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 all right I’m at the scrap Expo down in Nashville with uh David Powell beer of Genesis I was telling Matan earlier I was I was able to con you guys in to let me come in and do a couple podcasts here and I appreciate it man I’m assuming you were part of uh letting me make that happen but really I just man I love talking to people in our industry you know I got the awesome opportunity to to do one earlier with like a fourth generation kid right I call them a kid I I guess I’m allowed now to say that word because he’s almost he’s 20 years younger than me right and there’s so much there’s so much talent that needs to get come up and and get involved in this industry and you and I were just kind of briefly talking about that but you

know I appreciate you taking the time going the podcast and just kind of give us we could sit here and do a plug for Genesis and whatever but the reality of it is for me like this is a family company right it’s owned by a family yes yes and we run it like a family exactly and that’s what that’s what it’s about for me right is there’s a lot of that in our industry that needs to be discussed needs to be talked about and I just kind of want a little bit of the history of Genesis and kind of how you got involved in this uh wonderful industry of scrap and give us a little bit of background man sure I can do that so Genesis was formed in 1997. started by four former competitive company employees yeah and I didn’t get involved until 1999 so I’m coming up on my 24th year in the company initially took a few conversations to get me interested in going to work doing this but I’ve loved it ever since I started out selling cheers out in the Northwest okay worked my way through multiple positions up

to president of the big company NPK now the bot Genesis four years ago so that that division has an office in Cleveland so I split my time between Superior and Cleveland it’s a it’s a great Arrangement because we have such a solid team of long-term employees and they work together that makes life pretty easy on both locations so what did you do before you uh you have to ask huh yeah I want to know I’m that guy I work for big tobacco for 11 years okay Morris nice and what did you do there well the regional sales manager yeah so similar to similar but not totally totally different selling consumer goods products and marketing and the totally different business but when the governments the governors of many states sued the tobacco companies so it’s time it’s time to get out of there yeah I never smoke yeah I mean at the end of the day like you know I always it was always funny how if you meet people that didn’t originally grow up in the industry right and it’s kind of how they found their way but I mean what do you

see as I mean something you did maybe unexpected when you came into the scrap industry that I mean obviously equipment and you’re dealing every day with like real operators guys that are running big equipment like what’s the what’s the what was kind of unanticipated in that in a good way I guess well I mean it was a totally new industry obviously yeah you know they’re big machines as you stated walking into visit someone like yourself at a scrap yard is not like walking in to go sell a copier to an office right yeah and one thing I found that was very unexpected was the welcoming of everybody in the industry walk in say hey catalog I’m from Genesis they say oh come on here let’s talk yeah and then taking a walk through the yard and looking at the machine that they have now or maybe they’ve never had a mobile share but always an open arms and you know come on let’s let’s go look at this let’s talk about it yeah don’t have to be a used car salesman try to jam something on me yeah yeah so and I think part

of that where a lot of it comes from you mentioned that that family driven background you know you go back years and years ago the Horatio Elders or eggs to riches most people look at scrap yards and think wow we’re just uh you know where all the Gump goes yeah well it’s true 100 yeah but we take it but you take it and make it into pieces that can be reused and to me that was fascinating you know Green before green was popular yeah that’s what Scrappy Cycles did 100 and I think that and I think they’re starting to be a little more shine on our industry and the fact that it was just kind of a that in the corner look at what you know don’t you know don’t go over there on that side of the tracks type of deal right but there’s been a lot of people you know like John Saco and guys that are out there trying to promote all the good that our industry is doing and I mean there is like I I could see the switch for say from Big tobacco to an industry that’s on

the up and coming right um and where we’re doing something positive I mean and it is Big equipment it is greasy it’s oily it’s but it’s it’s it’s something that has to be done and I could see that you know that being a kind of a big like positive for you being like yeah this is this is good well we’re taking things a lot of raw materials on this planet someday right 100 we’re reusing what we have that’s awesome to be reused Works multiple multiple times yeah over metallics right how many times can you recycle it we don’t know we haven’t figured out how many because it’s a big number 100 so to me that’s awesome and great people will you know don’t look at it always that way some some subdivision wants to build houses next to a scrap yard and they’re mad about the dirty scrap there yeah it’s been here for 60 years you built your house next to the to the yard to the to the to the facility not the other way around right like at the end of the day you bought that piece of land because you

probably thought it was going to be cheaper everybody wants to have it but nobody wants it in their backyard yeah it’s like a landfill or something what’s that uh acronym they call it it’s like that NIMBY or like not in my backyard is that they use it right I mean yep and you know the other thing too and I’ve noticed that you know as the years have gone by is you know yard scrap yard owners Facility Owners they’re in order to kind of combat some of that it feels like they’re trying to be more efficient in some of their processes trying to clean up their you know their front gate and trying to clean up like the appearances of their facilities and I was telling baton earlier you know when I when I was growing up um I started I started the recycling center sorting brass and you know buying them cans and whatever else and then I moved to a cutting torch and that was kind of like my jam like I could be out there I could just I mean it’s kind of like building a house like you get to see

it from from a concrete slab and you go up and all of a sudden you got something right well the cutting torch is like the exact opposite right you go big pile of cut cut cut cut small pile of that you can sell right yep and go okay and then this is before we ever owned a mobile shear and so then we went from cutting torches to hey we could actually get a piece of equipment and cut something up and not be you know and that was like a big game changing technology for our business as a whole you know so when I think about Genesis and and I tell people this like I don’t nobody pays me to do this podcast somebody was that way and I want it that way because then I can do it however I want right but I I talk to people I’ve interviewed Constantino with cinebogen because I run cinebocus like it just is what it is I like that piece of equipment I like the story I’m like tell me right and my for you know we just bought our first uh Genesis Shear you know

we had random bounties and um I made the switch and and and I like I like our shoe like I’m like this is this is a good piece of equipment so this isn’t nobody’s paying me to have this conversation it’s just I like the cheer I want to hit I want to I want to talk and tell people this is what I do do it however you want to do it so what’s the game changing technology the Genesis you know or what what makes Genesis better than your competitor and I want to hear from your end and then I could you know if anybody wants my opinion feel free give me a call well from day one Genesis has always been Innovative right we um even before I was there they decided to make mobile shares out of the special steel made by ssab in Sweden yeah everyone else used uh T1 so this is much stronger with a much higher tinsel and strength so we put a regen valve on to speed up the cylinder I said that was bad everything on the industry so that won’t work well I’m still doing it

yeah everyone else copied um then we went to the bolt-on tips and then we revised that again we’re on our fourth generation of Shear now and I never knows it’ll be a fifth someday yeah got some things in the cooker that you’re working on we always do yeah I can’t discuss them sorry but no no that’s fine but you guys are I mean you guys are always tweaking and trying and figuring out the next and how much of that is like user um information that they’re like feedback is it I mean I would have to assume that’s a big part of it we do it’s called voice of customer interviews and our engineering team will go out sometimes with a sales person usually not because yeah salesperson is always trying to solve a problem we’re trying to uncover problems in Engineers yeah we had a great design team that’s been working there on average probably 14 15 years together we’ll send them out and all we’re doing is interviewing The Operators the technicians the welders whoever’s working on them running them or owning them yeah and that feedback comes back and gets chopped

up between all the different interviews and analyzed and put into Focus they come up with Concept we usually go back to the people that provided that best input yeah that’s what you thought you’d you know it would look like or is this satisfy that pain point you had to leave all that tension and pressure and if it’s not we’ll go back and redo it again but usually it’s a pretty darn close yeah so that’s the driver for us is the industry in need not what we think it needs yeah yeah I wanted a lighter faster sheer so that’s why we have these models put them on a lighter carrier if you want without making a plug here I’m not trying to but this is this is what’s happened and this model here is 13 years old it’s about 10 years old 20 2013 it was launch okay it’s hard to get better and better you know the diminishing returns Yeah the more weight you lift the harder it is to get uh yeah 100 lose weight which I’m not very good at yeah there’ll be a day you’re like all right screw it I’m

down because you seem like a pretty driven person I’m sure will you put your mind to something you’re like that day will come on whatever it is you’ll be like yep we’re gonna figure this we’ll do something probably I mean whether it’s I’m just saying like you don’t go from what you were where you were at before and switch industry all the way over to something I mean um from tobacco to sheer manufacturing yeah like it’s a very different there’s a very different beast and then and have the success you’ve had without like being a pretty driven individual so I I don’t worry about you I’m a small part of it we do have a fantastic team I mean you know Matt pretty well and 100 that’s the one that caught me into buying this year I didn’t even use a gun or anything dude I use a great guy yeah I I mean for whatever for what it’s worth like people buy from people they like yeah and if if you got a likable salesman you got a Fighting Chance you know and the product to back up what the what they’re selling

then you got a really good chance and I mentioned earlier the word team yeah not the corporate guy that uses Team all the time but they all work together and there’s nine sales guys here yeah and they all work together they don’t compete with one another they’re all dependent on the factory for support you know they’ll dial a friend and you can’t call anybody except the factory so yeah and their job is to support the outside guys who support the dealers under customers yeah and it’s pretty it’s pretty well World machine it works it works well together you know Jeff I do know those guys are they uh they have a specific and they’re kind of we we have like an emperor yeah well they have nap I mean those that’s a big company people are like you guys compete with Pacific I’m like we compete with some of their yards locally but they’re much bigger than us I mean they’re of course yeah yeah and that’s a good company man like for what for what it’s worth like that’s what I love about our industry is we do compete but also like that’s

a legit they’re a legit outfit man they’re good at what they do you know they’re ESOP so they kind of run it like a quasi family too and I got no bones to uh pick with those guys I even sell them scrap if when the Price Is Right what’s that term coopetition yeah exactly yeah it has to be that way right like I think on the on the on the on the scrap end like we have to it has to be that way because we all make each other better you know like I I truly believe that kind of Steel sharpened steel and and Innovative companies like yourself are very aggressive and proactive you’re going to find a way to be more efficient yeah you’re gonna find a way to make a couple more Cuts every hour and have that pile build up faster and get it out of there and turn that cash yeah sorry you’re fine yeah um and the people that don’t do that you know if they’re still using the old Obama who lives under the bridge cutting torches you need one probably maybe two depending on how big he

is yeah you don’t need the six or eight of them because you gotta have that many so two or three yeah exactly remember 100 yeah I’ve been man sometimes I was the only one out there cutting you know it just does because that was the only one to show up because I was afraid my my dad with my ass off I had to be there that’s that’s the other side of the family part yeah yeah so you have kids I do have one son okay no daughters so my son works for Genesis okay Justin this is something yeah yeah so yeah he’s been 16. was he there before you no okay 16 years I think okay I had nothing to do with bringing them on okay I’m very thankful he’s with us because I wouldn’t want to have to compete with him but he was brought on by former general manager and I don’t think it’s a good idea because you’re going to have to live up to a higher standard yeah because everyone thinks you’ve got your job through nepotism and he lived up to the standard and worked his way up to

his position you know I told my son I coached my son’s Club basketball team and I coached his football team and I’m actually yeah I practiced yesterday didn’t practice Thursday and game on Saturday um and he’s like God you’re kind of hard on me I’m like absolutely I go I expect more out of you than I do add to anybody else because that’s and only because that’s how my dad was on me right and and the older I once I had my own kid I realized why he was it wasn’t that he like didn’t love me or it wasn’t that he was uh he was part of me because he expected a lot because you knew I was capable of a lot right yep and so it’s just like his way of kind of pushing me you know and now I’m so thankful like as you get older I’m like man I’m so happy I had a a dad that gave a B one that pushed me harder than you know my dad never coached me in sports or anything but I worked around him all the time and uh taught you a lot

of valuable ways my dad couldn’t coach me because he had to work luckily you know I’ve got to position where I’ve got a good enough crew that I can coach and work right but if it wasn’t for him like none of this would be possible you know for me because he he made me who I am and by just pushing me you know and making me accountable we had never met before today but I I think somehow you’re a pretty industrious aggressive guy anyway I don’t know if that came from your dad personally or not but you would have found a way to make it I would have tried yeah what I was telling you earlier I’m that guy they say it’s hot I’m like how hot let’s see let’s see well man I just want to say thank you I mean it was great to sit down and talk to you um you had a great team I mean I said I I I’ll I’ll land it on this I’m not I’m a Machinery junkie it’s like I’m an equipment junkie but I’m not like a detail like pressures type of Steel like

whatever like like it’s just not that’s not my style but when I look at a piece of equipment I can imagine my yard and I can say what kind of efficiencies can this give me in my business right like that’s how I look at equipment versus say like my dad who would look at it and say okay there’s some pressure on that put some weight what’s the cause per pound he would go through all the details but when I look at the equipment I look at it and say what kind of efficiencies can it bring to my yard and then who can I deal with that I want to deal with because I I just want to deal with people that I enjoy doing business with so if I may say one more thing before you close out no the floor is yours any piece of equipment anything in this building yeah sooner or later is going to have a problem yep and when that occurs you’ll know if you made the right choice I’m about the right product one thousand percent it isn’t the day you sign the paper yeah it isn’t the

last five dollars that you negotiated a savings yeah it’s who’s behind it how do they take care of you in it and get you back up and running and that’s and that’s not a plug for yourself no that’s a plug for whoever’s walking around this show whoever listens to the podcast after the show and you’re going to make a hard decision on where to invest your money where do you what do you want to what what piece of equipment do you think could fit in your yard and then dig and say who’s going to support that piece of equipment and what are they going to do with it and often the best are industry references competitors or friends that you have in the industry yeah what’s your experience with whatever you know this isn’t a plug just for us but that’s how you you know they’ll tell you how they were taken care of or we were not taken care of yeah and it’s a good reference point and going back to the Pacific guys we can end on this too is Pacific has bought a fair amount of shares from you guys and

they’re a lot much bigger company than me so when I see those guys continuing to go back to the well I’m like there must be something about the well that has good work right and so that just is and if you’re if you’re out paying attention to what’s going on who’s doing what just look around see what people are doing see what they’re operating you know and that’s why I do this podcast is like this is what I’m using this is what I’m doing do whatever you want this this is one guy’s way of doing yep I appreciate it thank you bro thank you I appreciate you man thanks