thank you 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 so I’m sitting here today another podcast scrap Life podcast made it with my way out to Texas made all the way to Houston Texas to uh start in Dallas made the three hour drive about three and a half hour drive down to Houston to hang out with the Kenny daniele at Prestige scrap and metal and because I the name up probably four times while I said okay how am I going to do introduce this I’m gonna say now tell me the story of how you come up with the name all right so the way we uh came up with prestige so I started my company and uh out of a feasibility study at uh in business school I was about 12 13 years ago so we’re trying to come up with the name and I think I was with some buddies uh just talking trying to

come up with ideas and we uh we’re watching a movie called uh Step Brothers with uh Will Ferrell I always forget his name oh I know I know Will Ferrell’s the easy one to remember and it’s the other guy they’re like curly hair yep yeah um so they kind of do the same thing they’re starting up a company and ah they’re pitching it to their fan uh to their family so I was like all right done we’re going Prestige Worldwide yeah obviously not uh worldwide but uh so that’s actually how I uh came up with a name okay from Step Brothers you know I always think I mean you hear about all these different these different business names and you know guys that are third generation fourth generation you know and you know the names don’t necessarily match the times or whatever that they’re in now right but one thing I appreciate about you that I didn’t all the way know until sitting down with you today is I just assumed oh you’re probably like second generation right but you’re actually like a first generation you know in the scrap recycling Automotive you know

recycling Parts recycling industry like nobody came nobody was before you nobody showed you the business you just kind of learned it by trial and error so that’s probably one of the biggest things I took away from this visit in this trip is the fact that you’re a self-made guy and that’s who I always try and surround myself with guys that are Hustlers you may be a second generation or third generation but you want to put your own stamp on it right you get the opportunity to kind of do it your own way you know from the very gate so what year did you start give us kind of like the the the background of the story sure so I wouldn’t give myself that much credit so I grew up in the industry my uh father used to have a salvage yard so growing up I would always take his cars to a local Shredder down the street yeah and that’s how I uh got it started going to the scrap yard seeing all the cranes unloading the cars throwing in a shredder I thought that was the coolest thing ever so fast forward

um a few years I’m in college and we’re having to do a uh business plan for our um for some of the management classes so while everyone else is doing you know bars or restaurants or a party bus business I was odd uh Oddball out and I was like well screw it I’m gonna do a scrap yard yeah so did that for two years and started talking to my dad about it and he had a property that he wasn’t using so we’re like okay you know let’s try to start up a scrap yard and uh see what happens so I started doing that then as soon as I graduated I moved back to Houston and just started with me and uh another guy and uh my dad helped me out the forklift and a Truck and a small excavator and here we are so you I mean ultimately and and not not to Discount like your parents and your dad and helping you out right like that’s never the goal but I mean when I say self-made self-starter like it was your idea to do the business plan on starting a you

know a scrap metal recycling company it was your idea to go down the automotive recycling side so where a lot of a lot of in our industry it’s a lot of like and like I’m a third generation right so my grandfather started it in 72 my dad took it over and then you know got had Spencer come in as a partner in 97 we eventually bought them out in 2015 became family owned again but it’s a like a like a line of you know different family members and different you know people that have played a role so yeah it for me having your dad like help you out I mean that’s I mean that’s that’s awesome right and and if it wasn’t for my dad if it wasn’t for your dad we probably wouldn’t be sitting here today doing what we’re doing um but you don’t run across many people that are first generation that with with a he may have he had a salvage yard but did he have the scrap component to it as well or was it just Automotive no it’s just Automotive Parts okay so you kind of cut your

teeth on the automotive side and then you’re like okay look at all these cranes and look at all this uh big ass equipment and you wanted to go down that road a little bit uh farther than just Automotive pretty much so have you are you are you a mechanical person like do you fix cars do you like toil with them Tinker with them or is it not really but I’m kind of I think I’m pretty creative on uh you know having a vision and making sure that happens so because I knew I wanted a car Shredder from the first time I saw about 15 18 years ago yeah so I remember when I first got in the industry and I was going to all the Israeli conventions you know selling people that I wanted a car Shredder back then when I first got started yeah and everyone would just look at me I said you know dumb young kid and just laugh at me so but I think that kind of gave me more drive to one uh into one one even more yeah well it’s always the people that like discount you or

that um don’t think you have the the ability or capability of doing that like you can use as fire like when you’re in like the nobody needs motivation when everything is good like nobody needs motivation to get up and go to work when you’re making money and you know you start to see the fruit your the trees you planted start to bear fruit but sometimes when the gets tough and you’re in the middle of a big problem you’re trying to solve it like that’s when you can dig down and like okay all these that said I’d never do it or laughed at me said I could never get over this you know piece of it I can never get over this hump those are the people that I’m like here to prove wrong right or just like that smirked at me when I told him I was gonna do something they’re like uh-huh like and I feel like that’s probably a component of like when you said when you’re like I’m gonna own Auto share someday and and people were like yeah all right whatever dumbass kid right pretty much yeah no that’s

that’s exactly how it went it’s spot out all right so when I was growing up we just had like a just an old dirt yard was you know we had dirt you know I went to work with my grandpa or whatever so I fell in love with the business super early there’s other stuff that we could do that probably could make more money probably and and or you know maybe is a little bit more sexy than like running around in in mud and grease and equipment and nasty smell and but I because I loved it so early I don’t know any other way right so I feel like you you and I probably have that piece of it in common so when you’re growing up did you when did you go hang out at the auto salvage yard like did you or would you just just was it a weekend job was it a I mean was it something you did in the summer I don’t know were you always around no that was six seven days a week my dad never gave me uh it was very uh rare that he gave me

a day off uh so what’d you start out doing there so I mean I was at first just washing trucks greasing trucks picking up trash cutting the grass uh then started uh driving a forklift moving cars around loading unloading trucks okay um and then eventually just kind of driving trucks around the yard I remember one time I got in trouble in school I think I was in high school I might have been uh 17 and 18 years old no you came to work my dad found out that I had gotten in trouble yeah so he makes me getting an 18-wheeler and driving across town to the dealership to drop it off and at this point I just knew how to drive in the mirror around the yard you know just like first second gear in Reverse so I didn’t know how to go from high to low any of that so here I am you know I’m 16 17 years old and probably look like I’m 13 years old hopping this truck and then driving across Houston just grinding every single gear until I made it so I was that was quite the

experience so like that doesn’t even sound like a punishment as a as a kid like I feel like there’s a certain amount of that that’s like fun right that you’re actually getting to experience like driving a truck and yeah I mean at the time it was scary uh but after you know it’s a it was a great story yeah so how do you go from working at auto salvage yard with your dad to now I mean one of the reasons why I want to come down here full disclosure is hey you and I met at Israeli last year and and you and you were kind of right in the middle of kind of going through the process of putting in a shredder and because I’m an equipment junkie myself like I was like damn you’re gonna put an auto Shredder in and then like just kind of watching you post you know throughout the stages like of you putting it in this last couple years this last year really the infrastructure the concrete work and then slowly building into the equipment as you got ready and to get stuff going how do you go

from I mean what’s the process of a small or whatever I don’t know I don’t know how big your dad’s operation was working in Auto Salvage to own a full-blown you know Shredder and everything that goes along with that what does that look like what’s the process look like so I mean it’s been a long road um so the process you know I started out small and then eventually found my Niche on cars um so about two year two almost three years ago now started a pick apart yard so a lot of these cars that we were buying were still a lot of them are so in decent shape and we had the space over here so little by little I started fixing up uh back piece of the property and staging cars back there and now we’ve got about 1300 cars back there um and averaging about 120 customers a day so Pick A Part yard uh that’s actually been blown up and eventually uh we’re gonna move it up to the front where I bought 34 Acres so once we’re up there you know I’d like to have maybe 2500 uh

3 000 cars and the Pick-A-Part uh business is going to be a great way to feed the shredder so you know it makes me a little more aggressive to buy cars and then it’s a great feed for the shredder so I don’t really have to go out and try to buy dealer scrap or uh look too much for scrap when I can you know if I can try to lock in at least 60 70 percent of my uh feed through my own internal right yeah and then you’re not out there chasing correct scrap which is probably why you didn’t go with some huge Mill correct yeah right like you want to right size it because I truly believe in in the scrap industry you you operate and you want to build in yourself the opportunity to grow like you don’t ever want to Discount your ability to grow especially if you’re a guy like yourself myself who’s willing to go out and hustle up the business but you also want to find your Niche and build that out and obviously you started on the on the automotive side so you’re like okay

this is going to be my Niche where and your ability to control your destiny internally right where you’re relying on your ability to feed your your own Shredder I feel like that’s probably a pretty goddamn smart move in the fact that it’s you’re you’re not saying okay I’m going to put in a mega Shredder and I’m going to go out and Chase 30 40 000 tons a month from everybody else yeah and compete because it’s there’s no you know I I’ve had the conversation with a few people now from from this Houston area and it’s a competitive landscape right I mean there’s no shortage of people buying and selling and processing scrap around here yeah no I mean you’ve got every big player in Houston so yeah you’ve got their quota some meat so it’s uh it gets competitive yeah but like you said like you’ve you know you you you’ve got a plan to feed yourself and and do that and to me 100 makes sense like now I mean understanding the vision understand where you’re going and you know what like I was just we were talking about this right before we

started this podcast like why the reason why I do this podcast is because of guys like yourself the next generation of people or guys that are our age or in that range that need someone to kind of kick them in the ass and say like you can do it right like I’m a big proponent of I wear the American flag half for a reason because I feel like there’s more opportunity like in this country if the people are just willing to do stuff like go try you’re gonna fail like there’s a certain amount of stuff that you’re gonna fail on and someone’s gonna be big someone’s gonna be small but if you don’t ever try how will you ever know and I feel like you right here is showing everybody like you got you’re gonna try and it’s something you’ve wanted for a long time yeah I know absolutely and if that’s you know that that’s that’s why I like doing it is there’s a lot of people out there that are that need that hey go try it go get it done go see what can happen you never know you never know

unless you give it a shot yeah and it’s a fun industry I’ve met so many amazing people in this industry so I’m like I can call my best friend you know it’s always exciting to see him at the conventions go out to dinner have drinks after that yeah and so I mean that was that was going to be my next kind of my next question is is there anybody that’s been helping you kind of like it’s mentored you throughout this process whether it’s on the auto salvage side or on the the scrap side or is there anybody out there that’s kind of that’s been a big help to you um getting you know answer any questions or anything like that yeah on the scrap side uh I mean a little bit there’s been a lot of people that that have helped me uh throughout the years and then on the automotive side on the part side I’ve had uh two great guys one uh Chris mantis from uh tear apart in Salt Lake City and another guy uh Alan prebble from uh England okay he’s got one of the nicest yards I think he’s

uh the largest privately owned guy in all of England so randomly became friends with him I think about six or seven years ago I went to England for their Automotive recycling convention and I met this guy over there who invited me to come check out his yard which was insane I think he’s got like four or five thousand cars in his yard and he’s got wrecks of course for uh four or five uh High so he comes to the states every year for uh our Auto Recycling show so over the years we’ve become good buddies and last year he invited me to Monaco with him he keeps I saw that you posted that on a couple that on LinkedIn that looked like a awesome yeah so that was awesome so he keeps his yacht out there and uh uh so we went and watched the the Formula One race from his yacht and then I’m going again uh next month with them that’s awesome he’s been a great guy coaching me through uh on the uh Automotive side so now it’s great uh you know but I always say it’s like it’s not what

you know it’s who you know and you can’t know enough people in this industry no um I mean some a lot of people if they’re local they’re not really going to be willing to help but you know it’s good to find guys and different reasons of the country or you know even the world and a lot of people are going to be willing to to help out or at least point you in the right direction I feel like scrap for the most part is still fairly local right and I mean I mean non-ferrous travels a little farther than Ferris but on the ferris side it’s still fairly local-ish you know within a couple hundred mile radius so I’ve always like one of the things like big things I’ve tried to do is just Network like you said it’s not necessarily what you know as much as who you know because who you know can teach you what you need to know exactly and so like I’m big on the networking component just for that reason that I feel like you know if I come down to Texas and I can learn one

or two things like it’s worth it it’s worth the trip right and I’m not competing against you for scrap you know I’m just like hey like show me what you’re doing and then you extend the favor back to the next guy and say Hey you ever come to my area I’ll show you what I’m doing how I’m doing it whatever that looks like and maybe you can pick off one or two things and take it back to your and the more that the small medium-sized operators guys yourself myself can network with each other and help each other especially we’re not taking food off each other’s table like we really aren’t we’re actually probably helping put more food on each other’s tables if we help you we help each other be more competitive Yeah in our existing markets yeah so I’ve always been a big proponent of that is you know hey calling out people that are helping you out and as far as like they’re you know doing your solid and giving you information and B not being afraid to reach out and say hey like can you help me here and I

I don’t I definitely don’t know everything there’s so much about you know even just walking around like your shredder like I don’t I’m I’m not an expert on shredding I I’m far I’m far from it right I unders I like it I try and understand the best I can but there’s so much about it that’s like beyond my like reach right because I just I’ve never owned one I’ve been around a lot of them you know I’ve delivered a lot of scrap to them I’ve hauled a lot of scrap out of them but I’ve just never you know operated one but there’s a lot of people out there that would love to help give you knowledge right and vice versa like there’s a lot of people out there that someday after you’ve ran that Shredder for five years someone from another Market can call and say hey can you give me a little bit of guidance right and you’re just your willingness and your ability to pay it forward yeah it feels like what’s awesome about our industry yeah so this morning actually before you came I had some guys from Louisiana that came

out here and they’re currently uh about to pull the trigger on buying a shredder so they came over here uh just to kind of look at the layout and see how we did it so I spent maybe an hour hour and a half with them should give them the full tour of the Shredder and kind of showed them you know the things that we might have done wrong or wish we would have done uh different yeah and then so tomorrow I’ve got another guy that’s putting in a shredder he’s coming out here we’ll show them you know what we’re doing how we did it so you know like that you know I actually had some guys that let me go to their yard before we uh and saw the shredder duh so we got to see the way they laid it out how they operate and then you know different things that they’re doing that kind of gives them their own niche in the market so um yeah I mean you can’t go to enough yards I mean out of every yard you’ll pick up something else I I have a I have a

saying that you know your network is your net worth like that is that’s it man I agree 100 if you figure out how to build that network of people that you that you feel can give you some honest answers to questions tell you if you’re up or tell you if you’re doing a job or give you a shortcut or whatever that is you know I mean the whole reason I started in Dallas is because I told somebody I put on LinkedIn I said hey I’m gonna put a tire recycling facility together like it’s gonna happen right and the next you know I had Tom down Texas who’s like hey man I got that’s exactly what I’m doing because I got one come take a look and he’s I’ll show you anything you want to see and I’m like really and he goes yeah I mean he just cold call reached out to me right and so I was like all right I’ll go take a look next thing you know I’ll fly flying to Dallas Fort Worth I’m looking at his plant we had ordered the same he like he goes this is the

equipment I’m running he goes feel free to look around but if you can find better equipment before this trip or uh yeah before this trip so so this was like the end of this is like fall of last year so that we went and took a look and I ended up ordering the same equipment I like the I liked it was made in America I liked it was you know it made in I could go look at it and um there’s already two people running it that I could see I’m like okay like this is this is gonna work for me right but without that phone call without me without him reaching out to me and just saying hey come take a look I don’t know where I’d be I don’t know if I’d be ordering different equipment I don’t know if I’d like lay everything out differently right but it’s because of that because of our industry and I feel like that’s what you know people say oh it’s about the relationships like it truly is about their Network and the relationships and I that’s why I push on the podcast like nobody

pays me to do it like I don’t get any sponsors like it’s on my dime to fly out but I feel like that’s the good thing about our industry is somebody’s going to help you and you’re going to help the next guy that wants to do something you’re going to help them create a couple shortcuts or save 500 000 or a couple million bucks by doing it a certain way versus another way right yeah exactly that’s that’s what it’s about and you know and now if I call you up and say hey what are you doing man what’s going on over there like that’s the conversation that this sir at all and and I got my buddy down in uh Indiana um Jake bronstein who he called me up three years ago right before Kobe is like hey I’m building a yard can I come see your yard I’m like come see my yard I’ll walk you through everything you decide how you want to lay yours out how you want to do it but you’re more than welcome to come check anything out you want right and to this day we have a

great friendship and it started with the phone call of hey I just want to come take a look yeah I know you got to love those kind of relationships yeah that’s what the industry that’s what our industry is about and I’ll I’ll cut you I’ll cut this off but if there’s anything if there’s anything you want to say or any advice you want to give like people as far as like on your business on what you’re doing like Now’s the Time man anything any wise words from the yeah well when I started telling people that I was going to put in a shredder every once like okay you’re crazy you don’t know the kind of headaches it is and now I understand why uh why everyone said that so but you know if anyone out there is looking at putting in a shredder or not just a shredder can be any you know big processing equipment you know don’t let up what other people are saying intimidate you know if you think yeah you know if you’re pretty confident that you can make it happen you know go for it I love it man

thank you sir thanks for sitting down with me much appreciate it pleasure uh and uh if you ever need anything from me call me you got it all right take care I love it that was perfect man 25