this week I got the opportunity to sit down with Mario Jersey from secure Recycling and I really enjoyed this podcast probably because it wasn’t your traditional quote-unquote scrap podcast where we just talk about scrap the whole time it was kind of a Different Twist than I’m used to we got the opportunity to sit down and do a little deeper dive in his business and one man’s vision of how he planned to change the industry by actually impacting people’s lives a great story also of how he broke into the electronics recycling industry and how far he’s come in the last two decades I hope you guys get as much out of this podcast as I did as Mario breaks down how he measures his efficiency and Effectiveness with a couple key HR metrics enjoy 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 another scrap Life podcast um I’m sitting here with a guy that

I met on LinkedIn I mean if you know me I I it’s kind of my preferred method of uh networking right now other than just meeting people at some of these conferences but I met Mario on LinkedIn probably two years ago-ish I’m guessing somewhere in that range and his Mario owns a company called secure recycling uh Mario Jersey good to uh finally get you on here we’ve talked a few times over the phone we’ve met at isary down in Nashville we had a pretty good conversation we were able to sit down drink a beer and just kind of enjoy each other’s company you’ve probably got one of the better stories in recycling that I’ve heard in a while so I was super excited to to get you on this podcast um so welcome man thanks for taking the time out pleasure to be here I know it took a little bit of uh scheduling to get us on the same page here but I appreciate your tenacity through that with me and patience and uh pleasure and honor to be here with you it goes both ways man you have a busy schedule

um how many kids do you have two boys three and five yeah so you’re in that that stage and I wasn’t that far I’m not that far removed from that stage with a 13 and a 10. so you know I feel your pain you’re just you know it’s everything you can do to start up a business run a business and then at home have a three to five year old boys that are ready to rip the roof off the house you know no breaks baby I had a shirt made one time and it and it had a has a three-wheeler like a trike on it and it says all gas no brakes like that’s the way that’s the way it is I feel like you kind of live that you kind of live that life in in the and just kind of how your entrepreneurial spirit kind of shines through at least when we discussed so I’m not gonna around much I’m gonna get right into the story and I just wanted you know just kind of preface it as you know Mario I think kind of started in on the electronic side

and that’s really probably where he cuts you know most of his teeth right now but you’ve got a lot of other things going on and we’ll get into it but why don’t you just give it you know give everybody here a little bit of background on you know kind of how you got into this uh this exciting world of uh recycled materials slash scrap metal slash uh you know recycling sure thing so um I’ll go way back and if you need me to speed up you tell me to step on the gas a little bit I got no problem with stepping on the gas pedal goes back to high school it was uh junior year in high school very committed to sports uh not committed to academics uh appreciation for academics these days yeah just back then it couldn’t soak my attention so the whole game plan growing up was hey I’m going to play professional soccer and uh we had an assignment junior year of high school it was uh some sort of uh internship and at the time I was uh talking to a girl and I said hey you know see

your dad has these big dumpsters outside of some machine shops and my dad has one outside of his shop and do you think he’d be open to me just following around for three or four days and she’s like let me ask so she asked and got back to me said hey he’s cool with it so I was like that’s great because I remember seeing growing up at my dad’s machine shop um he has a small fabricating business it’s him and my brother um and growing up we’d go there on Saturday mornings you know five six years old he was having me machine and deburr pieces parts and so was sweeping the floors wiping the equipment down but that box was always outside the warehouse and it wasn’t until this junior year of uh high school we had this internship program that it was like what’s that box doing there and so I also remembered asking my father like hey what’s going on with that box he says oh what they pick it up and then they they take it and then they pay me I’m like so you put garbage in there and they

pay you for that he’s like it’s not garbage it’s good stuff and they pay me good money for it so yeah the entrepreneurial spirit is kind of in your family right your dad start this machine shop is he first generation is he yeah okay yeah so in his story um you know first generation American they immigrated from Croatia and uh I have I have three older brothers one of which is handicapped so he required uh a tremendous amount of medication um you know he can’t walk or talk um he needs 24 7 care and when you move from a foreign country to the US and you don’t speak the language you don’t understand the resources and whatnot that are available to you so quite frankly at least from what I remember him sharing with me is there was no choice this is what I need to do to provide for my family okay okay it’s in you you got you got that hustle kind of that that DNA Gene is alive and well yeah for for better for for worse and I’ll I’ll segue just a couple of quick stories from when I was

a little kid and it just it’s it’s been in me like I remember back in the 286 386 computer days uh we had those big five and a quarter floppies and one of my neighbors had a printer and uh I said hey hey Michael let’s make uh when we were Gamers I’m like let’s make a video game magazine because we love game pro back then I’m like let’s make a video game magazine and sell it door-to-door yeah we were like rating video games printing it out with their printer God knows what that cost probably pissed his parents off who knows but they at least let us print it off and we were going door-to-door selling our opinions on video games oh that’s awesome man yeah there was a neighbor at a printing shop next door to our house they had a parking lot I used to clean the stones out of the lot and they let me dumpster dive and take scrap paper and he’d pay me a couple bucks and then there was uh my older brother is buying fireworks then I’d uh you know break apart some bricks

of fireworks and sell the individual packs of firecrackers till you know other parents showed up at my at my house you know what’s up with your kids selling fireworks to my kids so always a little bit of entrepreneur we’ve always had some yeah entrepreneurs some sales some sales in the menu and I think that that those are the stories that I kind of like to reflect back on and some you know people and say like you know it’s there’s there’s there’s that that thing is is is in most people that are in your position today like it’s it’s it’s I mean it’s a common back story I mean everybody’s got their own twist to it but there is some commonality in that the fact of there’s just always been that that burn to to do to sell to you know to kind of create opportunity yep exactly and uh so fast forwarding again or speeding back up to uh how I got to where I am today in terms of the industry so I did this uh internship and just sort of explored the scrap metal business with them as he was going out

and selling and he drive me around the yard and explain the different piles and this and that and cut grades and Prime grades and I was like boy none of this makes any sense but this all seems freaking incredible like you got a locomotive here you got this big equipment I love the dirt and the dust and the smell like I’m in and yeah well when you graduate I’ll give you a call why are you when you graduate so boy it was uh between that period of uh my junior year and then graduating high school I was like well I’m going to get a job somewhere else like maybe I’ll push and I went to like local you know discount uh grocery chain here like just trying to push uh shopping carts and man they would like I can’t imagine how awful I was in terms of like interviewing yeah but I didn’t get hired to push shopping carts uh my cousin worked at Best Buy and you know I bypassed like one round of interviews went to another round of interviews and like still couldn’t get hired and uh boy I was just

destined to end up in the recycling industry it’s seriously Next Level when nobody trusts you to push shopping carts at 17 16 years old um so I graduated high school and I think it was a day or two later I got a phone call from one of the partners at the scrap metal yard and he said hey you know congratulations welcome aboard and uh when do you want to start I was like whoa I thought you guys would forget about me he said nope uh we just like we got a lot of work to do when do you want to start I said well whenever I said well see you tomorrow cool I had you know didn’t understand ask any questions about pay or what am I doing but you know somebody wanted me outside of the world of soccer so it was pretty pretty exciting so did soccer just never come to fruition you just because when you and I were talking originally um did what what came of that or didn’t come of that just sure so uh I played at Lakeland uh played junior college soccer ball and at the same

time was playing Semi-Pro I was paying for schools able to pay bills uh I had two herniated discs when I was 18 in my lower back yeah also a degenerative disc and it just uh in addition to that my right ankle’s been broken three times and between those it’s just you never fully recover yeah some mornings you wake up you walk fine other mornings you can’t walk and uh I I thought to myself well well actually after Lakeland I went to Ohio State to walk on and uh I was down to a round of three guys from like 80 or something and I played ball with a bunch of those guys they didn’t take any Walk-Ons and the coach pulled me aside he said hey next year you’re going to play in spring camp with us or a summer of spring camp I can remember at this point it’s been a while and uh he said just come ready and I was in the best shape of my life a buddy of mine had called me to play pick up soccer on a Sunday it was like three weeks before I started

training with the varsity team at Ohio State and uh I just boy was I an arrogant prick on the field um I really embarrassed this guy put it through his legs two times in a row there was like a minute left on the clock and he slide tackled me from behind broke my ankle again and that was about you know I think he needed three months for the swelling to completely go down so they could actually do a procedure which should have a six to nine month recovery and that was that that was that I called the coach I said hey just want to let you know uh gotta go get looked at by the doctor and uh then I learned at that point I’m just another number yeah uh my my own arrogance uh got in the way of my future and uh that was it so from that point I was like I really need to put all my energy into my business and I want to Circle back to that reason why I wanted to bring that up is and because I want you to get back to your story but

I want to Circle back to the the value of team sports and running and operating a business because I feel like I’ve had this conversation with a lot of other people and then you know individuals that have played team sports they there there’s something there to to it so I just want to make sure that we kind of covered that and I’ll let you get back to your story but make sure we Circle back to team sports and kind of the value of you know organizing an operation yeah team sports are huge I mean I got a late start on Sports but you know generally speaking I stayed late I got there early I put in the work at home yeah a lot of work at home and I actually that was the first time in my life I was really setting goals and excuse me nobody was really there to tell me hey here’s the goals you should go after it was stuff I was setting up on my own because I didn’t want to be like everybody else and I loved it and I was going to show everybody how good I

was yeah I love it I love it so you graduate high school you’re obviously playing soccer you’re working you’ve got you’re making some money right and and you’re working at the uh the local scrap yard um I assume it’s local it’s not a big National brand correct local yeah and so you’re you’re learning the materials they they got work for you didn’t negotiate your pay and here we go yeah I’m getting uh I think six or seven bucks an hour under the table it’s awesome yeah uh and you know I was going to school full time playing soccer and working damn near full-time and I just I love the I love the business so I the scrapyard that I worked at they had an asset recovery division for machinery and equipment so they you know buildings might get demolished it might be a chemical plant or a manufacturing plant you have a bunch of bare bones left over pieces Parts and Equipment well um some of those items might have value Beyond scrap so if I worked for a it was technically a separate entity from the scrap yard but within the the

family of businesses so you know my first day they put me in this I don’t know 100 000 square foot Warehouse with broken windows you know no lights if if any lighting at all really uh pigeons crap and everywhere and boss rolled up he said hey I’m going to bring someone over to show you how to drive a forklift his name’s Willy and uh there’s a bunch of these I think they’re Rosemount valves you’re gonna catalog all these in these boxes you’re going to tell us what we got how many we got cool I said sounds amazing yeah so uh overcame came Willy showed me how to drive a forklift and you said occasionally I’m gonna have to torch cut something so here’s how to here’s how to cut cut with this system and then he left and it was me in a warehouse nice nice you should spend a lot of time with you in a warehouse all right in a warehouse lots of lots of time on my own probably for the betterment of society I guess because I you know no one would hire me to push shopping carts but um

you know unbeknown to me I was putting together processes and systems to efficiently receive to efficiently process and locate and keep accurate counts of things because they’re bringing you other stuff not just those valves they’re bringing you once they realize you could do that task they’re like okay well let’s see like let’s start bringing them more material letting them letting them process and and catalog other other items right yep correct so it eventually got to the point where it’s they would communicate what do we have coming in and what’s going on when’s it going out so uh it was pretty cool I was driving I think it was like a 40 000 pound capacity forklift at the time so I was driving you know a little four thousand pound cap up to a 40 000 pound cap and I I learned how to do rigging on my own because you know it wasn’t just Gaylord boxes of material it was you know lades that might be 30 feet long and awkward and so yeah I had no idea I was going to learn how to rig or you know unloading uh you know some

sort of heating element that it’s it’s tubular and it’s on blocks and it weighs 30 000 pounds and you’re unloading on a slope yeah he’s there to oversee me they’re just let me know hey this truck’s coming in you got to get the off the truck and in the building and then then you learn how to navigate huge items that are you know uh you know one-third two-thirds wider than the door frame how to get it inside a building so oh yeah yeah man it’s like trial it’s the ultimate trial by fire like there’s no books that you’re gonna read now there’s no college courses they’re gonna teach you like how to do what you’re doing man and that’s that’s the beauty of what our industry offers right and the these companies these small medium-sized companies they’re like yeah we need we need guys we need help like just let’s go we just need someone that’s young that’s got a little grit to him that wants to get done and let’s go get it you know I think that’s that that youth element that that that provides so much value and

I think we we need we we were just talking about how important it is to get the youth fired up about our industry in one way or another and not everybody’s built to do that job you were just talking about but there’s a lot of kids out there that would eat that up you know I think it’s not you’re not an anomaly in the fact that that you that you enjoyed doing that because somebody gave you the um I say the Rope to to go out and like make happen I think there’s there’s a lot of that missing right and you can call it because of you know it was a red tape or insurance requirements or you know what you know all the stuff that’s you know probably transpired since then and today but there is a youth element out there that still loves to do that stuff and we just got to make sure that we provide an opportunity you know for that to happen so keep going my man again we were talking about that before this this podcast you know engaging the youth and I was giving you a Kudos

uh there’s there’s several of you in our industry doing that because there’s so much information out there these kids can’t get their their hands on this stuff uh with a whole lot of ease right because it’s uh it’s not as interesting as a porta potty fight at a concert in Pennsylvania right that’s the stuff that gets shared can I ask you a question like on a sidebar like do you think that there’s it’s almost The Funnel of information that’s just common and sometimes it’s not even like valuable information it’s just like videos and like memes and just the amount of just the volume of this craziness is coming out these kids right on a daily basis like it’s almost to the point where it’s like I look at it I’m like holy cow like this is too much right like I keep my very narrow and I wonder if that plays a role you know well in our we’re adults and our brains are developed like we just had an issue with my five-year-old he was man he was Wild on Sunday he gave me 50 minutes of it and uh I’m

talking to my dad about it I’m like hey like there’s no way I’m like was there any chance when you were when you were me and I was him that you would do what I’m doing he’s like no he’s like that wouldn’t last and I said well you know what’s different though is when I was his age we had four channels and there was never really anything interesting on TV yeah and I didn’t have this many toys and this many choices of things to do this poor kid’s damn mind is on overload with information I mean he’s watching the stuff he’s into which I’m happy about you know he’s watching fishing he’s uh watching these shows with birds and bird calls like we’re we’re in the middle of the woods and he hears something he goes quiet you know what do you mean quiet he’s like did you hear that hear what he’s like that’s a pileated woodpecker a woodpecker he’s like look oh it’s over there you look up and he’s like see that one that’s a female like how did you know that’s a female like so I’m learning about birds and

all this stuff from my uh my five-year-old but the amount of information so like yeah and it’s not just the poor kids like should I found myself on Facebook a couple days ago like 20 minutes in the black hole because the videos loop it never ends it goes from video to video to video and before you know it it’s been 20 minutes I’m like off gotta stop and uh like it’s important for Our Generation Like Us in the industry like we’re competing with that noise right and so we have to like like I’m I’m a big proponent of like stuff like podcasts videos like you know we have we’re because we’re competing directly with that we have to get our shots in right as what I call it like get your information out there get your licks in because there’s more common right like you gotta we as an industry have to get our you know what’s cool about what we’re doing what’s what’s you know where the opportunities lie um you know and I think we gotta get our shots in so all right I’ll stop cutting you off man but

but anyway so you’re going through the warehouse you’re doing the deal you’re just learned rigging you’re uh what’s what’s next after that so we uh we hit a point where some computers come in the warehouse and uh I just remember my boss saying hey we gotta we gotta get this out of here we don’t we don’t want this stuff out in the yard it’s got to go and uh I was blessed at growing up my dad always made sure that we had a computer in the house he was big on technology for us to to learn it I don’t know if that was a big immigrant mindset you know we didn’t have a lot of stuff growing up but it was important that we had a PC so that’s cool very familiar with PCS growing up being on dos and you know just learning how to read and I was already typing stuff out on in MS-DOS right so yeah um I was like well I know some things about computers I’m like what happens if I just take these computers off your guys’s hand and he said good get him the hell

out of here so it’s a couple pallets and uh called my brother up because he had a pickup truck I said hey man I got a couple pallets I want to get brought over to the house if you don’t mind and uh take it to my parents house and they’re kind of like what’s happening in the garage and I said I got some computers here I’m gonna take these apart and gonna figure something out and uh so I ended up rebuilding a bunch uh sold some on eBay sold some pieces parts on eBay and then the scrap pieces parts sold it back to my my boss nice so you that was your first experience in um electronics recycling yeah it was like two thousand four two thousand five okay okay so you’ve been at it for a while like and that’s why I’m like I’m like don’t get it twisted guys like this this is a this this has been going on for a while so so let me on on the deal like that I mean did you make good money on it did your eyes light up was it was it super

profitable was it like I mean did was it enough to kind of get you motivated like hey I need to take a hard look at this so profit was wasn’t my driver it was the opportunity that was the driver because so money did I make money the answer is yes but you know knowing what I know today I don’t have any real overhead I wasn’t paying workers comp insurance I didn’t have any insurance so yeah all that profitability is hyper inflated um but at the time it’s like whoa yeah there’s profit here but holy there’s a huge opportunity here there’s going to be massive amounts of this stuff coming up the pipe okay when I sold the stuff back to the yard I went back to one of the the bosses there one of the partners and I said hey I got this idea remember those computers and uh I said it you know I got this idea for for a business and he said listen I don’t want to hear it if that’s what we want to do we’re going to go do it we don’t need you to go do it so

I suggest you go back in the warehouse and get back to work and this is the this is the uh rated G version of what he said yeah oh yeah yeah how uh and how long have you been working there at that point about a year and a half or so yeah um and I I think what he heard uh which I sort of got confirmation not too long ago but I think what he heard was I was going to compete with them okay and what I was saying was and it literally said like hey we could and I’m like 19 years old I’m like hey we could all be partners in this you guys have warehouses facilities medals contacts like and I’ll drive this I will take this and uh he said you know no thanks we don’t need you and uh you know he I ended up leaving the office after his face turned so red from ripping into me and he ran out of breath I just looked at him and I said you know all you had to do was say no and it’s funny reflecting on that that’s been

one of my superpowers I think in life is just man I’m I’m really hard to piss off like and that superpower is also a tremendous weakness because sometimes somebody will say something and someone will look at me and go hey they probably shouldn’t have said that to you and it’s like well you know sticks and stones may break my bones but your words will never hurt me so yeah I left with my head high I wasn’t he didn’t beat me up and maybe he thought he was going to beat me up and I was like okay onward yep so you left I assume I mean what’s the next step I’m a glutton for forgetting on like that so I stuck around for a little while I really like the job I you know I like the boss even though he was an to me about that but you know they really took care of me they respected me they gave me a tremendous opportunity and uh so I I ended up leaving in between the point that I was going from a community college to Ohio State University and uh this is kind of

the exciting part sort of the the salesmanship before I even knew I was selling so a friend of mine called me up on a Saturday morning he’s like hey man I’m up at the library at the community college can you can you come give me a hand with your with my resume I don’t remember what time but it was early I was like yeah man I’ll come up give you a hand in a few minutes so drove up there I had a shirt on with a pizza stain on it the shorts sandals you know a little bit of a train wreck yeah and I don’t know why he called me for his resume like you know I failed 11th grade English um so in my senior year I had 11th and 12th grade English which is weird but wait you got it done yeah got it done um so I’m helping him with his resume giving him some feedback and uh we’re in the computer lab and somebody pulls a PC out from next to us it was like divine intervention like oh would you look at that he said to my buddy I

go hey can you hold on a second I gotta go ask her what she’s doing with these so yeah follow her around she pulls another PC out I go excuse me what what are you doing with those computers she’s like oh I’m putting them on the card over there I’m like well yeah I got it I understand but like what’s happening with them she’s like I don’t know I don’t know really what happens with them I just put him on the cart and I I take the cart to the warehouse I’m like well I’ll be damned you know my mind a warehouse is a scrap yard Warehouse like because that’s yeah I’m like whoa this this college has a warehouse that’s incredible who knows more points at some lady on the other side of the labs like she might be able to help you so walk over I go excuse me ma’am I’m I understand these computers are going on this cart and this cart goes to the warehouse and I’m trying to figure out who’s responsible for the stuff in the warehouse she’s like oh that’d be uh procurement purchasing I’m like okay

uh where would I find purchasing and procurement that would be the a building age the administrative building I’m like that’s cool and it’s Saturday morning I’m like well who would I talk to you’re like oh gentleman by the name name of Dale I’m like you think Dale’s here today yeah yeah Dale’s always here on Saturday I’m like my man in the same Club so I tell my buddy I’m like hey man I’ll be right back I promise I’ll help you wrap this thing up but I gotta go talk to some guy named Dale in the a building so I Mosey on over to the a building and I knock on the door and you know the proverbial like 90s boss man with the big leather seat like you can’t even see who’s on the seat till they turn around yeah I knock on the door and I just hear a voice go can I help you and I said absolutely more than you know and he just slowly turned around in the chair and gave me sort of a bewildered look and uh he’s like well what exactly can I help you with I

said well I have an idea for a business that I want to start without your yes today I can’t start my business so he’s like that’s one of the most interesting inquiries I’ve had here in my career why don’t you have a seat yeah and that’s the and that’s how it started that’s uh that was the first deal that I landed and I didn’t know that I was even negotiating so um so just real quick though and like I want to bring this up because I think it’s important is that just it goes to show you like people that are opportunists like other people just see a computer going by and a lady’s hand going on to a cart right but like people that are opportunists they’re like I wonder what they’re doing with that cart I wonder where that card goes I wonder how this I wonder that right and maybe if you hadn’t had that previous experience of electronics and like breaking apart in your garage maybe you wouldn’t have thought twice about that but in general I feel like whatever your wheelhouse is like if you if you’re a true opportunist

you know and and you and I’ve had this conversation this is how I started my entire Recycling business is I was just getting piled on with tires through the course of my business and I couldn’t on the recycling the scrap side and I couldn’t figure out like a good spot to go with them and I’m like well I can’t be the only person with this problem you know and then the next thing you know like I’m getting tired you know and I’m trying to buy a tire shredder and and and I only bring that up because like that’s how like our minds work right and so many people in our industry like that’s how they got into it or that’s how they they just they saw a need they didn’t even know it was a need they’re just like well why why is this happening you know and that’s that I always feel like that’s a true kind of entrepreneurial Spirit you know within an individual is they just see things a little bit differently they some people see a problem and other people are like I there’s like something there that could like

other people probably have this problem so maybe we should try and fix it you know or whatever and maybe at that point it wasn’t quite a problem for you seeing that cart go by or that lady walked by but you knew that if they were going to a warehouse they probably were a problem for somebody right at that point and so all right all right let’s uh let’s keep this train moving that’s just my two cents on your story thank you and and you’re not too far off well you’re you’re you’re right on the mark actually so the only difference in my mind wasn’t so much that uh there’s a problem it was there’s something happening with it and I have to figure out what’s happening and I could probably and this is where sort of that youth comes in it’s like well why couldn’t I do it better than who’s already doing it like what’s going to stop me from doing it and I don’t even know what it is they’re doing but I could do it better why the hell not yeah you know you got clothes roof over my head and

you know three squares a day I’m all in so for me it was exploratory so I’m sitting there and he he asked me you know you know why are you here I said well I want to start a computer recycling electronics recycling company and I noticed somebody pulling some PCS out and I’m trying to get more information about what exactly you guys do with these things and like somebody from the lab sent me your way they said you’d be you’re the man and that’s that’s what brings me here yeah so he walked me through everything he was doing who they were working with uh the documentation they were receiving and uh which was really cool to me because I never had any sales training or anything but I was just sort of naturally because I was so curious I was asking all the right questions I I cared and I was curious yeah and I think he got a sense of that too um and again that sort of youthfulness and like you know lost semi-lost puppy look on my face is I’m just like in this whole new world at this point

I’ve never been through anything like this you know this guy was probably a couple years from retirement right like he’s been a he’s a was a professional veteran procurement guy beating everybody up on price doing all the right deals and yeah who’s this college kid like really not put together but boy does he he this kid wants to start a business so you know kudos to him for giving me the time of day but he’s telling me what they’re doing how they’re doing it and then we hit this point where he goes you know so this is what we’re we’re paying 50 I think it was like 15 cents a pound to get rid of these or properly recycle these assets at the time and mind you I don’t know where I don’t have anything like I have nothing and uh not even a pizza yeah that’s it so he’s he discloses what they’re paying currently and he just looks at me and it’s quiet for I don’t know I mean 20 30 seconds and he goes well what do you think you could do it for and uh the the terrible businessman that

I was back then I said we could do it for two cents and he reaches across his desk we shake hands he’s like you got a deal of course I missed some other important qualifying questions along the way yeah uh he goes well when can you pick up the first load and I said you know that’s a great question uh what’s the first load so what’s it comprised of and where do I pick it up and how much is it yeah he so he you know then I learned about payment terms you know in my mind it’s operating like a scrap yard well I’m gonna pick the stuff up you’re gonna weigh it you’re gonna give me two cents a pound well yeah no I didn’t know what net 60 was so anyone else I didn’t realize like deadlines to get the stuff off the property and I didn’t realize how much volume there was there was I don’t know there was more than a semi-load that he’s like I need this out by you know next week or something again I don’t remember all the specifics and details but I remember thinking

to myself and I I remember thinking like holy but I never thought I couldn’t do this there was never a time where it was like I can’t do this it was just holy I mean everything was a holy moment quite frankly yeah so I left there I’m on cloud nine now it’s like okay I need a unit and my dad was in a multi-unit facilities I’m like hey I need I need your landlord’s number I gotta call this guy I need space I got some money saved up and yeah so I called my dad’s like what are you doing and I’m like I’m starting a business I just landed this huge deal and I I got to get things rolling so yeah uh I call I call a landlord and he’s like hey I got a couple of spaces available they’re not very big and I’m like well if they’re not big I don’t I don’t have a lot of money either he’s like well how much you got I’m like I got like 700 bucks he’s like perfect that’ll be your first month’s rent we’ll go month to month so met up

with them game is money my dad had uh 19 fortunately he was like five or six units over he had like those 1970s heister that the only way to really turn it around the only way to use it in the unit I would have to like turn around outside to maneuver it it was like a 747 for the size of the space I was only in like 700 square feet or something like that that but uh answer my brother I’m like Hey man can I borrow your pickup truck for a couple of runs yeah which is more than a couple of runs big brothers are four so threw him a couple bucks for gas and the truck and uh you know really the the goal there there was no business plan there was no SWOT analysis there was nothing it was just I’m gonna do this I’m going to figure out and as long as I make more than seven dollars an hour I’m the richest man on planet Earth that was legitimately the mindset and that speaks to I mean I mean we could go through but it just speaks to like that

the Hustler mindset too right I think it I mean anybody that’s ever started a business regardless of what what the industry is like there’s always going to be those like that moment where you’re like I can do that I can do this I can do this and all of a sudden it starts going like okay well maybe there’s a little more involved than I thought here or there but as you get like your tolerance I say like it’s a it’s it’s it’s like a drinking right if you’ve never drank alcohol but you drain you drink two beers like you’re gonna be feeling pretty pretty good right but if you’re a regular Beer Drinker you drink you’re used to drinking 10 beers a day then you know a couple beers like I mean you don’t even really affect you right but and I as starting a business or being an entrepreneur it’s like being a first-time Drinker like you’re just you know it’s coming at you like eight ways sideways but you don’t even realize like as your business develops and as you grow that those were like little you know kind of little

concerns you know but at the time they’re big because it’s you’re building up your tolerance to take on more you’re building up your tolerance to but at the same time you’re still excited I did you know it’s like is the first time you ever drank a few beers with your friends like it’s an exciting time like it’s like you’re it’s there’s an excitement in involved in that you know and um so I kind of there’s there’s just so much about that story that I like is I think it resonates probably with so many people that are that that are those like I say a first generation you know on business starter first generation entrepreneur where they’re just you know started their own thing and they’re just they’re just learning how they’re learning how to take it on but they’re excited and and I feel like that’s where you know you build up that tolerance to like let’s say you take it to where you are today you know I mean they’re like highlight a few steps in between there from that from that big act from that big get out the gate and to

to where you’re at today what’s some of your bigger highlights your highlight reel that’s that’s a big one that’s like your first state championship or something like that right I mean to a certain extent I mean that big getting the Ohio State account like that’s kind of what gave you a taste for the future I assume yeah it so I’ll clear one thing up sorry I wasn’t hearing it it was the Community College Community College I’m sorry yeah sorry um so that was the that was the highlight and then just figuring it out and getting a bunch of friends to come and help and the scrap metal yard that I had worked for they weren’t very supportive uh I mean they initially were supportive and I think they had seen like you know Mario’s gonna get some legs with this and then they weren’t very supportive and uh they ended up turning into a customer like four or five years later or something like that so uh I think I proved to him a couple things one I’m gonna be around no matter what you do in in two I could add value to

your your business and not be on your payroll yeah so that was I mean that was nice to be able to do that so I say you know early on that was probably a highlight but there was just some big steps like um geez we moved or I moved the business multiple times and I and I think this is where you and I uh this is why I have tremendous appreciation for you where the fork in the road for me went one way and it went the other way for you I hired friends and family almost exclusively so like if you got hired you either knew someone that worked for me or knew someone related to me and uh you know it went well for a while and um I learned sort of the the Pains of that because and I’ll certainly own my part I didn’t know how to navigate it properly I was likely a very shitty boss early on um it took a few years so I picked up a mentor um someone who had a pretty uh dominant business in the the area I was in and uh and I

thought he was very successful and I I relied on him to sort of Coach me through being a successful entrepreneur and uh I thought well I have to be like him to be successful and I couldn’t be him but I was trying to run my business like him and I was miserable the business was growing just because of where the marketplace was with the industry I had friends and family and the things I I could share with you it’s like well when I really needed their help my friends and family would deliver every time if I didn’t really need their help they were you know it’s like I’m dragging them through the mud and you know Mario’s such an he’s the worst guy to work for it’s like I can never get the consistency that I needed and they were all smart they were all talented they’re all good people it was you know part I would say at the time probably 75 me but I didn’t get enough from them to be like hey you know you really could approach this differently it was just you know mouths mouths and eyes shut and

we’re not going to give you any feedback because I wasn’t approachable but I was also running a business in a way that wasn’t authentic to me in the way that I wanted to run it so yeah and I I know this to be fact to most I grew up in a family business right I grew up my aunts on my aunt my uncles worked there my grandpa my grandma my mom my dad were all in the same like little office space right I mean granted my uncle was more in the area working on trying to get stuff to work my dad could drive truck or operate the Bantam crane unload customers and you know my mom who worked a scale and and so they all kind of had their own roles but there was it was a family it was steep in family right I mean it was a family business of all family businesses and then as my dad kind of eventually took over it became less family you know this man’s levels left my retired my grandparents my mom my dad and then they had like a couple cousins and then my

uh my old brother-in-law had was there and I graduated college and came back so there was still some kind of family involved and you know to this day it’s there’s no family there right I mean I saw to your point when you’re starting a business you you go with people that you trust and that you know and then and then you kind of Branch it out from there and I think especially in a business where there’s a lot of cash involved or there’s a lot of like money exchanging hands and stuff that’s why people tend to go with family initially is because they feel like they can trust those people to handle money and do all that while they’re kind of getting through the through the process you’re so you’re not alone by any stretch of the imagination that’s just kind of the way the way that it goes but then as you grow you create opportunities for okay maybe I don’t necessarily need their family member isn’t performing or whatever that is and then as as it goes it changes but you know to your point you know I think I

don’t think you’re alone in going through that that phase you know there’s a lot of hard times in my going to Christmas and Thanksgiving you know when I was growing up as a kid I didn’t understand what was going on I’m like how come you and Uncle Robert don’t get along and my dad’s like that guy you know blah blah and I was like well I mean what he seems like a nice guy to me like and then you know and it wasn’t that he like hated them it’s just there’s so much tension all week long right that they couldn’t even sit down and eat Thanksgiving dinner together right and it was just like something had to give and I think my grandpa was able to kind of help kind of split them up and do a bunch of other stuff and today they get along fantastically right but there was a period of time where nobody talked to anybody I mean we didn’t have a big family to begin with but nobody could it even say hi to each other right so it’s like it’s a it’s a it’s a tricky deal to

navigate for sure especially with immediate family so you’re not alone in that regard so it and and thank you for sharing that list I I know part of your story not all of it so yeah thanks for the clarity on you know where you guys are at today in terms of family that’s and that’s Gotta Be You know that’s what three three generations of businesses like that’s I mean if those walls could talk about the stories that they’ve learned yeah 100 and it is what it is but like I said that’s that’s the beauty of what you what you’ve done and what you’re building right so you you go through the phase of you’ve got your family involved and then as you said and now maybe I gotta change some things right and so I mean at what point do you start to change things so uh we were still renting at that time and then uh we bought or I bought two warehouses it was my first real estate acquisition so this is in 2014 about 34 000 square feet of uh warehousing okay it was on four and a half five acres

something like that so facility was quite deplorable so here’s another highlight reel we did uh boy I can’t remember the name of the bank now with the with the or the name of the loan with the bank but it was essentially they’re supposed to give you uh liquidity around in the front end uh to GC and and do repairs and well you know I’m talking to my banker about it they’ve earmarked 750 000 for repairs and I get the keys I’m on cloud nine you know we’re going from 8 000 square feet or nine thousand to thirty four thousand square feet and uh there’s a whole story in that 8 000 square feet we were in a 50 000 square foot Warehouse with shared space with another company which that’d be for another time potentially but lots of Lessons Learned there but so I get the keys I’m in the new place I’m bringing contractors through and then I call the bank and I go hey I’m gonna go ahead and need x amount of dollars to get this going and that going and I was like oh well that that sounds great uh

when do you want me to send someone over to take pictures like well what do you take pictures of he said well of course according to the deal I need to take pictures of finished work I can’t release any funds until the work’s done so I’m like oh man I’m like I’m in trouble here I’m like I was under the impression the loan that we did gives me money he’s like yeah but this line item here there’s a liquidity draw that you know you put zero on the line item yeah isn’t that one of the areas that you walked me through well yeah but you’re supposed to know that yeah well well whoops so the importance of banking and yeah okay so move the business painfully uh a friend of mine had recommended we we hire some guys in a recovery program just to help with the move and uh he turned me on to a whole world of people in three-quarter homes in need of work and opportunity and so uh these guys were fantastic with the move great attitudes it was like boy this is amazing we could help people out

and like I always believe the recycling business is like the such a fantastic life equalizer you know it’s like you were talking earlier it’s keep things like Checkers in that chess there’s a lot people are working for us and they’re paying attention daily how we do things whether it’s our paperwork or how we communicate there’s so many lessons that could be learned and brought into your personal lives and when you do things for pennies on the pound I mean there’s so many lessons to take home how to how to be able to save money and make better decisions and uh these guys were you know they’re all in different parts of their lives in this three-quarter home and I hired four of them uh and they all carpooled it was like an hour drive and made a deal and they were at after the move because I exited just about everybody I think we went from eight or nine people down to two and then hired these four in a car and then trying to hire more people and we had this guy helping me with HR because like what the hell do

I know about HR or anything you’re the expert learned from you so the agreement was hey help me stand this up make a handbook and give me the keys when you’re done well he did things that were conventional to him again this is what was conventional to him wasn’t authentic to me so in his mind well we’re gonna we’re gonna put these job postings out we’re gonna do all these interviews we’re gonna hire four to eight people at a time and you know we’ll pray by Friday there’s at least one person standing and uh in my mind this is like normal yeah we went from 8 000 to 34 000 square feet like I’m burning cash on repairs like I just remember being I remember looking at the checking account it’s on fumes like when I say fumes dollars not not a hundred bucks or more less than a hundred bucks got to make payroll and um times were tough and uh we’re hiring a challenging demographic to lead as well because it’s very it’s very nuanced because you don’t know what’s happening with people outside of work so the the guys from the

the recovery program um you know came in this was a valuable lesson came in demanded more money and uh boy I got leveraged and it was like like I gotta pay more and I don’t have more to pay but I don’t have a choice because I need to work okay the guys morning and you know four weeks goes by no call no show for people I’m like and Meanwhile we’re cycling like onboarding for people and I’m paying this consultant and like catastrophe yeah like zero stability and in my head I’m just thinking like this cannot be normal this can’t be normal anywhere and I I went to the guy and I said hey uh thanks for your services you know today is going to be your last day with this HR project and he was really pissed off because prior to exiting him I just changed passwords on everything and he was his feelings were hurt that I changed passwords and he said it was too soon and too fast and he’d never been fired before or I said well you’re not being fired you could just say you quit you know whatever it’s

I’m indifferent I just need to move on because this this isn’t real for me um sustainable it’s not sustainable to me um so I Revisited and retooled what the approach was and uh I found that and this has developed a lot over the years this is what I’m the most curious about and the guys went through that that scenario family business and then you know this scenario where you’re bringing in you know three-quarter home halfway house you know individuals to where you’re at today because like in all in all like like we’ve had this conversation over the phone before and as you’ve kind of worked through your own processes right like you know how you’re trying to hire you know certain individuals do certain things I mean because it’s all kind of culminated in in to where you’re at today and your hiring process and how you think about the business like as a whole right because I think and the reason I want to say this is is I love your story I and I and I think it’s similar to there’s some similarities to other people have started and got in

this industry but where I think you’ve excelled and where you’ve kind of tried to push is you’re very operational and how you think about things but you’ve really like went hard at um the HR process and the functionality of individuals within your company and I think this probably it sounds like because you had so much headache and heartache to begin with right I mean that’s kind of what has forced your hand to the position that you’re in today which you know and I you know to speak to that I mean I I I’d really like to have you kind of speak to that process um a little bit further for anybody out there that’s kind of maybe in a similar position sure so do you mind if I spend like two or three more minutes um keep going keep going so there was a point in time so the HR guy’s gone which he was a good friend um very smart very knowledgeable uh just again there’s that authenticity it just there was a disconnect and I I couldn’t do it and he’s had successful businesses and it worked for him so again the

beauty of all of this is there’s no singular path which is why I absolutely love entrepreneurship so at one point we’re about 80 percent felons on the floor like and I have very weak leadership out there I try to build the infrastructure with three floor managers those three report to me and that was through this HR guy I realized all three of those managers were just covering for one another so no information was getting me that I needed no information made its way up to me that I actually needed to know these guys were just covering for one another so exited those three and then I started talking with the folks on the floor to realize like boy these guys all absolutely think I’m a bag um so then there’s this whole convincing and reprogramming and trying to earn people’s trust which is even more difficult when they’ve already formed an opinion of you um but I learned that you know we’re it and I was hell-bent on like boy I really want to help the community I want to help people out and like I really really think that this this industry

can do it better than anybody because a lot of these guys their stories were you know we got into drugs or got depressed and you know then they get released from prison and then they generally work at a food joint and they’re working a night shift and then all these people go and party and then they do drugs after and I’m like you know that’s not our place like so I came up with sort of a different style handbook with the intent to like protect these guys because I gave a and it was like well we’re not going to talk about sex and drugs and booze you guys aren’t going to be friends outside of work you’re not gonna carpool and whether or not these are all legal on my end I don’t give a because I know the other way doesn’t work and I know that the other way you guys are going to lose so if you’re in it to win it here’s what this looks like and um our our handbook at that point really started to expand because these guys I mean the guys that really know how to play

the system are really smart like I mean just getting prod and through uh through policy um and I I finally won several of these guys over like earned their trust and it was like help me understand your perspective on this policy or this procedure and like I remember one of the things we got hung up on was people are complaining about the attendance system because some people take a bus and some people have transportation and they said well people who take the bus the bus is unreliable you need to give us uh if we start at eight you should give us a 30 minute buffer I said okay well I learned from these guys how to challenge the system so I allowed them to build the system and guess with the tools they’ve provided me over the years like I knew how to beat their system I said well okay let’s say you have until 8 30. well who’s gonna see you get dropped off around the corner not from a bus but a car at 825 and you show up and you said you took the bus and they start walking around the

room and I said also you know so and so is very mechanically inclined their car is not in that good of shape and then we’ve got someone that’s not mechanically inclined do they have different attendance policies and so and so’s got a brand new car should she be required to get here 15 minutes early and uh the consensus was you know what the policies find just the way it is this is getting too nuanced but it’s it was learning all those skills and punching through really the the the the Precision of what was being said and what was being done and how they approached things was just it was just so brilliant and I found it fascinating it was something I became obsessed with which pushed me into the realm of HR but the first thing was like hey we can help the community but I can’t help the community if we don’t have the proper infrastructure to support these folks because really like we I mean we had non-profit organizations that would help us source and they would have counselors and like you got guys that are are using and you know

they’re using yeah they’ve convinced their counselor they’re not using and I’m like well here’s how I know they’re using well then they take a drug test and they pass and I said well they know how to pass the drug test yeah they’re not good you’ve heard of said before like guys that are like that have been involved in the system or you know and this isn’t this is just like anything it’s not true across the board but there’s some really super smart individuals that they’re they’re so intelligent that they’ve made a life of cheating the system and working the system and and doing wrong and then if you could get those guys those guys or gals or whatever convinced to put all that effort energy and brain power towards um things that can actually are beneficial to them to themselves beneficial to the company beneficial to their wife and kids beneficial to like versus trying to find a shortcut and all the workarounds like those those individuals once they get their mind wrapped around that they can create just as much or more positive momentum by doing the right way as they can you

know the other way you can you can really find some gems and and we’ve done the same thing we have a couple guys that are still with us today that we hired um from the Boise uh Penitentiary and they start with us on work release and they’ve worked their way through and we’ve got some some great guys and we’ve found them just that way but we’ve let a lot of them go and a lot of them have worked their way through to the point that that that it just wasn’t ever going to work out and they and whether they are fixable or not that’s not for me to to say they just weren’t gonna they weren’t for us but to that you know to that credit we’ve also had a few that have like been awesome for our company and so it takes a special kind of business a special kind of strength in the back office to to take that on and and and and take that task of those individuals on and say let’s give them a shot you know and that is there’s a lot I mean there’s a lot going

on in our industry you know people talk about getting the youth involved I think there’s a there’s a pretty good program out there for us you know as an injury to get involved in some of these like reform guys that gals that they’re looking for another chance I mean they want out you know yeah I completely agree and you know I look back on that my experience with that I mean we’ve probably brought I don’t know if I’m shooting from the cuff here a couple hundred people but I had a goal to I had set a goal to impact a thousand lives and we never hit it and I realized I didn’t have the skill sets um and the timing was wrong to be involved with that it really it was tough but you know had it had to accept the L but uh be propelled forward with the l so it wasn’t like oh we lost that game out of the next no one’s like let’s evaluate what went well what went really well and yeah what went awful and what what could we do to push this forward so would you say

that one of your strengths as a company is your your HR now I mean would you like put that up and say like that’s one of the backbones of like one of my differentiators I would say our culture is uh is our differentiator okay and I’ll talk a little bit more about what I guess how I how I can quantify that and how I know yeah I wanna I like to I like to just kind of get some you know you know we speed that speed up but but ultimately like I wanna I want you to tell people like what is your differentiate when you tell your story like part of my like my thing is being genuine about you genuine about your story like what makes you tick and obviously through this conversation I kind of have I think hopefully everybody else kind of has a feel for what makes you tick and it is that you know the ability to change some lives but talk about your culture let’s talk about like the backbone of of your business sure uh I’ll preface it with 60 second story uh and this is sort

of a newfound finding for myself but I I I have a inclination for the the blue collar man and woman um I want them to win and I being first generation American I remember being young seeing my mom she would work second shift um she’d come home and she’d work in some pretty nasty I don’t know the details of it but I call them sweatshops because you know the following morning she’s got bandages on or you know she’s got some serious like burn marks or cuts and it’s like you know when you’re five six years old you don’t quite understand what the hell that’s about I also remember she wasn’t paid much for it so uh she retired a couple of years ago three years ago but she worked for a big company here in Northeast Ohio manufacturer that just had an awesome culture like they did things like I remember being little and whenever it was my birthday I’d get a check for however many years old I was like they did all these things to tie the family in and my mom had health insurance and she had a retirement and profit

share and so when she had retired I’m like tell my mom I’m like you’re living the American dream like you know she’s not rich she’s like wealthy like she’s got a lot of her stuff paid off she has money in the bank from the from the the business um they they took care of their people and and I realized like my my experience growing up was my mom worked for a place that took care of her they valued her um she she didn’t have a high school college education and she still did remarkably well um so the goal set out for the company was like how do we build a business where we do a hell of a lot more with less but pay people better than average how do we get better than average people here not necessarily skills or Talent those are bonuses to me but attitude yeah so we we put a system in place that we do like a culture survey we do an analysis on resumes we do a first and second round interview with folks and uh I’m you know I always and again this is all personal

belief you know me well enough at this point we’ve had enough conversations there’s things that I’ll hold on to beliefs with or about that I can be convinced otherwise you certainly have me flip-flop on some ideals but uh I think the days of like Hey we’re gonna do four rounds of interviews and we’re gonna have seven panelists and like anybody can act and at the end of the day what’s what’s really going to matter is is boots to the concrete on the floor your first day in your experience and we’re so we’re so Hands-On and so particular from the point that we know we’ve got the right culture fit for the right role like and we we do everything as backwards like conventional businesses create a role hire a person for that role like our job postings are like there’s secretly a basket of rolls so then we bring candidates who identify attitude and then we build this role for the specific candidate which is again is not conventional it’s stupid by most people’s measures and I can tell you today what I know is it makes it very difficult to scale

the business but I’m willing to accept that I’m willing to go through that challenge you’re willing to if you’re willing to scale at a measured Pace like declare by that you’re willing to scale at a measured pace so that you can keep your culture intact and I think that’s the important piece of that like what I took away from that correct and I I I say at our our weekly meetings I’ll I’ll fire the highest performer here with the shittiest attitude and I’ll never look back I don’t need it I don’t want it and so we’ve got this hiring process that we know definitively with metrics it’s very efficient and it works very well the core of all of that effort is because we deeply care about people in other words when we’re interviewing people people authentically understand as we communicate with them in the interview it’s not robotic I don’t read off of a sheet of paper I literally asked the questions from the heart and I genuinely am interested in the person and they’ll often make some remark about that like you know you don’t really know me and I said well

that’s why you’re here today and I hope I didn’t they still say things like I hope I didn’t say anything wrong there is no right or wrong there’s just you my job is to evaluate Mutual fit and I want what’s best for you and the absolute in the you may not believe that is somebody that doesn’t know me but believe me I care enough about you as a perfect stranger but the last thing I want to do is put you somewhere where every day you drive you’re absolutely miserable you think that that I’ll tell you right now that doesn’t make me happy and uh people can sniff it smell it sense it they just know so that’s the the core element of what we do we build processes around that and we do all kinds of like you know before people start and we’re like we’re Electronics recyclers right like we’re not Ernst and Young like so before you start you get an email from us they’ll say hey what’s going to make your best first day at work what’s your best first week look like so we’re already challenging you you’ve already put

your two weeks in but we’re going to make sure that you know we know you’re coming yeah um we we do uh people’s first day when they come in shame on me I just changed this about two years ago we used to go over the whole handbook with you on your first day which would take like three hours and I would I would always pop in and go if there’s anything you disagree with or you think is wrong or your perception is it’s unfair this is the time to ask the questions well here we are I realized boy what a way to buzz kill this excitement and experience by sitting you down for three three or four hours like I can’t sit through a movie I think I’ve only watched two or three movies in the last nine years it’s very hard to sit through something I’m like so here we are if there’s anybody remotely close to me they feel like they’re being punished yeah all that energy is gone so now we’ve broken it up into like I think four or five slivers so it’s like 30 minutes the first day and

that involves our HR generalist walking around you you meet everybody in the company you would go over all the fire exits and all the safety but you shake everybody’s hands you look at everybody in the eyes um you get uh familiar with your workspace like in people’s first weeks we’re not judging performance at all like we’re just looking at how are you how are you fitting in and they’re equivalently evaluating us and I tell them this is a two-way street you heard me in the interview process now see if all of this holds true on the floor because I could be completely full of have you have you read the book um Originals no so Jennifer that’s turned me on to this book and in it they discuss um Ray dalio obviously who I mean for anybody that’s involved in business probably knows Ray dalio and his book principles right like book of 200 principles and but anyways um obviously Ray dalio you know they they run this humongous hedge fund well they and they what they do is they you know a lot of times people on your exit interview will ask

you like why you left or like what’s you know what what could we have done differently or whatever right well they do almost an exit interview after the first week so they say your first week like like what do you recognize what do you see what are you excited about what would you change like right now we want to know like what would you change about our operation about our business like they want to know because they’re they kind of hang their hat on um being original thinkers right they don’t want just a like they don’t want group think that you know obviously you’re trading you’re trading stocks index funds you’re trading you know Commodities Futures they’re they’re trading so you don’t want group think right you want original thinkers that are willing to challenge existing beliefs is it existing um Norms within a culture they want to know like you know because they’re always trying to be you know be a step ahead of the the next the next game and so that just speaks to me like what I was just I had just got through that chapter and then you said

that and I’m like oh I can see like some some very uh some you know similar thought processes there and and I think that and I think this interview if anybody takes anything away from it and I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna we have five more minutes we’ll closer down but I want people to know like in the within the recycling industry there’s so much more to it right like we when we when we talked about having this podcast for all I thought we might be talking about like your story you know the the what electronics recycling looks like today versus what it looks like but I think this is a better podcast because it talks about like the value you’re bringing to the table for individuals like we could talk recycling you want to talk scrap I can talk scrap all day long right but how many people are willing to sit down and say like this is my passion this is what I care about recycling aside we’re not Ernst young like we’re tearing stuff apart we’re shredding we’re we’re creating Commodities um we’re keeping stuff out of landfills I mean we could

we could have that conversation but how many like real companies out there can say we hang our hat on the strength of our HR like I don’t know like I feel like that’s like a like that’s a differentiator right and in business when you’re thinking about marketing or you’re thinking about like how do I sell my business is different than the electronics recycler down the street or the big National you know brand I feel like you got to find that thing you know what’s that thing for you and in your case like I’d bet pretty heavily that that’s going to be culture it’s going to be HR it’s going to be like the people like coming to work and and and being there and that’s a differentiator and it’s a big one and so I’m hopeful that people get that out of this podcast it’s not I mean you got to find that thing guys like you want to be different you want to think different whatever that you know that old Apple commercial think different that’s that’s you man and so I I had a tip my hat to you for for going

down that path with me thank you um it’s definitely The Road Less Traveled because I think most people are uninspired by it again it’s it’s about what everybody’s individual win is is the entrepreneur and just my upbringing and tying tying those experiences growing up with the company my mother worked for and seeing the lifestyle she could live now as a result of that hard work they didn’t need to do all that for her and she didn’t need to do everything she did for them so that was really really inspiring for me that it’s like you know Monty’s really really important to me it’s not everything we need it yes but if we have happy people here if people can be the their authentic selves at work and fit in like you know we’re not an organization of lemmings and it’s not a bunch of duplicates of me and my personality there’s nobody here like me which is great yeah in that same breath it’s like well people can just be themselves and do good work that they enjoy to work and they’ve got a platform to grow and or Excel or stay in the

role they’re at for now and they can bet that we’re going to be here tomorrow there’s not going to be any sweeping layoffs and they know year over year over year over year we continue to grow and we continue to reinvest so I’ll leave you with a couple of quick metrics we do this a book I read I think 2017 called worth doing wrong by Arnie melham have you read that no but I’m gonna put it on my list first book that I read about culture I was obsessed with culture since like 2012 and even back then my mentor was like you’re too small of a company to worry about culture and uh I said thanks for that feedback but I don’t believe it and then I finally ran across that book uh through one of my peer groups the first book that spoke to me like basically you’re the constant in your organization um so you need to build a culture around you and I was finally I was trying to do culture all these different ways and like this was the first thing that worked for me one of the things that

he had done was this morale survey which is a score of one to ten employees will Circle a number and if it’s six or less they have to write wise morale so low for the week um we’ve modified it slightly slightly but uh we’ve been doing that since 2018. so I’ve got five years of metrics tracking technically two scores uh one is the morale score average as a company and the participation rate because it’s not required and it doesn’t impact anybody’s uh job duties or obligations like you don’t have to do it so if you don’t feel like doing it don’t fill it out but we’re going to track what percentage of people do I don’t have it in front of me so I’m going off a memory but in 2018 our average score was an 8.07 2022 so is 9.17 participation rate was around 56 and I believe we were 81 in 2022. morale never declined year over year and through covid there was a slight dip um and in a significant Improvement um into 2021 and 2022. we attrition some folks because you know remote work and all these opportunities

everywhere people were paying out the Wazoo so we did lose some people it’s okay but a tremendous Win For Us in that in that in that measurement system and people knowing we care last year we had three weeks in a row of a declining score from like 8.9 and it slid down I believe to 8.3 and I stopped operations pulled everybody in for a whole company meeting and then two hours later we got through everything we needed to get to and we’re back in the nines and when I had seen our 9.17 for 2022 with that high participation rate in my head you know I’m all about continual Improvement I go man this is going to be tough to extract my goal is 9.18 yeah like this is to extract because you’ll never win everybody q1 average this year was 9.41 uh Q2 was 9.35 with participation rates at 96 and 92 percent like that’s awesome man people are people are doing the right things we’re doing the right work and as you know this has been some seriously challenging times in the last couple three years for

me personally as the business owner has been some of the most trying times as a business owner because it’s not about just getting hands to show up to work and feet to show up to work you need you need somebody to use what’s between their ears um and to bring their heart to the table to show that they they’re going to be vested into something to care about and uh we’re getting better and better every day about finding that I love it there’s more recycling than meets the eye like it’s not like even a slogan it’s just there’s more going on behind the scenes right than than people even could even fathom and like I had a whole slew of other questions to ask but at the end of the day like I I want to end on a good note like I want to end right to where we right there where people you you’re you built a culture you built a business not just on what’s the price of gold or silver or copper you know today you built a business that’ll last simply because you you found people and you found

a way to to make them give a about what they do every day and that’s as much of a win as as anything in in our industry and so I appreciate you taking the time and sitting down and going through that with me Mario and if somebody wants to get a hold of you and pick your brain about you know how they could you know make their build their culture up a little stronger get their um employees a little more engaged what’s the best way to get a hold of you man sure they could email me at Mario at securerecycling.com awesome thanks for the time man and until next time have a great day thanks appreciate you brother take care absolutely