welcome to bets on the future where we highlight the various career paths in the electrifying Metals World from the vehicle you ride in to the bridge holding it up metals are everywhere why not in your career too I’m Jennifer Betts a medals industry veteran with almost 20 years experience here to highlight these incredible career paths As Told by the women who are living them on this episode of bets on the future we have an incredible guest Nina Grimes is a third generation Metals Recycling professional with a lifetime of experience in the family business in addition to her wealth of Hands-On knowledge in trading and buying Grimes holds an associate degree in business management and associate degree in marketing both from Weatherford College she is operations and buying manager for Grimes Iron and Metal based out of Odessa Texas when she isn’t pursuing advancement and innovation in the recycling field gri spends her time with her family for those that are listening tuning in however you want to say it video audio you may hear some background noise that’s because we are actually in person for this one uh Nina is joining us live

in person in Las Vegas at I 2024 and the last year we can say that yes it will be vintage in TW 24 hours at this point um so it is the Institute of scrap recycling Industries but again soon to be no something else all find at the same time yes uh basically we are at the largest recycling conference in the world and Nina Grimes the executive buyer at Grimes iron metal out of Odessa Texas graciously thank you so much for hopping on uh I know you’ve got a very busy schedule you were moderating a panel yesterday you you’re sticking around I think through Friday or tomorrow we leave tomorrow okay all right well again thank you for squeezing Us in on this uh it it’s it’s been obviously a very busy it has definitely been busy uh so I really appreciate it hopping on I love it appreciate it appreciate the opportunity yes yes we’ve known each other not too long but uh one year is last year yes exactly happy anniversary now work yes exact exactly the was it the women in recycling event yes okay yeah and you’re a member of

women recycling which has been fantastic um to watch it’s amazing there’s so many opportunities that people probably don’t even realize yeah that that they offered yes um between the mentorship you know the leadership programs there’s they they offer so much that that doesn’t get they don’t get the rec recognition for it no no and I do also have to do um a Shameless plug for you as well because you did a fantastic job on your panel yesterday you interviewed three really incredible talented individuals I mean from around the world by the way um uh rockstars really that uh I mean from the UK Chile and uh the United States uh you did really incredible job thank you thank you so that that was really good and also I’m jealous because you got that stress off your plane at the beginning of the week I don’t think I could sit on it and wait all week but you know so it was a blessing yeah that that was really cool to see and the the room was pretty packed too so yeah it was I I was very I was happily impressed yes yeah and

nervous yeah it’s it’s a double-edged coin yeah uh yes a little bit um for those that are listening obviously we’re at a recycled materials event but for those that may not know Grimes Iron and Metal uh just give kind of a a quick overview of of what your business is and then um where it falls in terms of the metal supply chain so we are recycling facility um I like to say if it’s metal we’ll buy it from you and find it a home um and we buy everything aluminum Alloys um Ferris non feris if we don’t know what Tope of metal it is we’ll find out what it is and we’ll find it at home for you so we pretty much handle all of it um I honestly couldn’t look at you right off the top of my head and and tell you everything except Electronics okay that’s probably about the only exception okay that we don’t we don’t dabble in that’s fair I mean is yes there and paper yeah electon you know that’s a little different but metal wise if it’s metal yeah I mean we’re going to find it

a home for you yeah somewhere yeah it’s uh you know I haven’t uh had the opportunity yet to come out to adessa to tutori your facility but you gave me a zoom tour one time did and it is prettyy impressive uh expansive actually uh we have 16 Acres so that’s fairly large yep yeah we’re we’re on 16 Acres so it’s um we’ve been there since and on that property since 84 wow okay and literally it was my backyard wow I mean I’d go out my back door climb through a little you know whole fence and we played in a scrapyard so that was literally our playground our clubhouses were built out of you know metal that had been sold you know tanks probably things that shouldn’t have been for kids but we had a we had a great time yeah I wouldn’t change that cuz I think uh I think it’s lacking a lot in today cuz what we did people were like that is very unsafe and it probably is I’m not yeah uh yeah today’s standard is probably probably not so much well you you pretty much already answered uh one of

my IAL questions which a lot of people don’t seek out the metals industry there’s usually some sort of friend or family connection and you know again spoiler alert you know your last name is Grimes Grimes Iron and Metal so with that story it sounds like this is a family business my my papa actually started it um with crushing cars late 60s early ‘ 7s I don’t know the exact year for that um and we were in Paris Texas okay and my dad you know took over officially running the business when he was like 16 17 oh wow okay um my my PA did you know he controlled the financing but as far as the the running of it that was that was my dad yeah um and like I said we were in Paris Texas West Texas was not you know something he had been in fact the way we ended up in Desa Texas uh in ‘ 83 my dad had bought some cars in a yard 1,500 cars to crush and it was the first time in history that they had been crushing that the price just bottomed out he’d bought

them at $35 a ton just tells you yeah the time the time difference yeah uh if you if you look at what uh cars are going for today that’s not that’s a great deal I I would love to buy some at that at that price if you if y’all have any please let me know I got you but um that was the first time you know the changes had been two to $3 up or down five at the most um and never mid Monon it was always you know a new price at the beginning of the month and this they actually dropped it mid Monon and it went from 35 to 18 so you know here my dad is he’d been in this yard for one week yeah you know 1,500 cars at that time crushed about 300 a week wow so five to six weeks worth of work yeah um and he kind of went home and was kind of like wow what do I do you you know the things that go through your head as somebody that’s running a facility you got employees you know relying on you yep um

and the guy called him was like Hey you know are you going to come back in crush and he was like yeah he but you know I can’t price dropped I can’t pay you the 35 that I had agreed upon and the guy said you know I understand and I still need my cars crushed so go ahead and come finish them up so we did he went back this was in Oklahoma City M uh finished up those cars and then at the end of that when he finished it the guy was like hey where you headed to next and you know Dad’s like I’m not real sure just yet you know I had stuff lined up but the price changes I don’t know what anybody you know nobody wants to take that big of a a loss a pretty and um the guy said well let me let me make a couple phone calls for you so he calls you know somebody and was like hey I’ve got Travis Grimes here crushing my cars he’s paying $18 a ton and I want you to you know let him crush your cars I’m like okay

the guy said well let me call some make one more phone call you know same scenario so dad had a th more cars so a few you know few more weeks so he finishes there and he go you know goes home you know Oklahoma City to Paris Texas um and and you know he’s at home and like I said cars still dropped there’s not been any changes you know so it’s still really low and my uncle John calls him and I was like hey he was living in Midland at the time he’s like what you know what are you doing he well I’m not not crushing yeah you know the car you know cars dropped and he’s well there’s a lot of cars around here my dad’s like yeah but can they be bought right and he said well what can you afford to pay he’s like well you know it’s a little bit further so the most I could pay is $15 a ton he said well let me see what I can do so you know day or two later my uncle calls me back he was like hey I’ve got 1,200

cars for you bu and my dad said at $15 a ton and he’s like no at 12 and he said when can you start he said well how about January 1st and this is like the first week of December you know my uncle’s like yeah sure you know they’re ready so dad’s sitting at home and you know he’s there a couple of days and he’s like man why am I sitting that you know sitting home I so he called my Uncle and he’s like hey can I go ahead and start crushing those cars yeah and M was like yeah sure so on a Wednesday they loaded everything up on a Wednesday it was is odd yeah it’s 40 years ago by the way yeah on a Wednesday loaded up and headed to Odessa Texas wow and um got everybody set up in a room late Wednesday night woke up Thursday morning about four or 5 inches of snow so my dad’s like panicking you know cuz he’s crushing Oklahoma City East Texas you got to wait for the you know the snow to melt yeah the ground to dry up yep you know and

he just put all these people in a you know Hotel just got all the way down here my uncle’s like what are you worried about it’ll be gone tomorrow yeah my dad’s like you’re funny you’re right you know and it was okay and they went on you know went about to work West Texas is completely different I mean it can snow 6 Ines and you’re not going to see a sign of it by dinner time so they spent the next six months crushing never leaving Midland Odessa wow and then the following six months they spent crushing the surrounding areas Monahans you know the small towns and never leaving those areas and he told my Papa he said you know I’d really like to open a scrap yard here there’s a lot of scrap I’m just kind of Blown Away by how many cars that your family kept finding out there was there just not any Car Crushing going on out there or had those cars been sitting for so long there were salvage yards okay yeah just you know salvage yards that they’ already stripped off the parts that okay that could be resold

and and all that cuz you know back in the day we we would try crush from Oklahoma um New Mexico Texas okay um and it’s funny because my dad actually met my mom in Elkart Kansas oh okay and he was crushing cars cring cars okay now I so you know it’s like all over within reason okay now the the people that listen to this uh podcasts are not always in the recycling industry so I do have to put this a little bit in perspective so when uh in the metal supply chain uh when a car reaches an end of life they will go to um like an auto yard you know Pick and Pull location to you know pull all the parts be reused Etc now when that’s deemed not usable or you know it’s time to be crushed if you will exactly uh you know that’s when your family would have come in to crush the car because the car needs to be crushed right to make its way to an auto shred yeah exactly so then needs to be shredded into you know shredded material to be dropped into the furnace into

a steel mill that then gets melted down into new seal then it can go to you know it so essentially we’re at kind of at the beginning of the supply chain yes correct you know it has a few more steps that it makes yep exactly ex before it becomes yeah you know rebar yes exactly so that’s that’s wow like that’s um so are you still crushing cars and okay so uh I’ve you know over years off and on I’ve you know worked for my dad and you come and go and my dad had kind of gotten away from Car Crushing you know we don’t travel as much but he wasn’t it was one of those he’d rather just bring cars into his yard and crush them it wasn’t you know a crushing crew like you know back in the day and um when I came back to work for him this time you know we were talking converters and you know all that stuff and he was like well you can see what you can go buy yeah well where’s the first place you’re going to try to buy those right Salvage jge yep

and they’re like hey so GRS is back crushing and I was like well yeah I you know yeah I didn’t give it a second thought I was like Hey Dad so and so has um three 400 cars that they’re you know want need to crush blah blah blah and he was like all right well I guess we’ll just haul him into our yard you know because we had a Crusher but we just didn’t travel with that pressure yeah and so we would hog you know local every time I would buy all those and we did that for a year okay and and I kept everything busy for a year so um and then he bought a new Crusher he was like that was not my intention he was like you know not really was not looking to you know expand that part again yeah I was like okay well we did you know my brother you know he’s but you know same thing but his Fascination was always with the loader the equipment you know the boy stuff the are in the back over there yeah I I stood I Stood Beside dad and

listened to him you know STS you know with the buying the cars and I’m like you know as a kid I’m like is lunch time yet yeah but still listening yeah you know I’m listening I’m watching it and that’s where I stayed you know everybody’s like you know called me his shadow M okay well yeah the Shadows where their knowledge is yeah you’re learning you’re learning you’re picking it up so you know when I when I did that I was you know I was always like I don’t know about buying but then once I started talking I’m like I talk just like my dad yeah you know just like my dad I’m like okay I can do this mhm and that’s kind of how we got back into it and like said we we don’t travel near as far as you know we did back in the day most of it is local the surrounding areas um we have went to you know think Far West Texas once you know further than us a few hours but for the most part we’ve went into New Mexico within a couple hours you know a couple

times but we try to keep it pretty close because it is especially expansive now you know Fuel and all that it’s hard and it it is really hard and it’s hard on the you know Crews because you stop and think you know a week I uh I mean you’re a minimum yeah a week on the road yeah and that’s if you’re close enough that you can come home every weekend right but if you’ve got you know those 1,500 cars and you’re wanting to get home for the Long Haul yeah are you going to stop on a Saturday so you can go home most of the time it was you know every other week I to this day I sleep better in the sleeper of a truck or a motel than I do in my own bed at home and that’s just some years yeah you know of younger in doing it um and then you know my daughter’s dad was a truck driver yeah so you know it’s one of those I you put me in a motel and I’m going to sleep like a baby you now you put me in a

in the sleeper of a truck and you’re probably not going to wake me up for about 15 hours not not a bad night sleep not a bad night sleep it’s one of those you know it’s just it’s kind of once it’s in your blood it’s there yeah you know the roots I’ve I’ve tried to dig them up for years but they just get heavier so it’s just now just run with it well I mean we I I’m trying to remember which panel it was on where it may have been your panel yesterday where somebody was talking about how you know you go in for like 6 months a year 2 years in this industry you don’t leave you don’t you don’t leave you don’t leave and if you do there’s you come back yeah you you don’t you’ve referenced that you I come and go I have you know I have a business degree I have a marketing degree yeah you know I played in the scrapyard you know yeah that’s like you weren’t you you weren’t really into it I’m like it was a scrap yard yeah and I’m like okay I grew

up and I’m like there’s a lot of money in a scrapyard there is there’s a lot and people don’t realize you know they call it scrap it’s junk you know it’s not worth anything you know you’re not going to turn down a pile of gold so why would you turn down a pile of Steel oh absolutely um but you know the foresight is completely different yes and and it’s one of those things that you know once you I guess my my growup mentality changed uh yes yeah it’s it’s not my Clubhouse anymore it’s actually worth something I mean I didn’t know this industry existed until my first interview in college I I I I had no idea I just thought the aluminum can that you put in the bin at the end of the driveway just poof magically it just did something it did something and it made its way back into an aluminum can I had no idea that there was a whole career industry Trading commodity world with that can and just imagine how many people don’t oh so many so many people you know and and it’s it I want to

say it blows my mind but it really doesn’t yeah because we’re the you know the step kits yeah you know yeah type situation yes and it’ll continue to be that way unless we start with yes you know this High working on that right and and and it’s a learning process it absolutely it absolutely is I mean if you stop and think you know even back when my paa started this yeah you know you had Scrappers that’s what they were what they were called Scrappers you know they were the low lives type you know it’s kind of that was kind of the mentality but everybody at least knew you know it was knowledgeable hey you didn’t throw that away it was worth something and we’ve kind of over the years just completely refrained from it well somehow yes you know there’s just been a lot of well that’s why I’m I’m really excited about is’s Rebrand is because you know we’re never going to get rid of the term scrap like that’s something that our industry within our industry will probably always use maybe internally but once we start using recycled materials and also once

people understand that the way that we manufacture Metals in the United States in particular is the majority of it is from recycled content actually um and that’s the majority of how we actually make metal here I think that a lot of people are Miss they don’t realize that where where think it where does it where do you think it comes from comes from crimes iron metal right it comes from businesses like yours right right and a lot of them are family run businesses right you know there are some major corporations out there you know that have you know many locations Etc but I would say the majority of the Yards that exist out there are actually private even even those you know big conglomerates started as family you know with one yard two yards you know and and expanded and you know cuz one like I said one it’s once it’s in your blood and it’s in your if it’s in your DNA yeah you’re you’re there 100% hang up your hat enjoy the ride sit back with your seat belt on cuz you’re not leaving yes 100% 100% 100% agree uh well I

I know you’ve got a busy schedule so I don’t want to take up too much of your time but Nina I just want to say thank you so much you’re it’s been wonderful to get to know you over the past year um it’s been great to see you in Vegas this year it’s been fun for sure and it’s it’s nice to know that hey the Vintage one the last one I know right we rolled it know we did we were here we can say that we were here the year the pivotal moment when is were rebranded it’s it’s pretty cool um for those that are listening watching find Nina on LinkedIn check out Grimes and Grimes iron metal on uh their company uh website we have Tik Tok we have the website yes so and we have a Facebook yes and a LinkedIn yeah all all the places so Nina once again thank you so much appreciate