okay I’m here with Craig Hunter the president CEO the the head cheese of Tire reclaim I’m really excited to chat with you I do not know I know a fair amount I think about Metal Recycling I don’t know a lot about the other types of recycling out there and I need to educate myself more on that first give everyone that listens to recycled Idaho a quick intro or long intro it’s up to you on yourself all right well I appreciate the the intro there and I think uh just being aware of recycling in the first place and the all the mechanisms behind it tires are just another piece of that and I’m glad to have you excited to learn more about it but uh yeah so my name is Craig Hunter uh president I think I still consider Brett the CEO but okay I’ll backtrack we’ll say president yeah and then I got some VPS coming up under me that are you know a shout out to Aaron Young and David uh Taves or toves or however you pronounce his last name I just call him yeah well he’s working the Treasure Valley he’s

doing a great job so I appreciate these uh these guys that are working with us but you know I’ll start with me I guess and then kind of go into Tire reclaim but um so first of all you know my wife she deals with a lot uh Amanda and she’s we’ve been together for a long long time and uh there’s a lot of work that goes into this and you know I think I should give her a little acknowledgment for that because there’s a lot with you deals with me when I get home and we have a little baby Tyson he’s two years old and a daughter Chloe she’s 12 and then I still have my two older Boys around my oldest Boys in college so he’s 20 and my youngest boy is 19 or I guess he’s not my youngest boy anymore my middle boy is 19 now Peyton and Parker and basically that’s my why right so that’s why I get up every day and uh you know choose to do right and choose to do honorable things for you and you got 20 to a baby 20 to almost two yeah

so we uh we started over with him and um you know still in Diapers at this point but you know at 45 years old I feel like you know 45 is a new 35 or what you know how it is that type thing I like that we’ve got the energy and you know we know folks that have the empty nest thing going on that are in my sage age group you know they have grandkids I have a lot of friends that are grandpas now and you know uncles that are great grandpas which is mind-blowing to me but you know um just really loving in the the lifestyle of being a youngster’s dad as well as these older boys that and then a middle daughter I don’t even know you have a daughter right in that age 11 yeah so I have a 16 and I have two daughters 16 and so mine’s 12 going on 24 I’d say maybe and I used to say things like she’s you know 10 going on 16 but now it’s like they’re young adults just oh it’s fun man like I love all the steps I’ve said

this a lot of times but I love all the stages I love the baby stage I love the three-year-old when they start to get a real personality to communicate with you yeah but I love having it like I don’t have a 20 year old yet but before I know it I will right um oh so no I take it back I have a 17 year old she just had a birthday no okay I just can’t even keep up I get it right it’s that’s how it is and it’s wild but it’s it’s fun like it’s cool to see her becoming an adult yeah I’m blessed currently they’re making good decisions but even when they make bad decisions because I know I mean I mean I made a million bad decisions and I still will um so it’s just really fun and it’s good to know like why and support system because I want to be able to do what I do by like traveling right at work that’s all that’s why I led with that yeah I was like so 100 that’s a big deal you got to have a good a

good team and not just a work team you gotta have a good family team right behind you to be able to grind and a lot of moms I don’t know about your wife but a lot of moms are doing you know jobs my wife has a full small business you know it’s blossomed into this thing and now we’re she’s you know got a little baby with her all the time but she still pulls through it and you know laundry done and kids you know medicated and going to the doctor and meals cooked it’s like she’s got three photos yes yes so anyway so that’s why I started with that but leading you know coming out of that is I made a lot of promises to her over the years you know and one of them was to be successful in everything that I do you know when I wake up in the morning that you know I swing those legs out at 5 30 6 37 whatever your time frame is it’s not it’s not for every man I mean it’s not easy you know there’s a reason that people pay you to do

that it takes discipline it does and it’s like you know not every day when that alarm clock goes off at like you said 5 30 or 6 30 whatever time that is there’s a lot of times where I would love to just sleep longer yeah and so when I do that it’s almost like a kaleidoscope I see my kids faces and my wife and just like you know cheering me on is like go save the world one tire at a time you know so yeah and that and that so that leads great into Tire reclaim so uh coming up so my background is in compost so yeah that’s what I wanted again because that’s your recycling too yeah so you go way way back you know probably two lifetimes ago it was food sales into the backs of restaurants through Cisco foods long career with them which that’s one of our metal United Metals is customers oh so it’s awesome it’s all kinds of no idea yeah yeah I probably have brushed elbows with the gentleman who orders the box to be exchanged at some point through your careers because they have long careers

over there too and I love that you know I spent a lot of time I’ve been doing the same guy at Cisco for 10 years yeah yeah so you know what you know which is always a good sign like old forklifts they cycle out and stuff don’t make sense yeah we do all that and that’s what’s like just so cool about the recycling world like it’s so connected that they do all these different types of recycling and like I said earlier I know about the metal side but I don’t know about the compost side I don’t know that much about the rubber side I want to learn more and I’m trying yeah yeah um you could go on and on and on you know like the plastic side that’s the Murph side the you know just general Church fibers that’s what they call paper right yeah yeah fibers yeah so is it Seiko John um John Sacco yeah I mean they do a lot with paper right I see you know following a lot of other customers right that’s what I mean yeah yeah a lot of their customers Bell a lot of those

balers they make right hard cardboard right yeah so that’s a big thing like think about how much cardboard like like how many boxes of cardboard were in my garage they have to break down right and well and we go to these uh Tire the dealerships in different places when they buy Wheels every wheel has a cardboard box so I’m finding these these tire stores are overwhelmed with cardboard recycler but you see like Costco um like any big grocery store they all have their owners on-site balers they’re making loads yeah um because it it makes sense to recycle it I mean it’s the right thing to do and it makes business sense so it’s a nice that’s the connection right that’s it and that’s what has to happen you have to have it make sense for any longevity that’s what has to happen and that’s where some people consumers aren’t willing to accept that that it might cost a little bit of money to recycle certain products I’ve seen that people especially with tires have been very receptive but that’s probably has a lot to do with you know we’re the second or third

call down the line of people saying no we don’t take tires so you know there’s there’s a play into everything right but I won’t go into that too much just yet so uh Cisco was a lot of sales experience and learning you know mental you know management and upper management and what you know and all that yeah and spreadsheets and you know documentation of and it’s where I got my you know degree right because I went to I went to college but I didn’t leave with a any kind of master’s degree I left with a big fat bill yeah same here so I I don’t know but but that’s kind of where I went to school right and but I gave him a lot of years and got to my 10-year and left with the pension so you know it’s I did my part they did their parts shook hands parted still have a lot of friends out there at Cisco but anyway uh so then uh went into business with my dad in compost and composting and that’s basically taking Dairy waste manure okay and I bring that up for a reason

because there’s a lot of similarities with what I’m doing now um and connecting the dairymen and the farmers and basically you know showing them that hey you can take the waste from the cattle that are eating this product and make it fertilizer for the very product they’re eating so then you create a closing that’s true recycling right there exactly so and that’s something that we had to implement over you know well for my daddy spent decades and I watched him you know bang his his head against the wall so when I said I was going to do it I did it you know contractually a lot of things that happened there guys when you teach them how easy it is to make compost out of Daring how did your dad get in that world so commercial fertilizer application company out of Southern California that’s how I got to Idaho because he would come here um and it was a different fertilizer application season in Bakersfield California versus uh it was American Falls Idaho is where he did most of his in Aberdeen where he did most of his commercial fertilizer application the little white

pellets that you see yeah yeah so he would spray that with a big boom truck and he would bring that equipment from Southern California up here and he always told us when we were kids hey when you’re as soon as you’re old enough we’re going to Idaho it’s beautiful there’s God’s country as you would say so you know Flash Forward and I’m basically picking where I want to go to school and Idaho state universities in Pocatello Idaho he’s already moved to American Falls so as soon as I graduated high school I was the youngest of two boys I think I graduated on June 9th or 10th and they were celebrating 4th of July I graduated down in Bakersfield yeah California and then they moved to Idaho by Fourth of July I mean it was like we’re gone so there in Idaho I kind of lived with them and went to Pocatello for Idaho State University that’s where I did my little Stanford you know an associate’s degree but never went full bachelor’s degree and all that but that Idaho State University did you why did you go to college did you think that’s just

what you should do it’s interesting you said that because I was framing houses at the time and guys were trying to compete on how many two by fours they could carry on their shoulder up to the top you know floor and I’d watch them and there’s some strong dudes there and I was strong and I could do quite a few and I won’t say the number but the guys know who know it’s a lot and I’d carry them to the top floor but then I looked at the old guys laughing at us I want a number well it was eight two by six by eight that seems so like a lot I don’t know it was pretty good yeah I got it up there but anyway this guy uh or I’m looking at the older guys watching us younger guys do that and they look broke down and they were like 45 50 and they looked like they’d been doing this a long time and been in a lot of bar brawls and I just thought you know if I’m gonna be the foreman I’m gonna have to get some kind of education or

I’m gonna have to spend a lot of years doing this learning how to do it so well that’s good that you had a plan while you went to college right I went to college because I thought that’s just what you did and I I hope my girls don’t do the same thing mistakes I made by going because to make me happy I want them to go because they have a plan now if you have a plan I want to get this degree or you say oh I just want to try it out because that’s what I want right there’s nothing wrong with that either right because we got that exact split in our oldest boys uh Peyton and Parker so Payton went straight um to College of Idaho to play defensive end for the football team but honestly I think he was even talking coaching or High School coaching prior to being picked up but he has a plan of I’m going to CFI I’m going to get my degree I’m going to be a high school football coach okay and you know I’m starting to see this with this teaching degree then yes

exactly so you know he had a full plan and we talked about it and he lives with us and it’s I think it probably sucks for him but he realizes the cost saving you know having a baby and then coming and going it’s expensive well but so he probably realizes he’s doing you know better by staying with us but still probably sucks for him but still I I I digress um but then my son Parker he’s more of like I was like more uh physically you know I didn’t want to go touch the world and see what it’s got for me type thing you know he plays the drums in a band and he works with his hands and woodworking doing doors and I’m really really proud of what he’s doing too because he’s taking the World by the horns is like I’m gonna ride this out and see what comes at the end you know what I mean and I love that attitude too because that was the attitude I have and here I am president of this you know great company so I I think that it’s definitely I wanted to do

what they want you know and I’m so excited for that and I don’t want him to be afraid to come to me and tell me this is my plan it’s my dream or I don’t even have a plan I okay let’s talk about that you know what is your plan that’s a good conversation so you know we got a taste of it so again back to that seeing those guys broke down I knew that I had to have a next step up so I’m hoping that my youngest boy Parker will kind of maybe see that too like he’ll get out there and go okay if I go get this degree it will get me this specific job that makes me happy like maybe it’s playing the drums I that’s the word that’s a hard copy yes that I think every parent wants their kid to be successful but what is successful I just think of them being happy right absolutely and you know and you know sustaining for themselves and happiness could be a a few grand a month in expenses or it could be a 30 grand everybody’s expenses everybody’s different right and

kind of how you set up your lifestyle so I know some very happy people that they don’t make a whole lot of money but they also you know do a lot for the community they’re probably a lot happier than people that make millions you know it could be and so in a lot of scenarios I think absolutely I mean I say this a lot but on a wide enough Spectrum you have everything in between all right so I and that’s I always think of that because we’re a big country even at 300 million but you go worldwide there’s billions so you can find a scenario you know equates to just about anything and I would say that that’s probably pretty common the unhappy millionaires I guess is what I’m getting at so now you’re in Idaho yeah we already went over Cisco yeah yeah then you yeah we did a flashback and then forward that’s fine though and so when when I decided to get with with my fathers I wanted to bring that ex that uh spreadsheet mentality and contracts and not full contracts but like some of the skills you learned it

like Cisco some of the corporate skills could probably benefit a business like absolutely like that and so and it was still up and coming you know technology wise you know industry-wide so we ended up partnering with a fairly large com compost company in Central Idaho or South Central Idaho Southern Idaho um and they they were seeing the idea of compost taking on but they worked for a couple very large dairies and really you know put a lot of focus on those so I helped them expand into smaller Farms Mom and Pops things like that of getting compost name on the street where uh when you thought of fertilizing your field you didn’t think of just a guy down the road that made Dairy composting it was like a a company came you know I like to use the term a lot now is the FedEx of compost you know delivery and applications so a guy shows up logo truck collared shirt spread your fertilizer you know we call it fertilizer we don’t call it compost or manure because people you know you try to change that mentality so little things like that and

now you can’t drive through the state without seeing a pile of compost you know and that’s just from the freeway there I went on a drive with you and you showed me yeah yeah you can spot them and they’re just little brown piles and looked for them yeah they didn’t exist one they didn’t exist before you know so and I I give a lot of that to my father you know Bill hunt answer in American Falls Pocatello Blackfoot Idaho Falls yeah Twin Falls you know if you if you knew if you were a farmer and you knew Bill Hunter you have talked about compost I guarantee it and that that’s what an industry needs right so having said all that uh you know things I learned from my dad was get contracts I had a contract on the last company um I built which was we left that other larger company to start my own company with my father and that’s when pump uh pivot hit oh Dad’s elderly yeah um he used to be a smoker he quit smoking right on Dad um but he’s diabetic and a lot of you know so

he basically just stayed home and uh I went out and still knocked on a lot of doors he was trying to keep him safe it’s like uh he would tell my dad when they’d run those commercials like on what what conditions could make you more susceptible to getting coveted and or dying from covid right my dad came over I was like God dad like they’re describing you on TV right now exactly but I would be serious like they’re like literally describing a lot of jokes are just saying the real thing out loud is with a little you know softness yeah no I think we had some of the same jokes flying around you know with my dads like Dad they just basically other than the obese he was you know skinny from the diabetes but now he’s got that bounced out yeah but anyway so so I went in and took on Legacy compost which was the compost company I started and still operating right now um with some Partners over there but um I want to touch on this because I think it’s important is um contracts you know they’re not in a

scenario where you’re you’re going into business it’s I think it’s a really good idea but um I’m not a big fan of of them between me and the customer because that’s that’s basically our contract is the fact that I’m there and when I say I’m going to be there and I’m doing what I’m saying I’m going to do and then and you’re kind of check to me is paying your bill so that’s some of our competitors in the metal recycling World they are big on contracts yeah and we always say let you know let our service bear contract you know right as soon as you don’t like it you can terminate our contract right and I could see you know where implementation of contracts in certain scenarios when you’re forecasting you know they’re asking you to buy a big piece of equipment or something specific um uh design of your business model to fit their needs you’re going to want to know that they’re not going to you know bail out in three months so but that even but that might even be really restrictive and I mentioned it briefly a second ago but

one page I’m all about the one page you know Judge Judy she she’d hold up a document I love watching not shout out to my mom Debbie she watches you catch a lot from Judge Judy’s if you don’t watch it you should but she’ll hold up a document and go the edge of this paper that is the you know what this document everything that this document is entails is right here so you guys can say whatever you want to say but it’s all right here one page you know one pager so I love that but um but being able to um sell Legacy comfortably and understand who was buying it and all that was laid out you know in the document ahead of time so um I won’t get into a lot of details of selling and you know why I decided to get out of compost and and out of that business but what I will say is that I started following this guy on LinkedIn named Brett Eckhart oh I’ve heard of him yeah yeah and uh he had all these inspirational posts and quotes and you know and um I reached

out to him to be perfectly honest and said hey I I live in your area I built this business in Southern Idaho um but I need to talk to you about Trucking of all things and honest to God I really was trying to figure out uh getting some trucks from that Central Area you know Heyburn really and I saw your trucks a lot which is what made me go okay I need to go in there and ask him about getting because I was trying to get loads to Boise called will area but anyway loads of compost yes so I was still working yeah at that time so and then and talk to him about it and then we had that meeting and this is a great line because he says well I’ll always take a meeting you know and that’s kind of I shifted that into a motto really so I’ll I don’t care if it’s a phone quick sometimes it might be a few exchanges on LinkedIn right it takes time so that’s a meeting right so it is even if someone’s reaching out and saying hey we’re starting uh or we we

have this metal business and we really want to do some tires you know can you go into I’m like call me absolutely and you know giving them that time so always take the meeting and it really that motto kind of spurred because Brett took my meeting right so I came in and asked him about Trucking he introduced me to Jim Coons which you know again another shout out Jim Coons is a master dispatcher right and he’s like this is it there’s the brain right there and he’s got all his color coding and stuff and I’m like oh I would love to tap into you know that and that side of it and you know Flash Forward is desks across from mine now but but yeah back then I didn’t know that so I didn’t know that was going to happen no no that wasn’t yeah that wasn’t your intention yeah no no I was asking about trucks and if I had probably tote sacks of compost it was a direct shipment Jim probably would have figured out a way to get him from hey bro you know what I mean we probably would have

made it happen but that that’s not the way that went I have a customer that makes um data mines for crypto can make some Jim helped that customer transport those in Florida that’s how good Jim is right and he just connected even more connected as he probably told him what interstate I like to use he connects which exit to get off of go past where the old school used to be and then you know right at that big Flying J or Pilot right there you know what I mean like so shout out to Jim because like he helped the local customer of mine that had a big National company he ran into an issue and that’s just how good Jim is right and Jim was willing like you said to take the meeting because you just never know like those little meetings and I’ve said this for for a lot of years like those little tiny meetings that might seem like and we’re all busy and it might seem like a time waste yeah just building those connections with those people and even if you’re like man this is it doesn’t fit for us

yeah but I know this company that could help you and then they might do the intern they might find it big this that connect it here but anyway sorry you keep going no no that’s I’m just okay I’m giving you a hard time because you’re reading ahead because that’s what this story is All right so I walk through I meet Jim I pan around I look in the room and there’s a Peter Bell on the wall yeah right I don’t know if anybody’s been out there it’s it’s it’s there really put it in the video okay so people can see it yeah there you go so then um which again my desk ended up being right on the grill of that Peterbilt but um I didn’t know that then and it was a tiny little meeting and it was like hey nice to meet you super cool guy I love following you I’m leaked in bye right and I head out of there and I go start my world well I don’t know a couple few weeks almost a month month and a half later I start a buyout you know the my part

what year is this what year are we talking 2021 21 okay is that right yeah yeah okay so 21 so a couple years ago yep yep so coveted ended uh contracts for compost for coming hot and heavy um so then so it was time to sell so I’m selling and I wanted Brett and Brian Ferguson’s advice because I just witnessed what I’d witnessed I just talked to him I knew how he you know could what’s the word uh conducted his business so I wanted to get to know that a little bit better so I called him and just laid it out man here’s my contract here’s what I would like to sell for here’s what they want to you know pay me for it blah blah blah and they again donated their time right send it over we’ll read it and then call them a little conference call I think I even went out there one more time if I’m not mistaken kind of redlined through some of the contract stuff and then sent back to the offer and closed the deal so nice now uh that compost company is going and all of

that ended up finalizing because in the conversations about this contract Brett and not Brian so much but obviously he’s behind all the decisions right but Brett told me he’s like I’ve got a gig for you I got something that you know I think it’ll fit right in your wheelhouse which that leads right into Tire reclaim and and I think he even called it Tire reclaim or or maybe I I might have said well what’s the name you know and he’s like well I’ve been you know I have these other reclaimed Brands this is the third reclaim division under United so you can probably speak on that because he probably asked you about that for years right we we started converter reclaim was really the first one we started converter reclaim in 2014 officially and what it was is you know buying catalytic converters from our shops our current customers that we weren’t able to really buy them from because we didn’t know how so J mill again is in charge of that Division and me and him went on a journey by traveling by learning by making mistakes because we made a lot of

them in that process right um and we had a box truck and that that company’s really evolved into a national brand where we buy them from shops yeah and I think that’s a good shout out opportunity too though for for Jay I mean because in most of those scenarios there was probably Band-Aids blood you know ordering products that you don’t even know whether they’re going to snap together right you know Jay’s huge just like doing that and putting it together is uh commonly overlooked and I know you guys don’t overlook it because you praise him all the time but I’m gonna praise that right now is those kind of guys that go and do that really make or break an organization and I brought one to the team too which I can talk about TJ later but you know Ann Harlan his right hand man they came from Legacy they said no if you’re selling the company we’re coming with you where are we going boss and actually you guys hired TJ in Ireland before you hired me which was because we’re still working earlier today yeah yeah I called yeah I called

Brett said hey you guys put these guys on the payroll I’m okay for now but yeah you know can you get these guys going right away and not even a question because they’re good men you know and I knew that so it was like kind of just like let’s do this all right and they’ve hit the ground running but anyway so the same time 2014 is probably 2015 2016. we’re just really building out the converter process how to how to decan them um we were tinkering with different ways to decant them different types of uh types of converters to put together and we really dialed that in and that the Testament to Jay there’s a lot to that yeah I see it you know you watch the videos you can tell there’s a lot to it and um and then during this process though I did have a company reach out to United Metals and I took the call yeah and we’ll get into this later it was 2x recycling so that was my first experience with tires reclaim and they um we tried to help them with recycling their tire wire we we

did a few test loads of rail cars we did two Railcar test loads and it was just too dirty but but we did that we we dedicated art trucks and trailers in the process to to try to learn more because it’s just a whole different world and then we do what year was that I’d say probably 20 15 2016 somewhere in there and then um 20 and then during this process we also had a copper Chopper we buy a lot of copper wire and then we saw a need to have a specific copper truck a copper division that’s where copper reclaim came in they we have a two copper trucks out there buying from electricians they buy it from from you on the spot so if you own a Electrical Company you don’t have to worry about paying a guy to haul it in you don’t have to worry about someone stealing it you can really control it a lot better that way and then you can stay working let us handle the headaches or the recycling right and it’s all kind of segues into you know Tire reclaim coming into we you know

we we never no one ever quite did it right in our area on tire recycling right and we knew that because we generate a lot of tires from owning seven scrap yards you know yes so you could get into more of that like how did Tire reclaim they found the people right but you can’t just have people people is the most important part no there’s got to be a plan it’s got to be an idea so what did what did what did Tire reclaim acquire first equipment wise yeah so right off the bat um I learned that we had to take whole tires down to a smaller size in volume so tires hold air there’s a ton of air space right so you put that in the ground for one landfills hate losing airspace that’s that’s one of those they live off of air spaces literally sell is airspace so if you’re burying whole tires a lot of air in there but it also traps gases which allows the tires to walk out of the dirt basically so it’s like that’s how they creep out of there yeah so you’ll see them you know

I thought I buried that and you know and I I’ve heard I’ve never I’ve never Googled it or YouTube or anything but I’ve heard they’ll shoot out of the ground I mean if anybody’s you know share a video if you’ve got I would want to see that yeah they say that because I guess it makes sense if it ignited in any way it would maybe perform pressure maybe enough pressure yeah when you get close enough to the surface yeah I don’t know but anyway so reducing the size and what was nice so I got to give a few hat tips first of all Brett Eckhart and your and his team thinking about tires right because that came from having a gigantic pile which is what I walked into of tires and prior to that was what I heard a big haul off Bill he took tires to maybe 2X or one of these other guys that went down for management they had a good business idea and business model but I think what I’ve learned over the last you know 12 months is that it’s it like a lot of management maybe trying to

lower tip fees to gain business and that’s not always best because then you know how do you pay the bills and those types of things so how that’s managed and it but I guess somebody took a load out there and there’s a lot of money to get rid of tires so that might have been the first like little spark in the back of Brett’s mind but you could probably go into that further but that big check you know having to write that to dispose of tires makes with a few outfits we could get rid of them at yeah you know um I know the the cement plant was a big one because they took Ash Grove tires yeah and they’ll but then they have flow right they turn it off and on and only receive a circle because they’re using it as a fuel source correct and they’re using a whole tire it’s a chain chain system and hook system chain and hook system they hook each one yeah each tire goes right into the Kiln and um I don’t know it’s pretty old technology we’ve actually spoke to to their executive level and

um they’re really looking at doing a tdf model they would love that if we can promise so tdf is Tire derived fuel okay um but there it’s a it’s a smaller piece and the wires taken out of it and that’s and I can talk about that in a moment but that’s some of the machines that we are capable of doing that um they they wanted to know if we had the flow to do that yes we do and we’ve told them that and um we’re spending the money to make that happen so they if they want to they can I think it’s four million bucks or whatnot they can outfit or you know retrofit retro what they have and get away from that hook and chain system so if anybody again I know this is going out World Wide Web right world if anybody has any uh success stories of those conversion projects you know going from Whole tires to tdf because see what people don’t understand is it’s non-success stories yeah or maybe yeah yeah anything anything Bring It On help us out exactly so the but what I but back to

that is um I think Brett’s definitely saw some things here and then a couple more guys to mention there Josh barley May is no longer with Southern Idaho Solid Waste but uh him and Nate Francisco yeah Nate’s now moved into Joss’s spot Josh is in Florida and enjoying the sun Josh has still been in touch a little bit yeah we’ve seen him at a couple conferences yeah if Josh is listening he’s like a bag of Penny just keeps turning up you know so he might he might show back up around here someday it was nice to meet him you know I met him in Las Vegas we had dinner and it’s a it’s a wonderful time and his wife her mind her name is I’m drawing a blank but um great people and all right anyway so Nate same thing great people right down the line right right there in southern solid waste so it’s a unique situation because they have what Seven Counties transfer stations all over the state they’re doing a really great job over there and capturing gas and making energy for 2500 homes they’re really Innovative they have really good

Minds over there um and I think they’re our largest aggregate customers yes landfills in general get a bad rap but they’re a necessity and I’d say all the people I’ve ever talked to they’re all doing it right and they are just they’re doing it right they’re recycling first of all right and they’re also like taking care of everybody’s right absolutely it’s the end it’s the backstop right going to that Idaho Solid Waste Association conference and and attending the training and education you know becoming certified you know as a landfill operator I learned a lot about landfills and one thing coming from you know my recycling background is I feel like in a lot of people might hear this first here is that I think the term landfill will be gone eventually so you won’t actually you know fill land if that makes sense yeah there’s going to be it’ll be more of a disbursement you know a lot of them are doing that yeah we’re working it’s not perfect yeah but it never will be right it’s getting better and better things you bury will be very very minuscule you know yeah medical waste

and nuclear waste and other things that can you know be you know turned into something more usable and I see it like I’m meeting the gentleman and shaking their hands with the letters behind their name that make that are making these Technologies come about it’s just so slow to Market it’s unbelievable and then they you know there’s all these environmental a lot of Roblox and like what states can you even go into to do some of these projects because there’s so much regulations like the whole West Coast is out you know so yeah and which is a lot of people and a lot of resources and a lot of money but you’re not doing anything over there or not anything of any real size you know so but anyway the term landfill is I mean I think it’s going to be more of you know murfs and dirty murfs and Smurfs and you know different things I feel like the word landfill and the word scrapyard are gonna not exist here in 10 20 years yeah because they’re already The Narrative is kind of changing it because they both get kind of a negative

um review the yeah recycled it’s like kind of the word that right and you guys are a big part of that you know what you do like with your companies exactly we’re trying to educate to give people like you know someone that doesn’t want to go to college hey there’s a good career you can make in the recycling communities yeah and that’s not just Metals it’s tires Google’s success stories in scrap metal yeah there’s some big ones I’ve done it and there’s some monsters out there so you talked about sizing it down Are We There are you guys sizing them down what are we what are you doing now yeah so so what I what I recognized right away is we had to have a piece of equipment to do that that shout out to Nate and Josh was is that they went and visited the the because they knew they had a tire problem too they visited a plant that was processing tires got the name of the machine the company that sells them so I had a springboard to launch from so when I got here there was already a couple emails

in my lap of this equipment they had visited other equipment they sent me those said these are not the ones this is the one so we made that move and we haven’t looked back and that wasn’t no so these are the things that play into Tire recline that was a million dollar purchase right so now we’ve got our own tire situation getting handled but now we have we need to get that thing busy right it’s got to start cost a million dollars because it cost a million dollars just to buy it and then you know 10 to 14 gallons of diesel an hour and you know all the maintenance and the you got to feed it yeah you know the that’s really hard facing and you dove into all that yeah head first TJ who I mentioned earlier TJ Taylor and I uh basically I told him dude this is your machine like you know you’re I need you to know it I need you know well and I was talking to myself as much as him yeah we need to know it we need to understand it we need to understand our parts

you know because downtime is opportunity time so you know being down is not okay and he knows that and I know yeah so it’s like fire there’s a fire you know you two know how to work together already because yeah all those other years yeah he married my cousin so he kind of knows yeah so he’s he’s from Bakersfield so he’s my cousin yeah well technically I’d say he’s my cousin yeah cool like I tell my son all the time I was like oh I gotta spot my heart for TJ because he’s raising you know my kin which is his daughter Haley Haley Ray and his wife Amber you know Amber is one of my favorite late cousins I hate to say it but um Steve and Glenn Hunter out of Bakersfield was my cousin and passed away which was her dad and right after that his dream was always to move to Idaho and have all of them move to Idaho well they moved to Idaho and worked with me which I I mean that’s that’s big I’m gonna get emotional talking about that but I I digress that their families here now

that little baby but TJ took that machine as his own which is now and that’s his baby too right and that’s his other baby right so and and the communication level between him and I is pretty good you know and I it’s all in business I think your communication is really what makes you because you you and being able to talk you know like and call out people without you know being can’t get an interview you know it’s like yeah no I don’t think we should do it that way boss if we do that then this this is gonna happen well if you ever go to a meeting where everybody always agrees yeah hey you got the wrong people in the meeting yeah but you should all agree that why the are we meeting if we’re all agreeing every time you know we need to have some different points of views or you might see something you know I might see something you don’t and vice versa right and if we can’t be you know grown-ups about it and take it and be like okay no that’s a good idea or be willing

to change our minds be like oh yeah that was dumb like that just didn’t work let’s let’s pivot you know and we say that word a lot because we do a lot of pivoting and any I think successful business you have to Pivot right and you know and learning the machine you know is important but how soon after the first machine was bought and up and running and you guys knew it and it was gone did you have to get another machine very quick so this is months a few months yeah but the the reason why so there’s a lot in between those two moments for one I took everything that I’ve known in sales uh you know I created a CRM myself customer relationship customer relations management which is basically just a spreadsheet of everybody that does tires and just did the leg work that it took right so in that time frame but I was able to utilize the resources and that’s where I was headed next is yes TJ and I brought a lot but what we’re getting and gaining from United Metals and the umbrella is by far more than

we’d ever learned prior to that so they watched me Chase equipment payments and go collect money from a farmer who’s past due and they watched me do all that to build you know because we were there two years for legacy compost to build that through covid and make it what it is to be so available as a as a business and then for us to move on so they watched me do that and now we came in and were learning how to communicate as a team and look you have a mechanic on staff hey you know if you need a welder let’s make sure you know if it’s not this type of welding we have this welder available or in TJ’s situation he’ll just grab things start welding and fix it yeah I have to slow him down sometimes hey let’s make sure we communicate again but that’s just part of Us coming into an organization now we’ve got a year of that behind us oh we’re streamlined I think we’re really rocking rock and roll which is good because there’s a tidal weight of tires coming our way and it’s but so now

that machine came but the the big key was having your um United Metals situation of you know the roll-offs so we introduced a new technology which is we have 100 we already had hundreds of roll-offs right you know out working but we try to always keep enough in rotation and exactly so now we’ve added a few dozen more but there but the communication of you know the dispatcher to the driver Buxton emailing me the weights and you know me invoice like none of that could have happened if it didn’t like I was doing all that myself which is a lot for one person man right so much it is a lot but it but I was doing it and I was doing it from Boise to Paul Idaho if anybody knows that’s like a two hour 40 minute drive but I made that work and you know we just made part of my miles and some hotels as part of the cost of starting that business was but anyway that in that time frame I learned how to do those types of things but I came to United Metals and it’s all

being done like those are you know trucks are being dispatched and picked up so you know I can’t take credit for a couple million dollars of Revenue when I’m just using the tools that are put in front of me right so it’s a team when people say it’s like a cliche like as a team effort you know what you know you and Jay walk up to me and go no we’re going to help you get the route driver right we got a guy we’re already thinking about I’m gonna go shopping for trucks Craig let me help you you know like I’m gonna go buy a route I’ll talk to Keith what do you guys that’s it like what what logo and phone number and it’s cliche like or or statement do you want it to say you know like asking and then we start a group text right which is gonna be a world famous group text Adventure half a dozen of us on there and it’s just it’s fantastic but I mean you think about that even just that little nugget of that collaboration of Minds in that group text is pretty phenomenal

it makes you know very powerful force so that take that into Tire reclaim yeah we needed a second machine like in a hurry you needed that quick yeah because we were getting tired more tires coming in but it makes me think how you said you you had a chase down check so you could pay like a equipment payment you know right right I always think of this story so Rod you know Brett’s dad rod used to you know he’s a truck driver too nobody’s running the business he would Drive the loads to get and then collect the check just so I don’t even so we could have the money in our account cover payment this is before like my time yeah but like so I came into it I came into even just an amazing situation where it was already built and and kudos to like our team and the guys out there grinding and driving and weighing the bands it’s quite like a great process of how we’re able to weigh a container and get and get the weights to the right person so we could a like in the metal side we

pay them right on your world we Bill them yeah yeah we’re collecting like the blue can at your house yeah you pay for that right so people are getting more and more used to it oh okay yeah it goes It goes way back to like where I say people hate the word landfill but are they willing to pay to keep stuff out of the landfill right and I think more people are getting used to that right which is good and that follows you know we won’t go too deep into the costs and tire recycling right but the tire recycling Done Right makes like some of the like really cool products you would ever think of like I don’t I don’t know them all what kind of products are they making out of some tires right so that’s kind of you know research and development that’s the staves that we’re at right now is what can we do with these tires well we’ve gotten to the point where now we have the equipment we have the the wherewithal and the idea of where different markets lie so there’s different Products that come out of the

machines that we’re we’re launching so um we’re bringing on a full-on crumb rubber facility in Caldwell Idaho so in doing that we’re gonna have the tire volume that now we’re reducing the the tire size even further and the next level of that is products like Chrome rubber for that next process does that get all the tire wire when I say tire wire for everyone there is there’s still wire in a tire right like how much percentage-wise of a tire how much Iron’s in it uh 15 15 on on your passengers and up to 25 15 to 25 and 25 like on your like semis and yeah things like that and people don’t a lot of people don’t realize there’s any any still in them unless you let it wear down enough you start seeing them like poke out exactly yeah certain people know exactly that they’re stealing it other people have no idea that they’re stealing it yeah so that process will get it still out absolutely so if you figure if it’s in fragmented sizing which is for you know astroturfing when you see a guy and they do the close-up

on Monday Night Football and the guy’s dragging his foot to stay in balance and you see that little trail of black coming up that little rooster tail that way the replay officials can yeah that’s old tires so that’s been you know processed down rubbers all the Astro turfs or all the they all all have to apply a certain amount of that because as my son could attribute to it comes home in your ears and because they have actually a college of Idaho yep right yeah and that black stuff you know it’s everywhere so it’s just it’s part it’s part of that you know crowd which um but but there’s so many others you know like horse trailer mats and gym floor mats yeah I slam your weights on absolutely I was uh researching obviously I’m researching this a lot right now because we’re you know I have those machines coming online very soon so are those machines getting made right now yeah they’re being built right now and we’ve actually visited the plant and we watched a good friend of ours um have his built and you know went and visited Oh Come to

Indiana it’s Middlebury Indiana about an hour from Chicago and it was just really cool trip but just seeing the machinery and then they have nine of them on facility the largest Chrome rubber facility in North America someone can correct me if that’s not true but as far as it’s a big one so they make a lot of chrome and who better to buy your machine from they manufacture the equipment they make Chrome themselves they actually make steel ingots out of that tire wire so yes it’s clean so they’re super cool they’re melting we can post pictures on that too it’s interesting I will share that with everybody so that uh it is does come out very clean so you have Chrome rubber you have steel you know these are things that we’re hoping will you know be able to get rid of and move because otherwise and I’ve seen it you go down the Avenue of the tire recycling casualties and they’re out there and you’ll you can drive out to Simcoe Road exit right now and find trailers staged with tires in them bags of chrome rubber you know tote bags just laying

about because they close the holes so and that’s that management thing I was talking about like obviously there’s plenty of tires right but not being able to go and collect and to be able to service that customer to be able to handle that that crumb and then go see what’s out there on the other side if you never get past that first gate then you’re those guys right and we don’t want to be those guys so right out the gate yes there’s a charge to recycle your tires will there always be I don’t know but for right now there is and the best thing that we can do is continue to pick them up and the only way to do that is if you help us pay the truck and the driver and the shredder to shred it up and that’s where we’re at so we’re making a TDA you asked about tdf earlier TDA is a tire derived aggregate so we are currently with the Machinery that we have able to make a four to six inch hunk of rubber okay that we get about 85 to 90 percent of the wire out

and that they can use as a drain Rock in Southern Idaho Solid Waste which we mentioned okay use that to cover those gas line extraction pipes that we talked about so they’re generating gas to make to power like full on Detroit Motors I’ve seen them it’s running and making power for the city of Burley and it’s it’s fantastic but um they’re able to cover those gas lines with that and as a drain Rock so we’ve been able to utilize you know thousands and thousands of tons of that material that’s only going to be a project then I have because you would be using a rock a really like big rocks yeah they were replacing the big rocks it’s uh more porous there’s more edges for um the bacterial growth and that’s where a lot of the compost background came in because there’s a lot of edges that water moving through there is not only just draining through but it’s also you know creating its own environment around the tires there’s a lot of edges a lot of places where things you know algae good algaes can grow things like that so it’s so do

you want it just then yeah yeah in that scenario you know everything’s cleaning itself if it’s doing that it’s alive right yeah so those are just things and that’s going deeper in the microbiology of it that’s kind of I’m a nerd in that area because of the compost background But ultimately it’s a really lightweight Rock replacement okay so they use it if you if you’ve ever seen a rooftop gardens or rooftop you know that like the whole thing looks like a park on the top of a building in you know downtown New York City they most likely use Tire derived aggregate because the weight displacement and the drain is so much less than so much lighter so structurally they don’t need they don’t have to reinforce that walls you know they can save money on building so that type of mentality with backfill on walls you know for Idaho Transportation Department you know backfill on these freeway embankments and anything railroads should be used should use Tire derived aggregate because of the vibration so I mean we have projects that that I’m lining out for tire derived aggregate so that if we ever have

a problem with chrome rubber or it you know that having multiple channels to take this product is what I’m trying to build right now so you have multiple products more than anything it’s like your manufacturing products yeah and we can shut down a line here and pump out here and go out here what the market needs again here’s another shout out to Casey and Braven yeah and out there on the building like oh if we move this and we flip this and bread of course and all of us in on it and giving oh if we if we take the machine through the building this way the wire will come out this conveyor right into a truck yeah you know anything or right into a trailer and whatever it is we we and again learning from another shout out Tom Parker down at all American tire recycling in Fort Worth Texas we visit and he’s showing us these things and he’s like oh don’t put the door there or you’ll end up making it bigger because you know it’s because he made those mistakes and he’s willing to share that which is that take

the meeting right yeah always take the meeting because that’s him and Brett hooked up on LinkedIn then Brett’s like hey we gotta go meet this guy I’m like let’s jump on a plane there we go to Fort Worth now we know everything there is to know about making Chrome rubber I mean not really but anything we want to ask him he’s been doing it for 14 years we can ask him you know and it’s and we do so you met Brad on LinkedIn yeah Brett met Tom on yep if you’re not LinkedIn or social media just get on there yeah I don’t know what you’re waiting like just get on there you can really use it just use it as a tool right you don’t have to like I get so many people that talk so negatively about some of this stuff if you utilize it as a communication tool yeah it’s a great thing like it’s a great one well and and I’ll give um a little plug for LinkedIn that I never thought I would have gave in the past but it’s not real political if you notice like guys speak their

hearts about what it is they’re behind and you’ll go out that guy’s ex or that guy’s why and but when you see someone post something like full-on orange man bad or yeah you know don’t vote this guy in or don’t do this when you see that you see other comments like not here man or we don’t really do that here that’s why it’s hard places to be yeah it’s like it’s almost like and I’m sure it’s an older demographic right which I’m getting more and more comfortable with labeling myself as the older demographic because in 45 I mean you’re on the top side of that what they’re targeting stuff for because you’re over 60 you’re like you know anywhere yeah yeah it’s that sweet spot they’re hitting really hard right now but I’ll give a plug for LinkedIn is it it stays pretty professional from what I’ve seen we’ve seen some weird stuff from guys trolling you know and I’m sure they’re just competitors and sales shout out to Rose yeah we should just open that up and be like hey if you want to go on and comment comment on some of

the stuff Rose has posted I mean and honestly I think I know who that is and that’s where that and some people are probably scared of social media for that reason so there is a scenario and I’m gonna call Rose Out full on I feel that’s another person right and is using a name and in that exchange is hiding behind a name and I’m not even sure who that I’ve heard it might even be his wife’s name but there’s a person that is attacking another industry or or the same industry but another equipment manufacturer’s product saying that’s not the way you shred tires just don’t check it out yeah but the but what I’m getting at is that it’s it’s it’s someone attacking all the time and but and this is where I learn I learned a lot from Brett this is one of the things that’s just you know killing with kindness and he kind of let loose a little bit last week or week before but but for months almost a year it’s been thanks for your input Rose we just really appreciate you following along you know and it’s stuff like

that but but that you know that that weirdness I guess is probably something that people shy away from in social media but for us yeah I mean look at all these relationships yeah Aaron Young you know I’ve known them for a long time yeah and we’ve been friends we were friends social networking wise long before we even made face-to-face con contact which is says a lot about all of that I’ve met so many people in the scrap Community because now he’s subscribed by Instagram now he’s my vice president of operations in Twin Falls you know the world works it’s so crazy so the entire world is humongous there’s so much to explore not just recycling like just the manufacturing of it yes there’s so much that I’m excited to see you dive into yeah I feel like we might have been here over an hour so I I apologize I know we are bouncing all over the place I like it we cover it a lot but at the end we talked about this tell everyone on recycled Idaho what you’re going to be launching here in the very next week yeah

what are you doing well it is exciting to announce because here I feel like I don’t have enough time like we’re all over the board and I have so much more like we could probably like two more hours yeah and there’s little like um I call them train tracks like through that whole conversation with little train tracks we could have went off on and had way more conversations which is why I think it leads perfectly into talking tires talking tires is our new podcast so here if you don’t mind go do it yeah so slap it on right here in our media room boom I love it so what are you gonna be you’re gonna so tired everything tires new tires used um our first episode is Chase Kavanaugh vice president of Commercial Tire great story um new used rubber recycling I mean anything and everything the asphalt we’re driving on you’re gonna hear me say asphalt so they put in the asphalt too oh there’s states that they’re just they’re blocking so I’m excited because it’s because I don’t know a lot about that we’re all then yeah I used to go to

this is and they used to have a lot of those crumb rubber guides there yeah if I went last year and there was like none which was weird so I’ll be in Nashville here in two weeks hoping to meet some of those guys but I’m hoping and I’m excited to listen to your podcast man I’m really excited thank you I appreciate that yeah we’ll be looking forward well thanks for joining us Craig Craig Hunter everybody follow them on LinkedIn follow Tire reclaim check out what we’re doing we’ll put some links some of these descriptions thanks everybody thank you