welcome to recycled idaho where two recycling industries veterans brett eckhart nick snyder explore idaho businesses and organizations they’re 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 are making things happen in the great state of idaho in this episode of recycled idaho we get a chance to sit down with lee belmar owner of abyss towing and the president of the idaho tower association we also sit down with rick berlingame owner of boise valley towing and the district 3 director for the association these two have helped so much on improving the tow industry in idaho as well as providing a truly essential service to our community with both the respected companies take a listen all right welcome everybody here’s another episode of recycle idaho i’m sitting here with two giants in the industry of the tow industry i got lee with abyss how you doing lee good how are you doing well i got rick with boise valley towing how you doing good so basically let’s just kick it off and lee do you want to start

kind of tell us how you got into the toe industry oh god here was a mistake i was i was attending college in bethesda maryland and my job was a job it wasn’t rocket science and i did it the whole time i was in college got my degrees went off and just kept doing it never ever changed i tried to change one time and that wasn’t i was joined me so to speak yeah that’s been my whole life for 31 years so far and where what city did you start in in bethesda maryland i’m over in maryland yeah okay so i’m from new england and i know the school down there and then i went back to new england and tuned there forever so what brought you to idaho uh my in-laws my my family’s my in-law family is out here and they’re getting older and needed help my wife wanted to come out and support them so here what’s the difference between east coast towing and west coast or northwest towing uh difference there is a huge difference east coast people are rude and impatient west coast or midwest more laid

back a lot more laid back here everyone has a gun and no one’s gonna use it roadways and trees yeah back east i grew up in upstate new york so yeah the give us your terrain is different yeah give us your back story yes rick i’d love to hear um 16 years old i worked for a buddy and he put me in a dump truck and that was pretty much the start of my driving career and i just loved trucks then my next job i worked for a salvage pool insurance salvage pool my best friend’s dad owned it and he put me in a tow truck and that was it so about a year before i went into the service i spent about a year and a year and a half driving tow trucks um went from the salvage industry into regular towing and that was 33 four years ago and just kind of went from there pointed this service as an equipment operator and uh to give me that another level of of uh experience and was in that for six years as a reservist and uh yeah there hasn’t been a year

gone by in my life i have not been in a tow truck in 34 years almost 34. that’s awesome man all the towers i’ve ever talked to it sounds real similar to the scrap metal guys like once it gets in your blood like it’s just kind of part of you it’s not even like a job anymore you know it’s just part of you yeah that’s how i look at like the scrap side like that’s just what part of my life some people call it stupidity but you get the same comments yeah and you both being from the east coast we had a driver at one point um from new jersey and i could definitely tell a difference between him um and his willingness to just go do bins anywhere because i’d be like man that’s a tight fit you might want to send that shorter truck he’d be like nah i’ll just park it i got it because he’s so used to doing doing he was a driver he was a driver in new jersey so like you guys probably having that background you guys could feel like you could probably get into most

places yeah more space and you know what to do yeah some of those guys yeah so real quick you guys are both part of the association do you want to kind of go into that the toe association the toe association sorry do you want to come we got it started so we’ll start with him yeah let’s just give us some background on the toe association and then just real quick like to like preface it one of the coolest things that i like about this is you guys obviously it’s two separate companies um but you guys have found a way to help your industry by working together bringing other toe companies people you might compete with on a daily basis but i call it like a friendly competition to where you’re not trying to cut each other’s necks to do business but but for the betterment of the industry you guys have kind of created this toe association and just kind of give us a little bit of background on that and what what made you know what what what kind of brought it about sure so uh like i said i got been from

the east coast i was involved in the association of new hampshire in maryland and in florida and every state pretty much has one i got out here and there had been one here in the past but there wasn’t one acne there were a lot of internal industry complaints you know you’re out there every day and you work hand in hand with these other companies right you’re doing rents you’re doing what even you see insurance calls yeah sometimes they double dispatch and two companies show up so you’re constantly talking other people and there’s complaints that get mentioned and talked about and there seemed to be a lot of that i was kind of new to idaho but still there’s a lot of complaints and we’re going to change this but nothing ever happened people talked about it and it just kind of went to the wayside yeah and the reality is i mean you can have eight ten little ideas in terms of groups um that all have their own agenda and they’re not working together so if you try to go somewhere with it and that’s what rick and i are talking about eons

over over and over and over again when you’re not a professionally legal entity that is bonded together for a common goal and purpose you’re not going to reach the goals that you want to reach because people aren’t going to give you the time the respect the understanding or even just be able to be heard um doesn’t mean you’re going to accomplish everything you set up for you but that was the goal let’s take those random conversations and complaints and let’s actually do what an association is really supposed to do so the whole goal was exactly that we’re all competitors and sellers right we’re all telling companies but the reality is there’s you know mcdonald’s heavy duty i know so you still can have your own kind of nest everyone’s got their own thing well that’s that’s i think one of the biggest things is yes we come together as an industry and that’s i think that’s kind of the key we’re together as an industry we don’t talk about each other’s business so to speak yeah you know what i do daily to to to earn our business to keep our business you know

all that kind of thing some things are very surface you know you can see it yes i have x amount of trucks and he has x amount of trucks or whatever but or the the goal is to come together as an industry as for whatever the common good is whether it be law or ethics or are dealing with our roadside assistance companies insurance companies um so that we can safety training all those things so those are more of the common goals those that’s what we truly are after um i don’t necessarily want to you know copycat him yeah he doesn’t want to copycat me you know we’ve both been very successful in our businesses and um and that’s but we don’t talk about that portion of it yeah that’s the feel i get from being at some of those meetings is like people are there to kind of fix some common problems i’m very neutral i i don’t even wear company logos when i when i have when we have association meetings yeah because i don’t feel like there’s a business blue collar you know like the scrap metal recycling industry your guys industry

there are certain industries out there that rightly or wrongly have gotten sometimes a tougher rap than others so like by creating an association and doing stuff like this it kind of helps you get the word out there like hey we are a blue collar we know we work our butts off for a living but hey we enjoy it and b we’re doing it the right way we’re trying to associate with other people that are trying to do it the right way right and i fell in love with this by accident i tripped i fell into this totally by accident i i got fed up with cops being the only ones protected on the roadways and decided to start making contact with representatives and senators in our state to try to get the move over law uh upgraded to include towers and then throughout my conversations and knocking on doors and ringing doorbells and such i ended up getting pretty tight with itd and even though they couldn’t really endorse anything i felt they needed to be included as well because i worked side by side with those guys on many big wrecks and if

anybody you want behind you with a sweeper instead of a broom is those guys yeah and they’re in harm’s way as well so as i started into this i called sarah biggers who we’ve worked with in the past with crossroads and she says hey if you talk to the association and i said what association next thing i know i went to one meeting and i was voted as a district director and i didn’t even know it had happened honestly there was something that happened in that in that denny’s i think it was dennis two weeks later he’s like hey you were you know unanimously you know enough for president or for director and i’m like what are you talking about that was two years ago yeah so what’s how many members how many uh active members do you guys have part of the association right now currently statewide we have 29 tow company members and then we have uh seven sponsors or affiliate members okay which is good so i mean you start with the couple and you feel like it’s building i mean every year you feel like you’re you know more people

are starting to get involved and starting to want to put their two cents in yeah amazon is a challenge right now that’s coming around and there’s a lot of reservations and people not understanding you know what the association was all about and what the amendment is yeah so and it’s coming around and they remain a lot more response now and well the biggest thing the association is a voice so it may be inclusive inclusive of 30 some people 35 people or whatever that number was but when we walk into a room it’s one yeah do you think there would have been a possibility to pass that move over law without the association i think it had been a fine line yeah because when you go in as a group uh that means more than one person is speaking to uh you’re speaking for everybody yeah yeah and so i think that was important that that actually brought in uh other groups to us saying hey we represent uh this group of people and we represent this group of people you know like triple aaa and um taxi cab companies and you know all kinds

of different transportation things i mean it was amazing you know garbage trucks i was amazed how many people wanted to jump on board with this and i had meetings with with many of these people so that opened a lot of doors so now i know one two four more people i can go hey what do you think about this bill you know yeah can we either make this better or shut it down if it’s not good for our industry you know i imagine if if idahos all of a sudden said hey uh you can’t collect platinum anymore yeah probably flip out you know yeah or whatever whatever whatever it is recycling recycling industry um we’re the same way you know they try to change and regulate um how we do paperwork how we get the information how quick we put it out all that kind of thing and we had a kind of a similar crossroads um over here what at when they tried to pass a bunch of metal theft um legislation it had to be about eight nine years or something somewhere where they they went from you know handwritten tickets and

now you have to record every transaction you have to videotape you have to do this record the license plate i mean it went from from very little rules to i mean a very expensive upgrade for every single facility and a lot more admin back end and i think sometimes when people are looking at adding legislation or taking away legislation they don’t really realize the impact on the industry there’s this problem that somebody’s really pushing to get fixed and all of a sudden it’s like whoa whoa whoa guys like there’s so many more moving parts to this puzzle than when it’s more difficult to get you know than getting a passport yeah you know or are we supposed to regulate the rest of the world yeah do i really need to know your child’s name yeah i mean sometimes that’s how ridiculous it seems i know and then you know and and and then to document and keep all that yeah uh is you know crazy well the awareness that um you guys brought at the toe show over last september when they you had the entry point yeah be where it was how you

guys operate on the freeway every day that’s how much space that’s how much the space they gave people to enter yeah so that was super cool to see that that was a big because that and that kind of brings awareness like like i don’t want to be on the side of the road and an 80 mile per hour car almost hits me yeah so like your guys’s job is dangerous man and like that’s something like i deal with towers a lot and i didn’t quite realize that even until i was there thinking like holy smokes so i’m i think that’s a great lie that wasn’t a two-fold uh thing for that entry the way it was set up one it was to show people our side of it but it also shows their side as the public what if you were that person stuck on the side of the road waiting for us to get to you yeah and you know yeah this this state turned us down on that portion of the law where they didn’t want to include the public um for reasons that are still bizarre to me at this

point in time and i’d still like to try to get that uh added to the law because without the public we wouldn’t be there without the public the police wouldn’t be there without the public the fire department wouldn’t be there any of the first responders wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the public in the first place um and they they tried to convolute it with uh abandoned vehicles and and stuff like that there were some entities they were saying that lawyers weren’t saying like uh this is just an open door for illegal search and seizure yeah wait a minute these are the people that broke down on the side of the the interstate or the highway or whatever roadway you want to be they’re on yeah we’re not even changing vehicles being towed yeah we’re changing the protection of the folks that are out there yeah yeah you know and that’s where like sometimes when legislation comes down the line is then people start tacking on a bunch of stuff and you’re like whoa whoa this like let’s go back to like the original intent like we would talk about if we’re trying

to stop metal theft then let’s figure out how we’re to stop metal theft we don’t stop metal theft by adding 30 requirements for every scrap ticket that gets written you know sure if a guy has 10 pounds of aluminum cans or 20 pounds of aluminum cans do we really need his driver’s license and his this and his that and all the stuff that goes on with it and like they’re are we trying to stop metal theft are we trying to gather more data and i think for you guys just trying to create safety like we’re not trying to create and embark on anybody’s rights as an american where we’re just trying to make it a little safer on the freeway so we can do our job and protect the general public correct i mean yeah yeah it’s uh the when you get into the legislative ends of things um your eyes get opened quickly what’s the biggest issue um kind of transitional but what what what issues you guys see because that you guys kind of have moved on from that um from the move over law so what what stuff are you guys

working on right now um just general industry industry stuff or any legislative stuff right now well i mean we just reelected our new board for the the new term uh 2020 to 2022. so that was kind of the focus internal focus yeah for a good amount of time nominations and voting and who’s who and what’s what uh that’s concluded there was a little bit about ethics and professionalism that came about we kind of dealt with that um but i think right now it’s kind of gathering uh we just put out a big newsletter and a poll what what what movies you worked on yeah so it’s kind of gathering information to see because it’s not just up to us well keep in mind um uh idaho’s legislature ended right at the beginning of covid uh in fact i think they even closed down a week early even though they were talking about being three weeks late um they uh pardon me microphone man yeah you’re good uh the uh the the stuff that was in there was was more paperwork related um and time constraints they wanted to put upon us and things like

that big scheme of things um most of what and both of those passed for if i recall most both of those things uh in a big scheme of things probably wasn’t going to hurt us um only because the state idaho can’t uphold their end of it so um they can’t even complete the time frames that was that were they were requesting in that that new law so um but this year like i said um we’re kind of on a delay of everything yeah you know we’ve missed a couple of meetings because of this um i haven’t seen my district people since january and uh versus how often where you’ve seen them before this uh every month then we voted to in every other month just for the district side the board still meets every month but we went to every other month then when march hit and then have you guys tried to do any zoom meetings or any online like video conferencing we do we do the board that way because that’s think line obviously and we have yeah it’s all over we don’t expect to travel all the way here once a

month just for a minute or we travel there yeah makes sense um we’re having one next week and unfortunately we know somebody that uh donated some space for us to do an outdoor barbecue style i don’t want to drop any names yeah wink wink yeah i understand but in our in our business it’s important i think it’s important for us to see each other face to face to have those conversations um hey i love zoom and and all these cool neat new things um but the reality is uh i don’t think you get the the same result i think it’s a good supplement like it’s not it shouldn’t be the answer exactly i think it’s just like anything else it’s like a it’s an extra tool in the toolbox it shouldn’t be the toolbox right you know i think that’s the way i view it because for what i do i travel live visit you know our consumers customers you know vendors and i do and i’ve and i haven’t traveled this is the least amount i’ve traveled in years okay i’m almost like walking around wondering what i’m supposed to do with myself

at the time but because i’m used to that i’m used to the the physical shake how you doing let’s go drink a beer let’s discuss what’s going on in the world sure and that like i think that that that physical interaction people are starting to realize like that that’s a pretty big part of business it’s a pretty big bar to a pretty big part of friendship it’s a big part of a lot of stuff and you take that away it it takes away part of a piece of the puzzle in my opinion and i don’t think it’s a whole lot different than texting you know yes you get the video you can kind of see them in the background and all that but um you know underneath the camera or somebody you know dropping the finger on you you know where yeah i don’t know and they can always turn away you know i don’t think you get the full um are they even wearing clothes below their shirt right i i was i was i had pants on but now there’s something that you want like right now i mean somebody can turn

off their camera and not even be sitting there anymore yeah you know and you just don’t know that’s generally how i do it put the headphones on and listen i’m not kidding i let the dogs out you know i put mute on i could still ever but hear everybody you know i’m making my wife dinner i don’t know well whatever it is so how many toe companies are out there in the state of idaho like what’s how many i mean roughly estimate i’m shooting or registered both like how many those are two different numbers yeah just like illegal immigrants versus actual like citizens right i mean that’s a big dick there’s a big difference in it when we started this thing and we’re just getting ready to reevaluate these numbers but when we started this thing we pulled the secretary of state for any company that we’re telling in its name and we came out with 640 some odd companies wow of that we found out that only like 327 were actually functioning killing companies or at least they admitted to be functioning companies um and that is one of the challenges right who’s

out there that’s running legal versus illegal it’s another kind of behind the scenes thing that an association is trying to look at we want everybody on the same platform yeah right pays his bills i pay my bills he pays for insurance i pay for insurance he pays his annual fee to register with the state and for dlt and for inspections and what we also even playing field right yeah how are we doing like you said the interface of how he runs this company however i don’t discuss that it’s not what the association is about but yeah the numbers are stacked there’s actually more companies i think last check in the treasure valley uh functioning legal than probably the rest of the state put together well the cool thing about that the cool thing about that is is say if you have 29 as part of the association now then you have a pretty good opportunity for growth if you can get everybody just just to kind of understand what the mission is which is that’s the worst that is the battle that is the biggest battle overcome old school thought become more 21st century

innovative um like you say using those tools put those tools in your box you don’t necessarily mean you have to be that way but there’s still guys out there doing hand rights cash only you know yeah one truck two truck situations and two trucks may be all that’s needed in a specific area you know if you live in uh donley then yeah i mean really two three trucks and that whole valley up there the cache valley could you know or cache valley wow um valley county adams county two kind of that way i lived in canada yeah but yeah you know that may be all that’s needed in that in that area but can they still communicate with the outside world can they use a computer they have cell phone you know using toe books dispatching or a form of you know so you can email receipts you can use a square to receive payments things like that you know and can it all go inside of a truck with a with a good trained operator you know what i’m saying um unfortunately you know some of us don’t want to change much um

but it’s going to be an eventuality um in our business we didn’t have digital dispatching um until probably recently and that was forced on us you know eventually you got to keep up or you’re going to get left behind you know that’s true with any injury if you want especially if you want to grow yeah yeah if you want to grow but also i say even if you want to maintain yeah even if you don’t you’re not trying to conquer the world in your industry but if you just want to maintain the business that you’ve accumulated over your 30 x amount of years at some point you have to kind of digitize or you have to at least keep up with what’s going on just to maintain that growth that you’ve that you’ve kind of worked so hard for you open your eyes and you realize a different option like exactly what written saying that was me so i when i started telling and i’m sure it was the same there were no cell phones we had a pager and when you got a call guess what your boss gave you a roll of

dimes at the beginning of your shift and that was to find a pay phone and call the dispatch to get your next call and you had to write it down on a pad of paper and you had to flip pages and a map because there was no gps either um i was so against and i’m a computer major that’s what i want to school for yeah uh i i didn’t want to go into this teleport intentional no i’ve done this but then you realize it might be a learning curve it might be a transition it might be that big step that you’re so afraid of right fear change but the efficiency is amazing yeah and it brings that bottom dollar way closer yeah so it is neat when you can take one step out of the equation and you’ve just saved 15 minutes and in our business 15 minutes times you know we average 40 calls a day you know it adds up and sometimes i tell people like let’s say that computers aren’t your thing or you know zoom means or setting all that up that’s not really your thing then go find

something that that is their thing and let them help you like you know move along i mean that’s it may not be your you might be the equipment the driver like that’s your wheelhouse and then it’s okay well then find a way to find somebody and work it into the budget to help you that’s the cool thing about association now i’ve got all these people that i you know communicate with and so long as we can have a level conversation and we take the the competition and set it to the side we both have a common goal hey how do you how do you or who do you use for this who do you use for that you know um have you got a better buy on straps you know things like that those are common good goals and um i think it’s great to be able to communicate we have an you know this is a newer younger group of people you know i’m going to step on a branch and say you’re probably probably a good 10 years younger than i am and so maybe yeah maybe 15. and it’s it’s good

to see a guy like yourself at your age at this level in your business and willing to you know open doors and and cross boundaries and i mean you built this this is cool right here you know who would in the world would we ever think of sitting in a recycling center and having a what do we call these podcasts yeah yeah um i wouldn’t have and so it helps keep me young on that side of it um even though i’m not the physical guy i used to be um but i’m communicating with this younger group in our industry that does have their eyes open and uh wants to be a part of something for a better future as long as you’re willing to learn i don’t care whether you’re 80 or 20. like some people are 20 and they just think they already know everything and they’re not willing to learn anything else sure i think they’re just in as bad as shape as the 80 year old guy that says i’m good in the comments we can say hit the bricks kid because if you don’t want to learn yeah i i

got nothing for you yeah because i mean everything is always evolving things are changing you know i mean when we started even when we started doing podcasts i mean we started with our pipe business and then we’re like hey like there’s the on the scrap side is where you know we have a lot of influence and we know a lot of people and we can help drive people’s businesses they’re doing the right way and i think that’s like the biggest like the biggest like feel good about the podcast for us is you know we get to sit down with with guys operators owners whatever it is are people that are like that are running good shops they’re a good business they’re good operators they’re doing it the right way they’re trying to do something good for industry their business they care about their business and you know even on the recycling end we try and bring people in here that people don’t think about oh tow companies they’re like really involved in the recycling business or like yeah like tow companies are our big big part of our business you know and try and

it ends up in our yard before it ends up in yours yeah and we try and bring those people to the to the top and just say hey like you guys are a big part of our business we appreciate your business we appreciate people that that run a good tight ship and they you know so i always i’m always saying let’s help each other well there’s another facet in the association that’s crossing industry gaps and realizing where those layover and the captain overlaps overlap right like he just said our industry impacts yours yours impacts us um and that happens more than people know oh yeah yeah that’s a big that’s a piano bring those people together and make like rick was saying there’s people that you can now talk to and in reality like i said in the beginning i don’t do having to do any towing well guess what when my trucks break down that means i don’t have a truck to tow them who do i call rick yeah those sayings steal sharpened steel like you got you know you you try and get with the best and that’s the way i’ve

always said you know like find me the best operator in whatever industry i want to be around them because that’s how you learn i mean they you may they may not be doing the same thing you’re doing every day but they’ve found a way to to be really good what they do so well it’s and it’s clear when you work with these people that’s what you know got me sucked into you guys i see your trucks there’s nothing more badass than that your heavy-haul industry thank you they’re slick and some of them might be 20 years old but you’d never know it because they are done right they’re clean um your equipment’s clean maintain you guys do a great job of keeping your scrap area clean when you’re breaking stuff down you know if i pull a truck in i don’t have to worry about losing the tire you know stuff like that it’s not like when i started as a kid rolling through the dirt mud road you know with all the broken parts pieces surfacing taking out sidewalls um you guys run a clean industry and that’s that’s what uh and

you communicate well you know one thing i’ve got great stuff yeah oh yeah for sure one thing i’ve always appreciated about you rick is like you’ve been willing to call me when we are up out there yeah cause that’s the call i want i want i want that call probably more than the call like thank you you know i want that call because that’s how you get better yeah because i want to know you’re right i don’t know what you guys can’t fix it yeah because you’re like man i was out there no one helped me and you know when we fix those problems we’ve set up an area and i you know i don’t know if today or tomorrow i’m going to show you our new area that we have set up too for for all the cars that you guys haul in you know because i think you call me lee when this covid thing happened and you’re like are you guys going to be open because i got a full yard and like that would put your business it would put a little damper on your business to store stuff if

you can’t get rid of some scrap and i’m like no we’re open been asking about my footnotes yeah and we probably would have brought you on and that gets into like people just don’t realize how important the towers are if the towers weren’t out there picking up all the junk that needs to be hauled off that’s that end of life that needs to be hauled to a recycler you know our streets would just be rattled with scrap metal well there was no bs in that whole beginning of covid it’s and i did the same thing yeah hey man you’re gonna be open cool i’m yeah i just got 15 cars cleared yeah i’m going to flood you i’m dumping everything right now the market’s still up and you don’t lie to me hey the market’s probably going to drop and so yes this is your opportunity get it in so boom i mean i this i’ve this is the last least amount of cars i’ve had in my yard in five years well that’s because there’s less people driving right now and that’s starting to open you’re probably feeling it starting to open back

up around your end yeah that’s good which which has been good i’m starting to see pavement that i haven’t seen in a long time yeah you know and have that ability to try to clean it up a little bit you know instead of keep burying it day after day people just don’t even think about all those little things that are affected you know like by the state home order this or that well that’s a lot less people on the road which means that’s a lot less toes there’s a lot less accidents it’s a lot less i mean it’s just the trickle down people if you really want to dig into it i mean get industry by industry and how it’s affect how it affects them i mean a lot of people wouldn’t even take it into a lot of it’s a guessing game from here on out yeah you know so if if people want to get a hold of you guys until association and people wanted to uh you know hear more about what you guys are doing whether they’re a state legislator or whether they’re another tow company that likes what you’re

doing how do they what’s the best way to get a hold of you uh well the easiest thing is get on the website is you know they can contact us or whatever idahoto.org or 208 240-9020 is the number for the association if no one answers they can get a message every call gets returned absolutely that day okay and we’ll put those up on the video yeah so if so if somebody’s driving down the road and they don’t have a pen we’ll put it up so they can watch it all right well thank you guys man it’s good i appreciate you guys coming by yeah that was awesome thanks for everything i love to do it again and uh look forward to sitting together it’d be nice to sit back in a year and say okay now how many members do you have right yeah here me too me too all right thanks thank you thanks for having us appreciate it have a great day thank you 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 you

more stories of people and organizations putting in the work to do the right thing