welcome to a scrap life a podcast solely focused on the hustlers Grinders operators and business owners who live and breathe the scrap metal industry every day here is your host Brett eard all right here we go man you just never know what you’re going to run into here at uh iery and luckily I we got a decent little podcast uh space and and somebody who’s nice enough to set this up thank you Rob but I get to sit down I want to call you like one of the original sheer Godfathers Bruce Bacon and S from SAS Forks which SAS forks I mean it almost feels weird that you don’t have a some sort of sheer attachment underneath there but well we’ll talk we’ll talk we’ll talk about that so that’s why we’re here man we’re here to talk so thanks guys man thanks for sitting down thanks for having us shooting the with me yeah that’s very cool so I I don’t know how many podcasts you guys done like this is when I start to get really personal and ask you about the first girlfriend and how she compare but anyway so for

those of you guys that don’t know um give me a little bit of History why you guys are sitting here today where you’re at like give me give me a little background so we’ll do that BR I don’t think we can really talk about anything without know little history right absolutely tell you I’m an old Storyteller I’m just an old old dude telling stories right that’s what makes it good right H that’s what I love about the scrap industry there’s a lot of great stories there’s a lot of good stories and people exactly oh yeah so I tried to I tried to uh retire do a couple other things uh a couple years ago and ended up I’m like I miss SCP yeah you know I really do cuz I made so many friends and and I just had a lot of great times in it so I uh went to work for Royal AB when he owned the company um he moved me down to Texas I didn’t know anything about the scrap industry so the only thing I could figure out is I’d walk into the yard look to the patriarch and

ask him for a favor yeah will you take me out into your yard and teach me how this scrap World works and I made a lot of friends do that and and I love it so anyway the Roy sold the company you know little bount’s you know the oldest name in the in the in the deal but they were the only game came in town things changed um went over to Roy’s house and asked for his Blessing couple other guys and I just start a competing company Y and he gave us his Blessing with a tear in his eye said I’d join you if I could boys yeah I got five years I so exactly so you know that goes You See It Go full circle with all kinds of families in this building exactly yeah so anyway you better get you better make some pay in those 5 years them boys are coming back so that was we so we did Genesis that was a great trip great experience uh and a wonderful company and you know I blood still on floor I still love Genesis still love le Bounty yeah and then

we sold that stupidly and then we did The Exodus machines that crazy material handler thing oh all that and then uh uh that morphed through necessity into Fortress blade core then connect work tools oil cook USA y y and then things you know you never know what’s going to happen in life right all you can do is adjust to the changes that happen absolutely and I would say you know life is just made up a bunch of chapters in a book yes some are good some aren’t yeah the P there’s a lot of lessons be learn through there right yeah so so anyway then uh sat out for a little did a couple other things ended up with a guy uh named Bill van sand and under the TMC has built right you know electric pedestal machines grapples Etc SAS forks and I want over to do SAS forks and mandate was grow like okay been all over the world made good friends in Europe and uh I said the only way I know how to grow as fast as you want to grow is through heavy attachments demolition scrap all so I had

some good friends in Europe family-owned companies number one and two brands in Europe so you guys want to come to America said yeah yeah so okay and we did this thing under SCS called Dark horse tools okay so dark horse is a collection of the finest attachments from outside North America put under this group Brandon Dark Horse you know I love horse racing and they come from by yeah we all love an underdog right abolutely everybody in this room loves that so that’s that’s the premise of it vas takes a lot of people’s money oh yeah you betting on underdogs you know but the ones that hit that’s why they pay so well exactly right you’re right so that’s what we did and and uh um so we got a great lineup of heavy shears and other attachments and hydraulic hammas Etc under this Dark Horse portfolio and we’re just coming to market now and this is my first user in a while and it is so freaking fun you know to save people including a couple that you mentioned earlier Jay and 100% you know a lot of the people have been

around I was fortunate I’ve got the oldest sales team in the world there nobody’s under 60 they’re like 6 63 to 7 too yeah it’s relationship driven right like that’s the beauty I was telling this to somebody earlier and we’ll get into your story here in a second s but I was when you come to is so my father-in-law I mean a gem of a guy right like I I got really lucky a I got a great wife but I got even better in-laws which is hard to sometimes right so you’re fortunate yeah I’m very fortunate I’m very very grateful for that but my uh my father-in-law played football Utah State and like a years ago a handful of years five six eight years ago he got inducted to Utah State Hall of Fame he was a really good football player and uh we and I loved watching him go back to the alumni game like and watching and to the homecoming cuz it’s just it’s I mean not the L night game but the homecoming because it was years and generations of guys that all had something in

common right so maybe we didn’t play at the same time but we all had that thing that we know we they all played the same connection exactly so when I think about iery it feels to me like a homecoming football game you know so maybe you and I didn’t play in 90 or 80 or 70 you know but we all bled the same color right it’s the same it’s an industry a shared experience of generations that you know you you’ve been in yards you’ve sold equipment you bought equipment you you know you you had to come up from the bottom and you built this and you sold that and I think that’s the beautiful thing that I love about this industry is it’s it’s like a big ass homecoming game like this event is just a it’s a homecoming you see old friends you meet new friends you connect with people you might see once a year once every other year and that’s what it reminds me of yeah that’s you’re 100% right BR and that’s what it was like last night at opening Galla so many people come in the booth as you

know Sal it had seen for a long time lots of hugs lots of laughs and that shared common experience of being around the scrap industry and everybody wants to be a part of something a community team like you were talking about father yeah you want to be part of the it’s a tribe mental right exactly and and you do get that here and you don’t get that in hardly any Industries I feel like doesn’t work believe I believe that to be true right yeah that’s for sure all right s so give us the give us we want to go how far you want to go man let me get I’ll get the whiskey out if it gets too long finish this deal off but go ahead I’ll cut it short no you’re good no but I but I’ll tell you like Bruce said you know when you get into the industry you know and you connect with the industry then you’re kind of like in like it’s like a family it’s like you’re in right yeah so the funny story with me is you know my life is a bunch of splits in the

road like do I go left do I go right and I remember quite a few of those choices they’ve all led me here but back in the day when I was finishing up uh College school my uncle uh was moving to Florida down to Bonita Springs and uh it was summertime so he said hey can you help us move and I said why not you know Free Ride get down there help them so we got down there and they had a beautiful home out there in Bonita springton I that was when there wasn’t even any roads down there I mean he definitely had swamp land you know to buy yeah and uh so I helped them get situated and all that and my aunt my uncle’s wife she was in real estate okay and she’s like so I you know I heard that you know you’re really not doing anything right now and I was in engineering school and yeah I didn’t have nothing going on she goes why don’t you stay down here go to real estate school and sell real estate and I’m looking around in Florida I’m like with all these

trees I’m like what the it’s nothing to cell right what big mistake right so I said you know what I said okay I go go back to Ohio cuz I had a an apartment there close it down and I’ll be back in 3 weeks right I’m going to do this real estate thing yeah so I get back home and back then you had an answering machine the light was flashing I who who that called me right so I get on there and there’s a company called uh NPK they’re a hammer company out of Ohio okay they want an interview with me and I’m like do I do this interview or did I just race it and head down to Florida so it got the better of me okay and I curiosity killed the cat yeah did the interview got hired and that started my direction I started out on hydraulic Hammers and demolition tools and that type of thing and fast track from there I’ve worked for a couple uh demolition companies and then came across leani and leani hired me and and um didn’t know anything about shears right they hired me because

they had acquired a a hammer Division and so I said they knew me for Hammer so I and they like ah you could do the shear stuff right anyways after 13 years at leany selling mobile shears and cutting my teeth on just going around and calling on scrap guys and getting them to be your friends and just involved in their business uh that’s how I got that was my initial thing into getting into scrap did you worked together at Bounty or that was you that was after you were already he’s my arch nemesis for all those years I love it yes I love it that’s one cool thing too man is that there’s a lot of people here that are competitors yeah there’s nothing wrong with good competition that doesn’t mean that s or I don’t really like and respect you know comp yeah I mean or you know even on the equipment side or the yard side I mean we got a lot of people that we compete with daily but if if we saw them here and we’re not talking about anything other than like we’re not talking about the customer we’re

not talking about we said hey let’s go get a beer right like even though you get back and you know it’s like here we go banging yeah we’re we’re going to go battle that’s basic that’s how it should be cuz like on the football field you’re going to do everything you can to win for your team 100% but after the game you can go have a drink with the guy on the I want to walk up and be like man that was great that was a game yeah respect yeah game recognizes game right and I think so so essentially that’s probably what then eventually brought you guys back full circle well that’s kind of funny like we back and forth back and forth he was working for this company I’m working for that company and you know we’re always seeing each other on the on the field if you want to say and um and then I don’t know I was always teasing him you know cuz I I was always an employee I never ran a company while always teasing hey when are you going to come work for me and I tell

him that so one day um one day I was uh working for a a a bank right after Co I lost my job after Co and I was working doing financing for a bank and I was going crazy and everybody everybody wants back in the game that’s why they have those alumni football games cuz the guys still want to play they’re like I’ll put pads on right now and go might blow a knee but let’s go he says hey uh you like it at the bank I go why are you asking he goes well he goes uh I have a position for you I go okay when do I start I didn’t even ask I didn’t care what it was I just said I’m all right I’m I’m back I’m back yeah I love it so I mean A lot’s been said you know over the you know over the years I mean Mo about equipment and I and so I went to dinner with this guy last night and he asked me this question he goes Brett what’s the best way way to for the there’s upand comers in this industry and and

so I’m glad to have two equipment guys so what’s the best way to help upand comers in this industry know who’s producing Quality Equipment and who’s producing know should we just should we just have a show and we just talk about people that produce equipment and I was like I go I go I don’t know I go I don’t know that that’s the best way to I I I said but what we can do I said I believe in more like the power of like positivity I said why don’t we just Spotlight people that are doing really good jobs and then hopefully people like see they get more brand recognition and then it’ll up the cause like versus just like sitting around trashing somebody’s stuff and and he goes that makes sense you know and and he and he and he said it an honest way he’s like you know I bought some really good equipment that I would really recommend and then I bought some that’s just and I was like well let’s just talk about the good stuff and then let the chips eventually the market figures it out right and I

think so from an equipment guys like what when you guys think about it what what separates cuz I I know what it is in my opinion what separates good equipment from well I I can say what how I what I think yeah first of all all I’m no different than a lot of people in this room I love a good deal okay but the fact of the matter is for Quality it you got to pay you got to pay there’s no such thing as a steel you know as far as a Super Value whatever the case might be but I’ll just tell you the way I find out what I want for a car a you know whatever it is I ask other people that I know that that use the same equipment right that’s really the value in is one of the big values is that people are connected if you’re doing a good job all you got to do is build something good if something breaks take care of it do what you said you’re going to do word will get around the cream will rise to the top and once you

have that reputation then you become a serious player and have good market share you know the chaff will get separated from the weat yeah it will will you know you just don’t want to get caught in that trap of you know that that’s 20% less than you know all the other stuff well there’s a reason dude right there’s no such thing as that super special deal yeah you know you have to pay for Quality it’ll last longer you’ll remember the quality it’s pay pay me later type of deal right exactly and you’ve probably had that experience I have I have I’ve got one that really sticks in me that I’ve done really good to just yeah yeah all right you know but you got burned a little yeah but I you know I learned a lot I I learned what that tastes like and what that feels like and so I try that’s one of the reasons why I spend so much time like even on the on the on the scrap cell side I like to highlight people I’m doing business with because they’ve they they’ve taken care of me right so it’s

like maybe maybe one more person reaches out to him or whatever the case may be but it’s like hey those guys bought you know three loads of stainless from me they bills no downgrades everything was right like it kind of like if you’re looking for another buyer go go talk to them right it’s like my way of saying thanks for doing a me a solid doing me a good job and that’s the way I see it just exactly what you said too capitalizing on what Bruce said is that you’ve got you got product a but you know what’s behind it yeah you know are you are you being serviced uh when you do have a problem are you being supported yeah the guy or the gal that you’re working with with are they communicating with you on your level do they understand your problems if you have that you can’t really put a a dollar value on that and that’s I think much it comes down to people right yep comes down to people com back to having good quality people that actually care about servicing the customer and not just what’s the next

sale right I mean you might have I sell this people people all the time like you might have a customer that only buys one ex grapple she 10 years or whatever from 10 years but that guy probably and and but he’s a super social guy or gy and he knows everybody you that guy I promise you this like you you you you only bought one from you so you don’t think much of him you don’t take good care of him you lost more sales cuz that guy didn’t get taken care of than you would have gained if you just would have taken care of that little fish maybe he grows to be a big fish someday which is great you know even better but but more importantly like that one guy could have made you 100 sales too because he told everybody how well you took care of him with his one she and that that that philosophy that philosophy goes throughout you know business so like one of one of the jobs that Bruce put upon me is dealership development well I talked to this guys in our region to develop dealerships go

if you develop the dealerships then you have more soldiers out there telling your story well the biggest Soldier telling your story is your customer yeah if you develop those customers they’re out there telling the story with a megaphone absolutely that’s why I say marketing marketing is important cuz it speeds it up right if you got it’s going to speed it up people are going to figure it out real quick you got if you’re good it speeds it up and people are going to learn that it’s good but all it all it does is just speed up the mechanism like it just if you’re making good stuff if you’re taking care of your customers the marketing’s got the power to speed that up and and get you more more awareness if it’s crap it’s just going to speed it up right and they’re going to figure it out quicker there’s two things that are really really that I’ve learned over a long time of doing this stuff and one is the most loyal and best customers are the ones I sold something to and they had a problem and I took care of it yeah

outside of the lines that’s the best marketing money I don’t view warranty or fixing stuff out of warranty and as a warranty cost I view it as great marketing dollar spent yes and the other thing I I say is that I’m talking with you and you make a decision you’re going to buy something from me you know what you just did you gave me your trust y there’s not a really a greater gift that one guy give to another or woman get to whatever is saying I trust you I’m going to give you my my money 100% well you you have to honor that and if you don’t well you’re going to be out of business and if you do you’re going to tell other people and it goes back to Ford Chevy Dodge I mean at the end of the day like as as as technology changes and and and it’s a neck and neck race like you know every year somebody you know moves ahead it’s like a horse race right that just kind of s does that but I think who really really wins is the people that have the best

service and parts departments and when I’m talking specifically to equipment because they understand that maybe somebody got this new technology thing this a better blade a better this you know a a fast slightly faster cylinder but it doesn’t none of that really matters if your stuff’s not getting taken care of and even the pricing point isn’t as crucial as people often think it is right like even the scrap right I mean people sell us they sell a lot of other people at less price because their their bins are getting swapped out there their stuff’s getting turned because the service matters right it’s like we’ll take less money because we’re running our business more efficiently well if we have less downtime and because we got a better service department all of a sudden like the that price of equipment is isn’t nearly as you get you you obviously get what you pay for but it’s not nearly as crucial as it once was it has value to know that you have the comfort of if something goes down this company’s going to take care of me well you have enough stress and load you know

scrap is a complex damn business right you got enough stuff going on versus you know trying to have to fight over get something fixed so you have somebody you trust that’s going to take care of you that’s where you’re going to go yeah you don’t have time to mess with it 100% you know the 5 or 10 grand doesn’t really matter compared with that and I think this the really great operators understand that that and that’s why they have long-term relationship so you know and I use that equation all the time with well people ask me what kind of what kind of Shear what kind of exor I’m like I don’t know you I like Chevys for dodges man cuz there’s no magic here there’s no some num miracal thing there might be a little technology up you know but what it matters is the relationship and do I trust what’s behind that they’re going to be there we say it all the time people buy from people they like exactly exactly right if you if they like you we do business with you right you know and I think if if I

if I like you I’ll listen to you if I trust you I’ll do business with you but I need both if I want if you’re going to get the money then you got to have like and the trust always say I sure wish more people like s you sell more stuff still working on it still working on it s’s been a great friend and s’s never tell anybody but he’s an me in engineering he’s an MBA he’s a smart guy but a likable guy and and well known in the industry so I’m very proud if you go from selling equipment to being a banker if you go from equipment to being a bank and finance where people trust you then all of a sudden like you know I think then then come back like there’s there’s reason for that right you trust him other people trust him you see value there and well bloodly I think for both of us I missed the trust relationship that I had with people in this room yeah I went to a different history I didn’t have that I was nobody I was nothing here like I know

all kinds of people or they you know we know each other that’s a good feeling man it’s like what you said you’re in the you’re in the in the tribe yeah you’re in the group and that’s a cool feeling it is and I think that’s the like if I was to promote is I I would I would hang my hat on that more than I’d hang my hat on some of the other things I’d just be like hey like you’re part of the fraternity right and and this is what it is and for and and it’s maybe it’s more of a you know like oh I I never was in a fraternity in college I played football so I guys I know I come back and I get to see them and I mean I hired one my one of my best friends I played college well with so I get to see him every day but it’s one of those things like once you’re part of that fraternity and you’ve kind of you’ve pledged you had to go through those days where you didn’t know anybody and then you had to build the

trust and and get water boarded or whatever whatever you whatever you did in the in the fraternity and then they finally let you in cuz you and and so true that’s so true like you know anymore you know the team that Bruce put together here he says you know we’re old guys but we’ve got a lot of time and some of the other Industries or jobs that I had leading up to being in the scrap is I never I never had anybody come up to me and say hey s uh call this guy I think he’s looking to buy what you’re selling with the exception of here yeah I mean I have guys doing that and and I reciprocate hey somebody’s asking me about something that I can’t really have a solution for but I do know so and so who does give him a call yeah yeah right so I’m giving my name out cuz I’m trusting that guy that I’m sending you to so it’s a big circle and and I love it I love it so at the end of the day SAS Forks is more than Forks right I mean

we run some of your sets of forks right we have auto salvages and uh my business partners that was just standing up over here he he bought another set of the long forks and I mean you guys have always been known for making good good stuff right I mean we had one of Scorpion Auto poers I mean so we we’ve run that and we we’ve had that for for a lot of years so what the reason I bring that up because my favorite podcasts are people I do business with right I have done business with because there’s a genuine to it of like you know you’re not just sitting here trying to promote your to me like we’ve already done business like you’ve got the business so if you guys are interested in some of the other stuff then look them up I mean you guys are here because people trust what you what you’re selling so don’t sell them don’t sell them right no I’m too old now people get pissed off at me ex so it has to be good stuff but I got to ask you a question you remember this

since your football guy uhhuh remember Dennis Erikson he was at University of Miami yeah he went to State back in the day yeah okay and then I I thought he was at Utah State or somewhere but yeah yeah in Seattle yeah I thought he was at Utah or Utah State because funny story I’m in Fontana uh I’m at one of the Adams places George’s places and I’m at staying at this hotel I sit at the bar there’s a guy sitting by I mean like I think I know this guy it’s Dennis Ericson yeah was one of the most fun nights of my life all the stories man all the crazy stuff super fun yeah just bizarre sidebar but you never know where a scrap yard appointment is going to lead you you never know that’s the beautiful thing about our business man it’s a I just want I like to I’ll end on this what I love about this fraternity is you do have the big dogs you’ve got the the the big the Behemoth of the industry but you’ve got a ton of just real entrepreneurs here I mean got a lot of

self-made people a lot of self-made people a lot of multigenerational people just but a lot of just people that are just the grittiest of the grit like that just know how to get done and that’s why wake up every day and I want to be a winner and let’s go that’s why this industry is great man so I you guys are a big part of that fraternity I appreciate you guys sitting down for time really appreciate it thanks appreciate you guys than