’re in maybe that’s where you’re going with it and that’s what i’m trying to illustrate here is that like you go to a cocktail party and you say oh uh what do you do sir and i was like oh i’m in the scrap metal business right or if you want to use a euphemism i’m in metal recycling business right and and i like using both those different terms at parties that i go to and like one is like oh like that’s dirty and one is like oh my gosh you’re saving the planet it’s like okay but so when someone asks you a question though about it like instead of just saying like oh cool you’re in the scrap business and like past the chips you know they’re like well what type of metal do you recycle and you’re like oh like aluminum and copper and i don’t know you see what i’m saying it like doesn’t make you sound like you know your stuff

and so if you’re in accounting or marketing or the ceo i don’t care who you are in this business you’ve gotta know metals okay and like people get like intimidated with non-ferrous because like you know there’s three thousand grades or whatever and i get it like when i train people they get kind of glossed over and they’re like whoa man like sealed units and motors and alternators and starters and this like harness wire i’m like okay just take it in a little bit at a time and so that’s kind of like what our program does so it shows um a generalist aka me in the yard handling the medal it goes to an expert say like nick and then you’re hit with a quiz okay so you’re seeing the metal you’re getting an understanding of what the metal is and then you you do a quiz okay so you know okay what makes number one copper number one copper all right there’s no attachments there’s no paint you know all of these things that you already know but not everybody does and so like hey you asked the question is this for people

that are in the business already yes yeah okay so it’s like you when you’re hiring somebody like they need to take this program if there’s someone that just is like your buyer that only buys i love it how you know we separate buyers into like i’m a ferris buyer and i’m a non-fair aspiring it’s just like well why yeah well we all just why don’t we just buy like let’s go get the in the door you know why don’t we just call you a buyer and so again it just comes back to my my training with buyers in the sims organization is like i’m holding like a brass training session yeah one of the first questions i got is like um so brad is grass like non-magnetic this is a seasoned buyer a seasoned buyer that’s probably said the word honey or ebony or yellow grass or whatever and quoted a number but if they saw the material they wouldn’t know what the heck it is yeah and so that’s what that’s what the university aims to to do is to dial all that in and from the start to the finish

and can train anybody right and what’s the so i don’t want to cut you off but i know that some you and i could sit here and about scrap in the whole thing for probably hours sure but at the end of the day i i want i want people to know like if they want to look at scrap university they want to check it out how do they where do they go okay um scrap university dot com it’s like pretty good pretty straightforward uh if you want to get a hold of you how do they get all of you uh you don’t want to get ahold of me what do i know i don’t know anything you know like so you’re the you’re the head of scrap university i bet i hope to i hope to god you know something about scrap i’m just a dude man detroit if somebody wants to look at a selling subscribe to detroit scrap how do they get a hold of you yeah man detroit call faisal you know he he he’s the wheeler dealer i’m just good um hey you know like i appreciate it um being

on this program it’s i think again what you’re doing is progressive um and it’s just cool that we have this friendship and you’re able to you know kind of dive deep into you know people’s history you know like and so for me to be a part of your show i’m honored for sure and well you’re progressive you start a whole goddamn college about scrap i’m just talking about the smart people you know again you win the contest again brett it’s just like that’s my nature i’m just like um i would rather my partners get the accolades and i would rather you know like nick get the accolades for his contributions like it was just an idea you know it’s just an idea like why why who who am i what makes me specialist and like so i just keep kind of downplaying who i am and it’s more about the content okay yeah well there’s a they’ll leave it at that though the content is what is the driver right and that’s what we’re doing here we’re talking to people about scrap guys that live it breathe it girl gals that are involved in

every day and the female side sometimes gets discounted in our business but like you said you brought up two smart ladies that have kind of run the gauntlet in our industry i’ve got some ladies that run the gauntlet in our industry on my end and they’re just as appreciated as anybody else in our organization i i know that to be true with you so if anybody wants to go check out scrap university it’s it’s cool we’ve kind of been involved in a little bit on our end and i’m looking forward to having another podcast in person with you where we sit down drink a few pbrs in a can and we can shake hands and uh hug and do what we do and people are they’re not going to be afraid of getting corona you know and and there’s a lot of truth to that so but this was cool that we could do this get our views on this wonderful business out to the public and i again i just want to thank you and dude i’m looking forward to an in-person meeting in idaho that’ll be so appreciate you appreciate you

brad thanks for taking the time man international scrap life now thank you dude all right