all right I known you since 2020 yes sir my first time I got a tour a yard I’m like a kid in a candy store my favorite thing one of my favorite things like not just work wise but just in general to do is to tour yards every yard I’ve ever toured I take something new away yeah they do something I’m like oh that’s that’s smart like why don’t we do that like just little things you know yeah little nuances yeah little tiny things that maybe you guys figured out um over here and then we just don’t have over an Idaho or like a new piece of equipment I heard of or like just so I’m really excited like yeah and I haven’t even toured the yard yet we’re going to do that after this sit down yeah but um you know I’m meeting for everyone out there meeting with Jake bronstein um you started your first scrapyard what year uh 2020 during covid yeah well that had to be challenging yeah we opened in March of 2020 and I kind of thought what did I just do um and so the first

3 months from business was obviously pretty tough cuz we’re well that’s when it really became kind of real right March 2020 cuz I remember hearing about it yeah I think a lot of people thought oh two weeks a month we’ll be back to normal mhm little dude we know is going to it literally took two maybe two and a half years yeah and I don’t even know it’s just I hate using this term but it’s true it is like a new normal now sure things are different um so you open it probably the hardest time to open a scrapyard and you survived it yeah you know uh I mean thanks to our partnership and our group um and uh yeah I mean we it was a really challenging period um but I think it also in the backdrop it provided us the opportunity to build the infrastructure slowly instead of being thrown to the walls so it was a slower start but we learned and the mistakes weren’t as magnified so you took that obstacle and you really used it as your advantage you know yeah 100% I mean and at the same time

when we opened there was so much money that was being pumped into the economy in terms of quantitative easing across across the globe so commodity prices went through the roof yeah and it really and just economic activity in general um so we did well I mean it it was it was a huge win within our there was a lot of win in our sale so I want to go back though so is your do your parents own a scrap yard no so I got into the scrap Community right just by I met a girl I wanted to marry I tell this story a lot I’ll just do the real short version I met a girl I wanted to marry mhm in 2010 there was no jobs out there really mhm I have knew about United medal cuz I went to school with Shannon Brett’s little sister okay and she gave us a tip me and my friend who desperately needed a job that they were hiring for the pipe company I interviewed with the pipe company didn’t get that job my friend got it which I was happy for him so I was just

doing side jobs and then Brett called me finally and I interviewed with him and I started I was a can I was a can for a year yeah like all I did and it just opened my eyes to like such a cool like I’m like this industry is awesome I didn’t even know it existed sure never thought of it you know yeah so how did if your parents weren’t in it like Brett’s you know Brett’s family business guy yeah um how did you get into it so my dad’s a a few is a Futures Trader so he traded Commodities and currencies and in school I was diagnosed with a learning disability so I had dyslexia and add and so I always like learning by doing um you didn’t like to like sit no at a desk yeah I I I I needed I needed to deal with like tangible goods like you know fungible things and I think the way in which why I pursued this was to connect with my dad on a certain level my dad’s my dad is loves work he loves talking about markets and geopolitics he likes what he

does he loves it he’s is he still is he still yeah yeah he still he still trades and uh and he absolutely loves it he’s he’s fascinated by what he does and I wanted to connect with him just like just like any child with their parent you have a lot of memories of him working long hours yeah I remember him going you know go driving us to school and like calling in contracts to the clearing firm and taking positions always on his phone yeah trading trading nickel trading copper um trading the dollar against the Euro and like these these currency swaps um you know I was really aware of like what moved markets at a young age my dad would sit there you know with with The Baron’s newspaper on Sunday morning and the New York Times and you would you would read to try to understand about the world and digest it and ask questions and and to try to pursue uh some of these questions to develop like a thesis strategy of what’s occurring and I think um so that’s that I think that’s how I became aware of Commodities but there

was a specific event to where I um I uh I went to a scrapyard when I was 13 years old my dad my dad where were you living where did in Chicago you grew up in Chicago yeah so I grew up in Chicago you still live in Chicago I still live in Chicago close to my Paris cool and I make the the hillbilly commute yeah what did you call it yesterday it’s a hillbilly Riviera so I go from Chicago to maraville and then marville to Ben Harbor how far away how far away is marville from Chicago about 45 minutes and that was your first yard marville Indiana yeah um and how far is marville Indiana from this yard it’s about an hour okay not awful no no it made sense in terms of our supply chain and and the synergies between the two facilities that’s a good space between yards you know we have seven yards yeah um and yeah they’re about we have one yard it takes about 2 hours to get there mhm I’ll go there like once every other month once a quarter and it’s a long day I’ll wake up

early right yeah and but I can hit all our yards in one day if I really it’s a long day yeah I’m sure but I can but I it’s hard for me not to if I’m already over there I’m like might as well just check in check on the crew like just make sure like you know an email and text is great but just there’s some value to just showing up in person I thought I think there’s a ton of value of like us we could have done this yeah through Zoom sure but it’s just not the same man I I have a lot of I’m old school and the I think old school meeting in person has a ton of value well I mean I think also too it’s it’s you know for you when you go to that facility you’re checking on the quality right of the product that’s being made to make sure that’s of a mill specification you’re teing to that there’s a certain cleanliness that you know corresponds with your brand for brand right you know that that people are you know that your that your team is interacting

with customers in a professional manner that there isn’t you know cross politics in the office like there there’s nothing like it and then more importantly to see what you have on the ground right to reconcile your physical inventory on a monthly basis making sure that everything is accounted for so I agree with you so you were 13 living in Chicago yeah and so I I went to a a yard that’s no longer in existence that got bought out by Reserve Management Group out of Ohio called General iron Industries and so General iron was was a mega Shredder yeah they did 70,000 tons a month they were that’s you know my brain can’t even comprehend how many tons that really is yeah no they’re insane it’s 8 88 40,000 tons a year um that’s crazy and they uh were the dominant player even though that Sims was in Market they really had a market share um and and they drew and so they were buying up a lot of the smaller yards they weren’t buying up a lot of small there so they were they were a single location and but what was

impressive about them what I think what really made their business was just the logistics and ACC to the Chicago River by bar so they so their their freight cost was half that compared to a competitor and they were really good at I think markeing their material and understanding um the cost for their lanes and Adam um Adam labcon who who was the owner who familyowned owned the business um that’s who I met that day and we kept in contact but was this like a school field trip what was this no no it was it was a it was a Charity Auction so my so my dad bought it at our school you know fundraiser so they they like donated like a day so General iron did yeah and good on them that’s cool like one thing that our my team and us talk about is like getting more and more involved with schools yeah and we we try we try our best but I think that’s cool for us us to get involved with schools and yeah Adam was really gracious and I just remember being there it was a you know in the

crane uh feeding feeding the shredder on the on the conveyor Fe yeah yeah and like all the front end loaders of course with him was it a cable crane no no it it was like it was an excavator it was like a yeah I don’t know it was it was huge I me big big exavator yeah big excavator um when you’re like a two yard grapple like enormous that’s big and and um and I think my dad really liked Adam because Adam was a young guy hardworking on a Saturday you know boots family business um you know really involved in the business and was trying to scale it right he was trying to improve it and if you meet Adam Adam’s the type of operator that knows his business is Adam still around yeah is he’s in the scrap game still yeah okay great yeah and he really knew how to run that factory there was no one better than him because he knew every part uh and how and what what services he could self-perform and what his cost for he was really aware of his fixed cost and variable cost and

one of the things that he did great at um was Logistics and that he really invested in logistic capacity in order to Aggregate and collect scrap and that’s why he won is that he was the first to Market to get these gondolas and the 99 cubic yard Clement and and dumb trailers and dominated it I remember even in 2020 um when I opened you know you could call General iron in the morning say Hey you know we need four trucks and within an hour you would have four trucks up that’s pretty amazing and so for him he realized not only not to to get the demo scrap a lot of the demo guys were running sheet iron and 50 yard boxes so their so their loads weren’t great and so Adam really invested in that capacity in 89 cubic yards and up to secure that scrap and and and what he did is that he placed trailers at suppliers yards right you could use the trailer there was a GPS on it but as long as you brought the scrap to him he would give you this asset so they would let the customer

hook up to the trailer and deliver yeah exactly so if you had your own power unit you could run it or you could stage it in and they would come and do swaps on the trailer okay and um but you know I that’s that’s how I got my taste for it and I don’t know why but I I just decided like that day that that was I was going to be in the scrap M business so you knew since you were 13 that’s pretty awesome I like I knew it was something I wanted to do and possibly something I could do I wasn’t sure how I was going to get there how old are you right now I’m 31 I turned 32 next month okay yeah still very young but you’ve known you’ve known for almost 20 years yeah I had a sense of it um and it was really interesting because when you think about the scrap metal business you can’t really think about globalization without scrap metal cuz Comm ofies flow to where there where there’s a growth story right China turkey India Mexico whatever there’s a consumption story there there’s a

product that’s being made there’s infrastructure that’s being built and I think that’s fascinating because it’s the the liquidity in the and the size of the market is so much greater than ourselves that I like the fact that I participate in This Global business on a macro level like I’m just I’m a midsize dealer right I just you know I’m a small guy we got 31 employees but I’m part of something much more critical and greater than myself and I like that well in 2020 everyone was trying to figure out who was essential you know I ha that’s another it’s funny you said that I bought a cot on Amazon and I was ready to sleep in the plant cuz I lived in Chicago and my plant was in Indiana I was I was like well it like I sleep here I will and luckily I think Most states did recognize the scrap recyclers has yeah essential but there was a little point where we thought the state was going to shut us down cuz we weren’t technically on the essential list you know so we had to go and plead our case you know

like without us like these manufacturers that make parts for the hospitals right it it all shuts down like people just don’t how critical you are in the supply chain people don’t understand you know like me in 2009 I didn’t know anything about this industry and my eyes were open wide in 2010 I’m like holy right yeah this is crazy is crazy yeah it’s big business when I started doing research I got to know the industry and and what I love about it I love talking to my customers I love touring their plants yeah or their jobs you know I love the fact that we get so involved in so many different industries that have to recycle yeah and that’s what so I think we’re on the same page there that’s what I find so interesting is how it all works and how connected the world really is I I love it because the industry is so pronounced here that if you’re driving a 9094 or 290 um 80 um any of the highways you’re going to see scrap flowing to the Mills yeah and you’re going to see other yard servicing customers and I’m

always looking around for you know you know who’s on the road and what type of trailer configurations they have and what type of equipment they’ve bought and how they’re investing their money and what type of material they’re moving and and and and it’s and I’m really proud of the fact like even though it’s not may not necessarily be my own assets or trucks I love seeing other people in action yeah yeah yeah so yeah I love I love watching the freeway we got I 84 and Idaho that’s like the main like line that people drive down and you can see anything moving like and it’s kind of like when you buy a new car you start seeing it everywhere yeah you know what I mean now like I can see containers our containers our competitors containers I see loads going to you know maybe Oregon or down to Utah to some of the shredders you know and it’s it’s cool man like you know you see like how important it is to really move it and then as a company how important it is for us to get our loads ready you know so

you can jump on opportunities like when the market takes like a nice little tick up and then it you know you’re ready to roll so 2013 you know what you wanted to do yeah when was the first time you worked in a scrapyard so that was two I think 200 14 or 2015 so you were you were something like that how old would that I made you let’s see I’m 31 um so it was six seven years ago okay um and so I went to go work for a small company called main scrap metal which is in displays Illinois it’s no longer in existence okay and is there a scrapyard there anymore or oh no yeah they sold off all the Assets in in the real estate and it was a it was a high volume pedler ped yard so we did a lot of non feris Bas so no like drop boxes or trailers we did trailers but no no rolloffs no rolloffs small containers yeah I mean my my knowledge base for Ferris was was uh clean sheet sheet iron AutoCast and and and and and heavy iron yeah and that those

were the Commodities that we sold but we didn’t lay any iron on the ground uh we did we did a lot of aluminum primary secondary um uh you know different wire packages uh a lot of export so I learned how to export and put together those shipping manifests and the photo documentation um how to market the material and really when you go to work for a smaller company you could have a a larger work portfolio you could take on more and I think that’s the misconception that people go into these larger more established institutional companies and you’re so pigeon told to doing just like a singular job function that it it doesn’t give you the cross diversification to be truly your own yourself and your own brand yeah and so like that taught me how to be an owner operator awesome so you’re 25 around 25 yeah um and then you worked there for how many years I worked there for I think two and a half or okay two and a half you really just probably spent those two and a half years like just really learning the industry yeah did you always

have an idea that you wanted to owning your own scrapyard I wanted to I wanted to either work something out with the owner to where I can buy in he didn’t have any family family working in the business so I thought there there’s going to be an opportunity there but what happened was that unfortunately there was a fire that occurred and just after that we could never really um regain our footing and that’s too bad and like what happens is that you start selling things for terms and then you erode your your margin you get margin compression and so your operating costs are the same like the same fixed operating cost money exactly so revenues go down but your operating costs maintain the same and and I just I was I was frustrated with the situation I think as as a young person I probably could have done a better job of of handling it and working it through but at the same time um you know there was a certain way that he wanted to run the business and that was his business and but even afterwards um you he actually passed um

okay but as I was building maraville he pass during that were you did you guys stay in touch yeah yeah you know I he was like a dad to me like I would text him I love you on Father’s Day your father’s day or like his birthday I mean last me text message was on his birthday and you know I you know I expressed my my feelings towards him um and uh you know going to his funeral I learned how proud he was of me of like what I what I was doing what I was trying to pursue he’s probably still proud of you man yeah no he’s he’s he was great man he was you could say what you want about him but he really knew how to run a yard yeah um he knew he really knew his chemistries in the nickel feral Alloys um you see a lot of those over here right you see a lot of those nickel products yeah you do we don’t see a lot of that back home see well people treat their own Metals right so people have furnaces whether they’re die casters or or

things of that nature but people people are treating metal over here so you get like the the 355s which are like the heat the heat um the baskets yeah um Inc canals um we don’t aoid we just don’t see much of that back back in Idaho we see your normal players 304 36 you have a good like AOS Aeros space and defense um manufacturing cluster here in Michigan um but you know that’s the one thing I like in order to learn like I would have to stay late at night because that was the only time he had cuz you had to do your normal job right but like in order to really learn about how to make a pack or did he pay you to come in late or that’s your time so you you put in the time yeah I would stay till like we would get down at like 10:30 at night and then we would go back to work and he was just an animal I mean he loved the work he would he was probably the worst forklift operator I’ve ever seen in my life tipped over more forklifts

and ruined more equipment than than he cares to admit but he liked being in his um facility he like to get his hands dirty yeah he he wanted to feel connected to his operation and you know it it was funny like he would think he would be some type of Genius because he would shift the boxes from the left to the right and would rearrange the yard to gain some type of efficiency or to gain some some throughput maybe move a scale just like what’s the purpose of this like come in next morning you’re like what the like what just happened yeah well I wish I could have met him I mean I’m sure you so I think that’s a secret for anyone out there listening that wants to build a career in any industry you got to be willing to get you know not do the extra work and not get paid for it yeah that’s what I had to do I had to put in the time I had to like learn it I had to go I would just ask a lot of questions and I was blessed to have management

above me at the time yeah if you that was willing to teach me if you want things you’ve never had before you have to do things you’ve never done before and I always look for the individual that’s going to stay late after work and talk to it means a lot to I’m never going to say like hey I gotta go or you know and I’m I’m late for this like I don’t give a you know like I you know I’m here to teach because that was what was taught to me and I think you need absolutely need mentorship um within this industry and I think just apprenticeship in in in this country is lacking of just of just showing how to degrade if you learn a vocation you can monetize that if you learn a skill set that’s something that you could take with you the rest of your life and and being in this business there’s a lot of proprietary knowledge that’s learned right through experience but it’s something that’s not public I mean you could read about heavy melt and copper like there’s nothing like being involved in a recycling operation at

a yard and I do I’ve noticed in this industry though there’s a lot of people that won’t share information with you yeah especially some Old-Timers might look at you as like a threat yeah so I always promis myself I would never turn into that guy right I’m going to you know I’m going to figure it out how to train the next group you know cuz like I want them to do like what what I do right so I can keep helping grow the company yeah so I think and I think it’s shifting I think it’s really shifting that’s why I like to do these podcasts to bring awareness to the industry mhm so I mean you open in 2020 open your yard yeah when did you get B Harbor under your belt December 2022 so fairly fresh yeah did you find anything interesting doing having two yards and anything you didn’t expect anything yeah of course I mean the the not of course but it’s it’s it’s um it’s always easier said than done and it’s it’s one thing to be I think Young ambitious and somewhat naive is that you don’t have

a lot of fear yeah you’re not looking at downside risk as much as someone that’s older yeah um because I don’t have as much to lose right I I can make it back and in my lifetime I’m not afraid of going to zero you can um take risk that a 60-year-old guy couldn’t right right I and and you know it’s just as as you know it’s just my dog and I and he comes to work with me every panda panda panda comes to work with me every day and I wish Panda was here I know he’s with his baby next time I see you I want to see absolutely and him and I along with everyone else you know built this business together and you seem like you have a really great team I’ve only met a handful of them yeah but you seem like you are a good leader it seems like the people want to learn they’re eager to be here their and like I I say this on social media a lot but culture over everything yeah culture is the number one most important thing to myself I’m always

like looking at our culture how can we make it better yeah is there anyone out there that’s hurting our culture is there anyone like any way can we make it better so we can I want people to like coming to work I know 100% yeah I agree with that and I know I love going to work right I’m not I’m not asking people that like it as much as me cuz I’m I’m a weirdo but I want them to not be like when I walk by a guy and it looks like he shot his dog the day before I’m like what’s wrong man yeah I flat out told our employees that I can tell hate it I’m like hey man like I don’t want you to work here if you hate working here yeah I I have those same conversations if if it’s like Poland te when it then it’s time for you to find something else cuz it’s a it’s a you’re doing them a disservice to have them be that miserable maybe they’ll find their passion at the next industry they work in yeah I mean sometimes you know an exit’s an

opportunity yeah um but yeah I think for us one of the challenges when buying a company and you guys have gone through Acquisitions to is yes merging cultures and getting rid of toxicity in the workplace and and bad habits not to say that there was but it’s just not the same and you need to standardize things you right we need to commoditize it we need everyone on the same playing field and our values need to align it’s like having a partner right if you don’t have the same values it’s not going to work out so our you know getting our systems in place and our values in place has been the most work and like cleaning up the yard in terms of organizing it so that we can make the ne Neary infrastructure Investments and equipment and Technology but until we know what that Baseline is it’s really hard to go through with it so much A lot of people you know are quick to pull the trigger on you know say a new equipment purchase or so forth until you really find what your Baseline operating level is in terms of your variable

cost versus your fixed cost I don’t recommend doing so I mean find these things on your balance sheet on your p&l that piss you off whether it be your inventory turnover ratio or your carry or your rolling or your rolling inventory um maybe you know especially here in Michigan I mean you could you could haul heavier loads so maybe your freight cost could be cut in half because you can invest in specific a axle configurations that will allow you to haul heavier payloads like find those inefficiencies and create a plan and like and go after low hanging fruit and it’s a lot of work you know this isn’t like ites does happen like it doesn’t happen like this and and you guys know like the re to really realize like the cost benefits and the synergies through like a planned acquisition it’s not something that happens in three months or six months yeah it it this isn’t this isn’t like get wck get rich quick I wish it could happen that quick I really do but I we’ve opened some yards from scratch right we’ve acquired some um that were existing um but

most of ours we’ve been lucky to build from scratch yeah the run up them green fill them yeah you know but the ones you do have to align your culture that takes in all reality it takes years to get it right yeah you know you just try to get better every day you try to like identify as management what we’re doing wrong and how to make everyone better I think that’s why you need really good financials and that’s something that like our partnership group has really focused on is like good financials good financial reporting mhm so that way we could develop key metrics that we think are important for the business and you can really go hard at a job you know or hard exactly why is my maintenance cost x amount or like you know why is transportation up or like you start seeing things are out of whack and hopefully it pisses you off enough where you want to attack it mhm um what’s what’s in store for the future for you guys for you for for for our business or for for your businesses well we’re going to continue to expand

um you’re you going to keep looking for new opportunity to put a yard in yeah whether whether it be horizontal or or vertical vertical uh Investments or building out new recycling streams or or buying another facility um we in it to grow um I think with this yard we’re we’re going to bring it up to our standard in terms of what’s what’s representative and what what correlates to our brand um so you know we need to we need to do a lot of infrastructure work we need to lay down concrete we need to fix some of the uh some of the uh warehousing infrastructure uh and let invest in mechanized processing equipment that will allow us to be cost efficient and move inventory um and that’s the way to compete and you know we’re we’re here to compete um at the end of the day uh we’re we’re forward looking I think as as a group we all want to grow and we’re bought into the program and we and this is how we provide for all of our family so there’s 31 of us that work here and it’s it’s in our best

interest to see this through Well we I’m excited to watch you grow I really enjoy talking to you you and like learning from you and hopefully vice versa yeah like we we love to share information we’re not competition I’m me Idaho you know but if I can help you or vice versa I’m like hey man am I do you have that like cost sheet like how did you calculate those costs cuz that’s something that we’re looking at too we’re trying to make better Sops better cost analysis so we can take a real hard aggressive look at things and like just be better yeah you know cuz I never never want to get complacent and ever say that’s just how we do it right no and I think that’s how you die I I I think you know having you know collectively all of us and the way this I I think will work is as a co-op is that we could learn from each other and learn best practices and learn how to think about things and challenge each other in terms of our thought ideas yeah where do you send your stainless

you know where do you send your copper you know maybe we build more that’s the number one thing that we’ve seen on our big social media push we really went hard at it 2019 till and currently right we’ve like 3x are consumer list cuz cuz the relationships Brett’s made MH and it’s just out there Mee people there’s so many good people out there mhm like I’m like I always say this to Brett like my biggest weakness is probably my optimism yeah but I like it like I’m I’m so optimistic like oh yeah I think we got that account and I’m like you have to believe in it you have to have hope you have to have hope to move forward and to motivate you to proceed you know proceed into the next day but I think you know first and foremost I hope that we could learn from each other and learn best practices cuz none of us have it all figured out I certainly don’t have the Monopoly on good ideas I don’t think you do either no I don’t but I got a lot of bad ideas I mean I I do

as well usually my my first original thought’s a bad idea but I think collectively as a group we could grow further and that’s where I want to build a community where we can ping ideas off each other hey have you guys tried this I’ll be like dude we tried that and it failed like maybe you can figure it out and if you do let me know you know and it’s like even in Market I talk to people and like that are Dr competitors I maybe sometimes I say more than I should but I am I am more than willing to to share what I know that’s good cuz I I catch myself being Uber competitive maybe too competitive yeah and it’s just like how I’m built but I I also I have some of our competitors I have their cell phones my number one one of my really good friends in the business is a direct competitor Josh Padnos and we talk all the time and we do cross business and there’s enough out there for us all to live you know and that’s one thing that we have to remember we don’t have

to I don’t want anyone to go hungry yeah I want us all to live we’re all doing the same you know we do it different that’s why we’re different businesses mhm but if we can live together and work together and try to help each other where it makes sense yeah I think it’s a beautiful thing like and I I think the scrap Community recycled Community is a really cool Community man like I met so many cool people yeah all right so you said if you if you die tomorrow yeah I don’t know who I would talk to you know all my friends are in the scrap metal business um and that’s and that’s what I enjoy talking about it and I I enjoy connecting with other operators within our industry because it’s a shared experience and art you know we might be at different places but everyone has gone through similar situations you know the ABS and flows of the business and uh we all have the same trials and tribulations right and relatable and um and so yeah I I really love our industry because of the people and how diverse and multifaceted

it is um you’re you’re in the car a lot of too there’s a lot of windshield time the car is my time to talk to everyone I I call so many people when I’m in the car it’s hard for I call so many people and they call me that it’s really hard for me to even listen to books on tape yeah cuz I just get inter interupted too much yes but I I’m always looking for time hacks one of my time hacks is like if I’ve got to commute roughly hour hour and a half every day MH that’s an hour and a half I could at least be networking yeah and I’ll call some of my like friends I’m still close to some of my friends too so I’ll keep keep cuz like I’m just a relationship guy like I love having healthy good relationships and I love meeting new people and I’ve got some of the cool relationships are all because of scrap yeah you know and I never want that to go away I want to bring more people in mhm to our community so I can meet people all I want

to have a cool cool contact in every state where we can really really build something beautiful together and I think we’re on the way you’re you know recycled Idaho recycled Indiana yeah there’s a good Nexus there and there going to it’s going to keep going man we’re going to keep adding state after state after State well thank you for your time yeah absolutely let’s go to where the yard all right cool bro guys