welcome to recycled Idaho for to recycling industry veterans bread Eckart Nick Schneider explore Idaho businesses and organizations that are putting in the work to keep Idaho environmentally and economically viable at the same time take a listen to how these entrepreneurs business owners and operators from making things happen in the great state of Idaho in this podcast episode Nick and I sit down with Joe Cheatham the owner of North Verde auto salvage a 20-plus year veteran of the auto salvage industry Nick and I get a pic Joe’s brain on everything auto salvage and more enjoy alright we are here with another episode of recycled Idaho we’re sitting here with Joe Cheatham owner of North firday auto salvage how you doing Joe great so let’s just get into it real quick Joe how old are you no we were just talking about our radio preferences right and you said you listen to Bob and Tom I’m still in or anything yep every morning you listen to the shop or Kentucky you live in on you live up through the record you live in Oregon Territory Morgan so you live probably pretty close to your your

facility yeah about four or five miles away so and I listen to them in the morning on my way to work or if I’m but I have to go all cars I don’t know I listen to them on the radio and hauling cars usually oh I Hulk are usually on Fridays and Mondays or Tuesdays so that you know I always usually listen to the whole show then because I had them you know an hour in the truck you know those guys are funny man I guess thank you it was still with my dad yeah sitting in this setup I’m like this is how it is you know when they’re doing that review it’s supposed to do you know so you’re in Oregon but you do a fair amount of business in Idaho – you know I mean no majority of our business is in either because we’re right here when I can throw a rock almost hit Idaho and we’re sitting right on i-84 so give us a little bit of background about North Korean photo so just kind of like how it started you know who started it and I mean you and

I have a lot in common as a blond people that we do this podcast with just because they’re family businesses so let’s just kind of give us the background on yeah so wait my dad when he was in his late 20s early 30s bought a company called art service and they had tow trucks and it was a body shop and they had ambulances even back then and it was a Lube rack anyway you he bought it he you know the thing was kind of struggling and got an opportunity to buy it dad did my dad didn’t know anything about tow trucks at the time or ambulances made that stuff but he could see a profit margin in these things and and he went out and started doing it and is what year is that 1968 okay so yeah he started and he you know do you have to be an EMT back then to run ambulances and he went and had basic training in him and then he got my my uncle which is his younger brother to help him and they got my grandfather brought him here from Baker City because that’s what

my dad was raised in Baker City Oregon and brought him up to help him and then he had a few people that he hired and they did I remember when I was a little kid they had two of those full dial-up telephones one was red one was black one was named in this calls almost telcos doesn’t have to go on those calls you know and he got started doing both so by in 1976 he sold the ambulance service kept the tow trucks in the body shop and the tow trucks there there in a one acre area there back then there was no money in scrap so you know I mean did you enjoy today they had to look for places to get rid of those Hulk vehicles I mean they were doing odd things with the building things I’m doing or they could it helps put them a you know to dam up their ditches and stuff in the farm fields and things you just have to rip the seats out and rip the cloth off the seeds before they ever had the ha no sugar yes and so you had to really

get down to basically bare iron and so you know toting these cars in the end pounds that nobody would pick up or whatever they became a lot of ability so dad started someone parts off of them yeah hmm anything that will hey look you can there’s no money and there’s no way to get rid of him you know I’ll just try and sell parts of him and so he got found it somehow old Hollander books and and had a guy that was a tow truck driver at the time that knew about how to do this stuff and they started can you know cataloging this stuff shelving some of the better motors and things like that and I’m doing compression test on the motors and it sells some of Motoring transmissions out the side of the tow yard there is that this current facility at that now no no this is this was in Ontario right on the Main Street in Ontario okay yeah and so that went on till the early 80s and then they kind of outgrew it because the this used part was kind of getting okay yeah so dad wanted to

expand the salvage yard so he found a place where our current yard is now down at the end of North Murray Drive so we called Northridge Auto Salvage yeah and found the five acre place down there was there was zone for it because he had get the current zoning stuff so he bought that in 82 81 82 ish they built the building and stuff and got the name established in late 82 and then they opened the doors in spring of 83 and it was just the five acres like 200 cars for years and years and his tow truck driver and a couple other guys ran it and it was kind of laid on a side deal to the body shop in the towing service for years and then I worked for my dad in the I went to college I graduated in 88 went to college came back in 92 started working for my dad painting cars at the body shop doing estimates and then I started doing my dad’s sister he was the bookkeeper she got ill with cancer and anyway he asked me to start doing the book so I started doing

the books with that and North Verde and then he got to the point where he wanted to it was in his mid 60’s good looking at retirement and he’s like well you know the salvage yard down there there’s a lot of potential there are you interested in it and I’ve never really worked down there it was a little scary to me but I’m like well because all he goes like you give you a great deal on it and I don’t you know I’m not gonna make you do anything upfront you and so I could see the opportunity so I started working down there and you at least you got to do the books for both right okay well there was you know there was a lot of employees there was some really good employees that had been there for years that we were going to give them an interest in the building business or sell them an interest in the business as well and which wasn’t a bad thing yeah I could see that if I could took the salvage yard I could have all my home my home business all myself yeah you

know makes sense there’s only was it was one of those things so I’m like anyway it was scary but I did it and then ended up hiring some very good people the people that the people I hired were the you know the key to everything yeah the people that had been down there before were stuck in their own ways this and that and you know I went came over here to Idaho and went to something towards some of the yards over here and some of these guys took me under their wing some of these yards that have been here for a long long long time yeah really good to me and kind of showed me the ropes and I started watching you know how the more successful yards how they did things and I came over I would come over and deliver parts to them and then you know tour around and then ask a lot of questions and then I would go back and start implementing those things in my own yard you know you know that was the beginning days of computers when you know it was a it was a black

screen with green numbers on it’s all you had we didn’t have windows and all that stuff there was Dawson yeah it was pretty primitive you know when we had thought matrix printers and see there really and in those days like I try to explain to people but in those days you really had to know your car’s new parts because there was no like system you’re like oh I need a part here’s all the interchangeable here you can run this car this like it kind of gives you a lot more information as you did you had to know and when we the first when I first got the computers it helped a lot but you still had to have more knowledge but you know but right before that appears right before we insulting computers in the late 90s because I started working out there in 98 and I took over to 99 we still have the old Hollander books there are books about this thick and they will tell you interchange but you also have to you know it’s it’s not like them go and push a button you know I need an engine for

and 95 Chevy pickup and you hit one button it tells you everything that fits that I know that’s the way it is nowadays it wasn’t it wasn’t like that you kind of you had to have way more knowledge that’s what it was scary to me because I growing up in the you know in the body business I wasn’t a mechanic I was in the mechanical I didn’t know the mechanical parts yeah you know and likely I hire good people that did know those things that helped me a lot a long way so when you tumor still there to this day oh wow so when you took over you put in some new protocol some new systems and you got your own people and yes I eliminated everybody that was there before hisses yes I didn’t eliminate them all at once but I could I tried to work with ones that I thought would work out would and they just they just they didn’t want to us you yeah they want to do it your way today one didn’t want to do it my way they didn’t want to they didn’t want to get up

at the times it was you know they didn’t want to use the computers they don’t want to inventory the cars that put them in the computers they wanted to they still wanted to run it the way it was before what some point like every business you have to make the decision you are you just happy with the status quo the way it sits today I don’t want to grow I’m just happy just I hit my max potential the guys I have are good but when you bring in my dad and I and my dad fought this with his dad right and I had the same conversation with my dad once you did a certain point and like your dad is ready to retire this is the guys I’ve set up like this is the way it is if you want to grow it then go find the people that want to work for you that want to see your vision because your vision is different than your dad’s been absolutely I think that’s like a big things that you know that is is so important if you want to grow a business my dad

always said oh you want to put it here here here he goes that’s great where are you gonna get two people that’s Oh God I’ll find him like I’m gonna that’s my job good luck in general like that’s how you build a business and the other thing that you mentioned too that I don’t like I don’t want to pass over is when you said that you know you didn’t know a ton about the auto salvage business but you could see the potential in it you were able to go find people that were already successful and they taught you they had no real horse in the race there’s no but why would I want to teach basically some days it could be a competitor right but only because they were successful they had enough humility and enough pride and what they did how they did it they’re willing to teach it was amazing you yeah and I appreciate those guys to this day and I think that inner conversation before you know like I’ve done a kind of special place in my heart for this guy or this guy or this guy and I one

of the things I thought I really want people to know is if you’ve had any level of success whether you’re an athlete or a business owner or whatever if you just take the time and you see somebody or that are hungry and they want to build they want to do something like you’ll get just as much reward out of that as the next guy like you know as as you will building up some monstrous machine that you know the prints money you’ll get a lot of reward out of helping somebody else that you can see the desire that wants to be successful yes like go and help them like there’s a lot to be said for that and there’s your true product of it yes well and building relationship with people just like the relationship I’ve been with you guys you know builder militia put those other yards that only help me in the future forever and ever we traded parts with each other they were my greatest ally you know there were only 40 miles away you know you would think there would be fierce competitors with us but no we were allies

in this day in the same history yeah and then when I you know say when you when you guys first come over you know first time that I dealt with United metal and I felt like oh my god here’s some guys that I can trust because you know in this industry you never you did when I was young starting out back then I didn’t know who and who I couldn’t trust and the I felt that trust with you guys the very first time and I’m like this is people I have to build a relationship with and maintain it and I have since then yes 20 years later well you asking you earlier how’s Greg Brown okay like Greg Brown was probably one of those guys we just not the guy that he started that this is one of those guys if your dad your dad you know owns this great big company and I’m just little tiny savage or an Ontario who went out of his way to come and meet me and visit me way back when yeah I mean you had to Ben was senior high school yeah yeah yes oh yeah

I remember your dad coming over and well he goes take me for a tour we walked around the whole yard and I’m out there and easily you’re doing a great job Joe I’m like wow it really meant a lot to me you know but build those relationships with people this is so important and being willing to ask questions that’s what you said yes asked a lot of questions as an EP shocked what people will share with you successful people in general like Brett was saying like they they’re gonna help other people that are hungry and just want to work this you know so if you ask the question nine out of ten times they’ll probably give you the answer and I think a lot of people well Rachel are great that are proud of their business yeah like to talk about themselves and like to talk about their business that’s why I’m here right am I talking about myself and my business I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished well you’ve built over the years over the years yeah you know and so that’s the way they were and they could see that I

looked up to them and they were like I will you know how do I do this is how do I do that hey come on back here and then he introduced me to their inventory guy I didn’t know how to inventory cars correctly and they go yeah look this guy show you you know this is what we use for this is this how we wrecked the engines of this is how you plug them and this is how you this isn’t it I mean there was all details I didn’t know you know and I’m going hey I need to find out everything there is about this industry and one thing I always appreciate appreciated about when we go you know whenever I’ve been to North Liberty I’ve been to a lot of Auto silages and is how tight is shipping around it’s clean it’s organized there’s no like it’s the real deal and I mean I think that’s one of the reasons why you’ve been as successful as you’ve had is you put money back into your business you make money you put it right back in your business you can tell just by the

way does that matter what to occur you take care of you know you said you have guys that you hired at 99 98 where that year was they’re still there so you’ve taken care of your guys and that you can see that I mean as a business owner shoot when I walk into a facility but I see that my god especially when you walk into businesses that you’ve been around that industry a lot you can tell when somebody takes pride in what they do and how they go about their business you know so I’ve always I’ve always liked that about your business but again I’m always appreciating I appreciate that it’s good to hear so good because other people recognize it what’s the I’ve always the most fascinating thing to me about the auto salvage business I’ve always wanted to figure out a way that the scrap community could do it but an auto salvage the you time with the hole in your system and how you like interconnect with other auto salvages right so like we’re all bigger yeah you’re selling part of your competitors so you’re competing with them to buy pets

salvage at an auction mm-hmm and then then you’re putting those cars into an inventory system and then you’re basically letting now your competitors sell those parts that you yes essentially yeah there’s a hard that a guy a salvage yard over here in Caldwell him and I’m bitten on the same car yeah on Thursday well he ends up with the car and on Tuesday I ended up buying the engine out of it and selling it to one of my customers here you know in Ontario you just see a nice thing that gets the most unique industry it is the thing is is there you can’t ever have enough vehicles have all the parts you need because there’s so many different you know this guy is going to need this part off of this car this isn’t you know you couldn’t have it all yeah I know it’s not like buying like like if you’re selling people that do podcasts microphones you know you’re gonna sell a lot of these so a lot you know but with it with it vehicle every vehicle has its make yeah you know that every year is different and

everything in a year you might have seven different engines in one vehicle and a year you know and did it have an automatic transmission line in a soundtrack so all the the all that little details you can’t ever have enough so you have to cooperate with all the other yarns in the country oh yeah to fulfill your customers needs so you’re competing for getting all right vehicles that are in the most demand and it will part out it is you know okay amount of times you can make a profit on them and at the same time trying to keep you know maintain all of your customers in your customer base provide them with the correct parts for whatever whatever their need whatever their demand is do you ship parts all throughout the country this okay got it figured yeah we have ship stuff you know from little stuff in boxes they go all at UPS and we put we put engines on pallets we ship engines all over the country everything transmissions we ship the frame a whole chassis to Tacoma just last just a couple days ago of a complete pickup frame pickup

even a take off pick up boxes which we’ve shipped those with your hard to ship so in 20 years from 99 to 21 years now we have 21 years how has the industry changed like what have you what’s been the biggest changes that you’ve seen from when you first started there’s been good and bad changes good changes as technology has gotten way better way faster you know the dial-up internet was terrible as that era yeah you know so the the you know this fast internet is you know it’s been fantastic compute that just a computer system itself the inventory system everything you know we used to have a server that was huge like this oh yeah now we have a service like this head and it does a hundred times more yes and the thing that the negative thing about what the way the industries change in my opinion if some big corporations have gone into the auto salvage business and bought up a lot of the small mom-and-pop yards around the country and it doesn’t have the same feel anymore so so like some of my favorite yards that we

used to deal with got got gobbled up by this big corporation and they’re horrible to deal with their employees they don’t have that same feel their employees don’t have the same feel for the customers the customers don’t have the same feel for them and it’s just a big number game and they just don’t care they mix on their relationship in our relationship and that personal and you know we personally know almost all of our regular customers we know their names we know you know and we like that relationship and they like that and they you know they want to have confidence in going to someone and and buying something that they know hey I’m going to stand behind it you know hey you need a little work a little on this here hey can you give me a little bit better deal on this here yeah you know this net and we work with people or maybe that part fail you know they know that you know hey it’s okay birdie sold to us I’ll stand by it with this big corporation and then you have the same problem then they’re saying well corporate

policy says I have to do this corporate policy says I have to do it and they stand behind their you know they hide behind their corporate policy these big corporations have no no there’s no personality to them yeah so where do you see that where do you see that that goes I was talking to somebody here just the other day who’s got some self-serve facilities down in Salt Lake he’s got three of them down there and he’s kind of telling me that he sees though those big corporations there that knows not to come do the price of scrap down and they’re better so and their business plan their business model isn’t it’s not sustainable yeah without without scrap because they’re trying to do it so production line oriented with that without the high price of scrap their business model is failing now so if if if they lose their hole in the industry and well hurt my feelings a bit I’d rather to see all these small you know independently owned yards go back up then have this big do you see that happening I mean I see that out of sizes possible

yeah I see it’s possible but where do you see those big ones just basically go on you know kind of what though douzo say I’ve got 50 yards and XYZ geographic area and I only I can only financially support 30 I don’t pick my bottom 20 performers and just be done with them and you know with those ever be not be in Auto Salvage again I don’t know some won’t someone ever be you know for one reason is the ground that they’re sitting on is my more valuable to use for something else yeah and they couldn’t get zoned again to be a salvage yard which is a tough thing you know that oh yeah you’re not yeah I mean you’re not so some we’re gonna be gone forever if we’re not a zone and auto salvage I don’t care where you are I mean I went to the zoning process a few times by day and the first question that asked me this is gonna be Auto Salvage like no they’re good because you’ll never get something for it and I’ve been I’ve done a lot of counties and a lot of cities well

think about you know Canyon County how many of there was on the cobble Boulevard for years and years if not zoned ins in the 50 60s and 70s and once those are not salvaged ours anymore they’ll never get zoned again oh yeah I don’t think you know your percent but that land is worth more as you know commercial as a retail partner or gas station gestation or fascinating or whatever you know so one of the big things obviously this podcast is recycled hi-de-ho so we always like to touch on every citement aspect of people’s businesses so I think kind of one of the things that gets overlooked in the auto salvage business is how much recycling is actually going our auto recyclers yeah it gives a full ball I mean we are harmless like ruins to the I mean you name it I mean let me just give us a little bit little bit background on you from your standpoint everything that is recycled in an auto salvage so none of the vehicles any any part that sellable this that’s still in good usable condition we try and sell as a reusable

parked but of someone whose vehicle to keep on other vehicle on the road whatever’s left on that vehicle whether it’s the Hulk of the vehicle which is just the scrap metal you guys smash that shred it every cycle that all the fluids so if there’s fuel in the vehicles I give all the extra fuel to the employees and put them into vehicles if you run around the yard so thank you that gets that gets recycled all of the oil we have a waste oil furnace so we burn to heat the shop yeah so we heat the shop at the waste oil you know antifreeze recycle okay antifreeze we put all the antifreeze goes into a barrel and people come buy it in bulk yeah which they’re buying that from you that’s a commodity it’s a commodity yes they buy they buy the Havanese yeah so I mean you got aluminum wheels aluminum catalytic converter your life converters I mean the computers on these newer cars yes we sell a lot of those those have to be on pretty good value we don’t some just for you know just necessarily for scrap yeah but we

saw also you know to be reused and there’s all recent there’s rebuilders also so there’s a lot of things we sell to rebuilders so there’s like you know if you if you go to an O’Reilly and they say if you want to rebuilt this or rebuild that so there’s cores we sell pours to rebuild our markets too so they’ll take them and take them to wherever they do and re manufactures and sell those as a remanufactured products through all right of these or you know autozone or whatever one of those places so we we also are supplying all the auto salvage yards were supplying all those cores that steering gears we do score stingers alternator starters you know there’s you know a core market and the core markets ought to go down yeah that’s probably been the biggest thing that I’ve noticed in the auto salvage industry as a whole from your psycho standpoint is how the actual catalytic converters now can swing the price of the salvage so much that’s true that can drive you know the price up and down you know regardless of the parts depending on the year of the

car and whatever else just the way that market is run so hard now I anticipate that plane its course – yeah that fluctuation is always there in the in the lower end salvaged vehicles so like if you’re if you’re buying the cheaper vehicles that you plan on and I’m going to sell a few parts of this but I’m buying this for the scrap value in the Calgary right you know that that’s ways that price on the higher end stuff where you’re going hey man you know these Durham axle motors you’re blowing up right now they’re in high demand they need to buy these late model Chevy pickups or these five 9s or whatever you know you know those whatever yours market demands if you’re if you’re good amenity you’re paying a lot more for that salvage but you’re not taking into account so much the in the end scrap value because you’re gonna be holding on to that vehicle for significant amount of time yeah you know so whatever the scrap value is at that time has nothing to do it the scrap value down the road because those rigs those rigs you pay a

lot of money for them you’re hoping you get your money back out of say the main component that you’re buying for the transmission so if there’s a transmission failure out there on this year model vehicle you’re buying though you’re trying to buy those for those to replace those transmissions for people saying that motors on their new cars you know and then the rest of the vehicle may be slower to part out because it’s later model and it takes longer for that stuff to sell off of it and you know the ends the end part of the scrap at the end is going to be you know a long time down the road it’s those into the live vehicles that people have used up that are coming in everyday that are you know less money you’re you know you’ve got you have to be on top of the scrap values oh yeah for those when you start seeing trends and like the transmission go out on a certain thing and you start to see it early do you pet it then go out there and like go is that what you’re doing is you don’t

buy all those so you can get ahead of it yes yeah so it’s way you can so missus we definitely do you ever hear from like maybe a different part of the country or anything like that of where it’s coming yeah there are certain vehicles you know where there was maybe sold more of this vehicle that had because there used to be like a Mike Ford it was a like Ford Focuses had the the the single overhead cam voters that were failures and we’ve started seeing like we and we had a couple of them and so we got a call from I don’t remember it was in Utah or maybe even been further further away than that like you know we can’t get we can’t keep enough of these and I’m like so then I started whenever they came up at the Occident I went by they has that motor in but if they have the dual rate camera they’d sit on the Shelf forever you never could sell uh-huh so you know there’s there’s always some you you try and find out hey this cars gonna make me money I see this

one you know in this car well I know I know I’ll never sell the motor out of that thing so she’s gonna sell the shell forever so yeah you’re always you’re always looking at that the other thing too is it know we learned because of that what cars are good and not cars you’re bad like on huh you know I have my niece or whatever colors just hey what kind of car should I buy what’s reliable we know that’s reliable was not be able because we see okay this there’s like 70s engines sitting on the shelf that have been there for how long yeah let’s go they’re liable that’s about very reliable engine oh the transmissions are good too all they were selling these cars is the mirrors and you’re wrecking people go back but you know the taillights a headlight something that but we’re not selling the mechanical components those were well built cars they were well made and mechanical stuff with their reliable so we find out how reliable the vehicle is the knowledge that the auto salvage guys have awesome because I’ve owed to Honda Civic and my ignition was like

sticking a little bit I called the Jay cat pink a lot of salvage I said hey man I got I owe to Honda Hina right away he’s like it’s a it’s a common problem yeah like he’s know we get calls one every day didn’t know it took them less than 10 seconds you know so I got a I got a question for you kind of kind of end it button so in oh nine I think we did that cash for clunkers deal right and I know and I know the effects affected everybody in a different way I was reading an article here the other day they’re talking about how to get the auto industry fired back up again and going they’re like oh this cash for clunkers deal was such a great success for these auto manufacturers and this and that and there was I don’t remember which politician was kind of pushing for something similar and I can you should look at this and that cash for clunkers deal for the auto salvage industry was it a good thing was it a bad thing was it something you guys would like to see

again and no time I minded hearing out I’d love to see it again it was great for us because we could buy this salvage you know there was kind of like a set price on it we could buy it there was an abundance of it and we could buy it cheaper than we had been able to buy a previously yeah the drawback to it if they never have it come back don’t make us blow up the motors they made they made us we had to blow the motors up we couldn’t resell them owners well why not no not every car that had that loan was a clunker yeah so you know they’re turning a good sellable part in subscribe metal yeah so we had then they made us put stuff in the motors and destroy the motors and we’re like and the transmissions and then crush the cars over a certain amount of time they should not do that if they do it again just let them live their end of life in the salvage yard you got and sell off of it organically and actually what they would have sold off though but

even with people that are bitter that are fixing those cars up they didn’t have the money or the credit or the whatever else if you gave them the four thousand to buy a new car anyways so you’re almost taking away their opportunity to kind of still keep their car running Yeah right yes like the people that might have been able to take the next to the 4000 next for clunkers or 25 or whatever that number was at the time and go buy it not everybody the old one of those vehicles totally for cash for clunkers yeah not everybody could afford it there’s doubles vehicles on the road so let’s keep those guys on the road to exam you know I would understand you know dope you saw some turned UK’s can’t put it back on the road yeah I understand that you have to have to part it out yeah yeah you know I would I would agree to that but to actually have to destroy the motors and transmissions the stock process sell you their force people are forced to go buy new stuff yes the thought process behind that okay so one

one more question so you have kids mmm-hmm do you see your kids being in the following in your footsteps or do you see them kind of doing our own thing and either way it’s an antique stone well my my oldest son my oldest child is my only son and he’s in the wine industry and he never did I never did pushing to work down there and I wanted to diversify and do something different so I send to college and he became a winemaker and he loves it and you know if I if I needed him and had to have him come back and help me I probably would but he’s doing fine and that you know that having something different besides being in the automotive business this is really nice you know yeah and suddenly you know I’m like else has something else going on in the family and then I have three daughters and for my daughters my youngest daughter it’s a possibility the other two they’ve already got careers other careers so now you know I don’t foresee my you know probably none of my kids are gonna are going to

take over my business okay I wouldn’t or see that but it’s never it’s not it’s not off the table though yeah yeah there is the owners my house that people have asked me that question all the time my god I would like to see my sons do whatever they wanna do Yeah right I don’t care I don’t have a horse in the race like I enjoyed it it’s always what I what I enjoy doing and I and I enjoy every day of it some days are more challenging than others but if they want to go make one or do whatever they’re I’m like yeah go get it done yeah you know so well thank you Joe yeah you got a fish you taking the time thank you for listening to another episode of recycled Idaho and as we continue the journey across this great state we look forward to bringing more stories of people and organizations putting in the work to do the right thing