welcome to recycled Idaho for to recycling industry veterans bread a cart mix Snider’s for 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 making things happen in a great state of Idaho in this podcast Nick and I sit down with Mark Kermode from premier scrap processing based out of Indiana I met mark on LinkedIn his company’s been cutting scraps in our yard over here at Idaho glass humor he’s a class act and it was great to sit down in contra take a listen to my new podcast studio all right welcome everybody we’re here with another episode of recycled Idaho do you want to introduce our guest brett i love to this is mark mo premier scrap processing mark and I met on LinkedIn of all places imagine that all right mark reached out to me or I reached out to him either way we made the connection started talking and at the time we had a need for some some big iron that need to cut it size me it

towards cut down and got ahold of mark we talked he flew out mark and another guy named mark mark Castle I believe and took a look at the pile and said yeah let’s see what we can do so Mark’s coming down check on the progress and I figured was might as well get them in the podcast room so mark thanks for joining us man thanks for having me we appreciate it we appreciate the work the opportunity you know we never turned down and we said she has to look it’s open this is funny that’s how we hooked up on LinkedIn yeah yeah I never really used it I just saw it and reach out to this guy and see what happens and sure enough here we are there’s a ton of months later or something like that a ton of value that you can get out of LinkedIn I mean I use it a lot because I’ve had success with it and success doesn’t mean finding business opportunity you know and that whether that’s people that process material people define consumables from people you know other people to consume our products that we’re producing

whatever it’s it’s been a good it’s been a good platform for us and so I’m pretty awesome to have you on the podcast again thanks and you know it’s something we’re starting looking at is how to use LinkedIn a little more for us because you know Facebook really doesn’t fit us as much and same with like the Google you know the people aren’t out there Google search and torch covers usually yes before this I wouldn’t find you here companies on there so you got that and like Brett said it’s of just a valuable tool so many good people and so many good businesses out there and just a way that we like you know five years ago I want to thought we’d be connecting with so many different great people that way so it’s nice to have you here why are you guys out of we’re out of Indianapolis Indiana you know the Midwest yeah we got seven crews out working across the Midwest and one crew out here we like to expand our presence out here on the west see what it can happen how big are your crews um anywhere from two

to four guys and then we can depending on the site it is using site-specific again much more than four and gets you need a lot of you need a lot of space a lot of real estate cut versus cutting at I got one project right now where we’re gonna bump it up to fives just because the incoming is so heavy right now that we got to do something they got the space but it’s gonna it’s gonna be tight yeah how big of an oxygen tank is on a site with with five guys cutting like that but we’ve got the biggest thing we gots fifty hundred gallon okay that’s a big that’s a good sized tank well with an upright tank or over it okay right those seem to be the best have more people I’ve talked to you seem to prefer those upright tanks for whatever reasons they I don’t know why they take up less real estate and it seems like when you catch they get lower or the volume goes down in the tank yeah it’s less that makes sense less space on the bottom so you maintain your pressure yeah

that makes sense so so Brett knows a lot more about your company than I do but what do you guys do we do on-site scrap metal processing we do torching we do can do some salt cutting if we had to we also have two capabilities we could do sharing and that’s one of the things we like to grow into is to provide more of those type services yeah even some scrap management you know hanging on us come in we’ll take over this area of your inner yard and we’ll just we’ll manage the processing part for you cool it’s always good I mean you guys have done us a solid job and that’s why I mean I was willing and wanted to get you on the podcast I mean your crew that you sent out the guys you sent out I’ve been been great I have no complaints about that whatsoever so I’m always looking to you know kind of boost people’s business that are they’re doing a good job and you know I just that was the biggest thing I wanted to say we appreciate your guys crew and kind of their knowledge

on just cutting and been doing doing their job I’m pretty fortunate you know all the guys that I have have a lot of experience you know I have somebody as young as 30 years old it’s got 10 15 years experience in this industry and I got a guy who cuts for me at 74 year old 74 years old so he’s got 40 70 years cotton yeah we’ve got the vast majority of knowledge some of the things we pride ourself in as is their safety I’m good quality of our work don’t always say we’re gonna do we’re like some big into this safety and all our guys get a three important through complete pre-employment physicals hearing tests blood tests drug tests respirator fit do the same thing annually would you random drug screens you know we don’t tolerate any of that we’re a second-chance employer as well so that’s one of the real big pushes if not you know one in any drug uses don’t tough those guys they’re trying to get their lives wanted together that’s one thing that we see like in our industry a lot because we are a pretty

labor-intensive een you’re you know you’re running equipment you’re you’re handling scrap it weather is zero outside or on earth like it’s a pretty labor intense job and that doesn’t fit everybody’s criteria of what they want to do for a living no but there’s a certain sect of people that it that they’re looking just for a chance you know I mean we here at the Boise facility you know the way we really built this facility out is you know we’re about ten miles from the Boise State Penitentiary and I don’t know a lot of people know this but when we were trying to find people we actually reached out to the penitentiary and they were giving us applicant applicants and people on that had the potential for work release so then we would run them through pre-screen um and then we had the van dropping them off you know every morning 7:45 picking them up five o’clock every day and that was kind of how we kind of built into this facility was being a second chance type employer I think that our industry sees a lot of that oh yeah yeah

because I mean it that’s face it most people really don’t care what they hire so that draws a lot of that to us and a lot of people think real office just won’t give somebody a second chance yeah yeah and I understand that but everybody deserves a second chance yeah so he was in the pudding okay I mean I’ll give you a chance I’ve always said like I’d have no problem giving you a chance yeah but you got to hold up your end of the bar yeah I’ve had good luck in that bad luck and that’s that’s what any employee though so where are all your employees are they all throughout the nation are they all from Indiana uh I have employees from Virginia from Alabama ah yeah that’s pretty much it okay so I I know that you know just Indiana I know you don’t just get into the torch cutting business just because you’re looking for a hobby like that’s something you have to have some familiar why should you two beers I know that you have to have some background in the scrap business right so won’t you give us just

a little bit of your history in the scrap recycling business and kind of how you found your niche there at premier like you Bret I grew up in the industry as a kid from you know wait all these little to now you know it’s still the same it’s in your blood it’s in your blood probably a mic somewhere in my early 20s I ventured away from my father and grandfathers business and and what to work for another company no one to try something different same industry trying to help them get their ISO program going and and via that I ended up in Indianapolis and a business partner there things sour but I decided finish school and it was working for somebody else and but it just kept getting drawn back yeah drawn back and how I got the torch working going I was visiting a buddy of mine who has a little scrap yard there in Indianapolis watching those guys cut that’s a dude they’re awful yeah let me put your quote together another weeks later you know we were there that was a year and a half ago Wow you know so you’re

now forget we started with two guys just on a whim and in my desire to get going and here we are now you know with 15 guys or so and seven locations and we’re just rolling it’s funny how you say you tried to get out and it just kept pulling you back yeah like I’ve been doing and I’ve been in the scrap industry for ten years and I couldn’t imagine myself to anything else and I hear that from so many other scrap guys like once it gets in your blood it’s hard to break loose I mean Bret’s gonna start at us another podcast highlighting just scrap guys and that’s gonna be exciting too well just how the scrap industry can change your life oh yeah for the positive and maybe you never thought you’d end up in the scrap business but you just somehow happenstance your way into it yeah I got you love it or you’re like me or you and you you don’t know when you do it I don’t know anything this is what I know this is what I love where I don’t I mean I don’t know I don’t

my wife’s asked me he said what would you do if you didn’t you know him if you weren’t in the script I go I’m gonna find another scrap company to work for thank ya I this is what I do it’s what I knows what I’m passionate that’s what I would end up doing you know if it wasn’t working for myself yeah you know and it’s funny cuz they get around the guys kinda stuff and they just just get a good whiff of that dislike that smells great ya know when I said it over a god well you know what you do guys work get a whiff of that scrap it’s like yeah I’m back in my back that smells good that’s right that’s a spec home yeah yeah just a lot of familiar smells and sounds and it really excite you to just the heartbeat of the scratcher yeah you know it’s just I love it too like going to different ones not just United metal it’s like I love looking how other companies are doing it you know it’s just like I got hired on when I was 27 I didn’t realize how

big this industry was I knew you could like recycled pop cans like the general public they want Brett gave me a job I just like it’s like my eyes open I’m like holy smokes there’s this much scrap and Caldwell you know there’s a lot out there yes every every business generates something is the show is like there’s enough out there to start a company like yours or you out there cutting to help yards like us out or you know all throughout the nation I think I get such a cool idea yeah well for us and at least for me it was you know it’s like owning the scrap you know I’ve done that before and still have a small company that has a couple accounts and we veered away from that it’s like I like not owning scrap I like processing and I mean there’s some risk to it for me but it doesn’t seem as a bigger risk yeah I mean it’s it’s more of an HR you know as much as the bringing the knowledge bringing the people in that know how to do that and they have experience cutting you know

that’s that’s one thing but I mean when you’re managing people like in your situation where you’re you know you’re burning big iron you got heavy equipment you know there’s there’s a certain level of risk that comes along with just that that portion of the job and so I think everybody has their own comfort level as far as what they’re what they’re more comfortable some people are more comfortable on the financial side of the risk equation you know like willing to buy the tons selling the tons and try to market them words just say like an individual like yourself might be more comfortable with the HR risk the you know the safety risk of the industry and so it’s kind of fitting how everybody just kind of falls into their their niche yeah and then doing this person it kind of gets us in these yards we get to see some different things be able to get to taste of it yet we’re yeah yeah we’re kind of just on the outside just enough to but you also I mean the good thing about you you and your guys I mean I was the two

guys that were that have been in and cutting in our color yard you can just tell by how they process that material and I’ve been around scrap yards my whole life I’ve cut a fair amount of iron myself with a torch and that’s to be honest like probably one of my favorite jobs in a scrap yard just because you can really physically see how much you’ve got done that day yeah but you can tell those guys know how to cut out here like you didn’t hire them last week off the street and just said hey here’s a torch here’s how you light it go ahead and get to work you know I mean they’ve cut some iron there it’s a skill set it is I mean I’ve tried to bring people do people in it I’ve never cut before and they just they can’t get it or you get a bring people and oh yeah I’ve cut in the show well you know there we have a little two-foot shop torch they can’t get it yeah you know you don’t have anyone that you’ve brought up and trained they’ll have the experience they’ve

all had experience I got one guy that’s new but one of his one of his friends who works for me trained him okay just a fabulous cutter think it’s caught on you know some people look at machinist some guys yeah figure that out and they find that niche and they become a great machine you know athle would have something you just have skills like that yeah yeah so and not in our experience like I said if you don’t bring somebody in that’s dumb it you know we’ve tried it just doesn’t work so what’s the future hold for premier scrap processing your what do you envision well we want to continue to grow our presence like I said to the west and to the east we want to continue to spread out we would like to get maybe gets hooked up with some demolition companies we’re not doing their demo work but maybe doing some on-site stuff for that and then we’d like to get in to really expand into the yard management processing and it’s not so much running a facility but the aunt the yard and then we’re doing the organization we’re

managing the create operators and then the processing and production you know that we’d like to be able to do that or offer that as a service just says one more kind of tool and yeah yeah I mean we have our Castle our operations manager you know he’s 32 or 33 years old he’s got a wealth of knowledge when it comes to operations and it’s super good guy yeah super good guy he’s just he can see the next five steps when he’s managing a facility or managing operation it just knows how to set it up so the ideal for him to do that and that’s where we like to kind of take things nice do you guys see any like new trends you guys mean nationwide do you see any new trends and yards or new needs or or even new types of equipment to help get certain jobs done out there or is it all it still kind of it’s the same as it’s always it’s just pretty much the same as always okay and it just gets technologically better yeah and I was a kid I mean we were the friction cable crane

with yeah I’m just sitting on a metal seat you know now you sit at an excavator just the two little joysticks air-conditioned he cameras all around you know yeah radios and all that fancy stuff you know you know they do it that’s where its that’s our equipment it sweaters change okay and it’s definitely got more ease you know so much more expensive but yeah that’s but he can get so much more volume now yeah it’s so productive yeah you know that’s a maybe even you even have tried different torches you know we can we can go a cheaper on the cheaper end torch but it just doesn’t have the output or seem to meet the needs that we want you know we’ve tried different things we know what we want and how we want to built and everything and we’re able to get that done yeah well and when you and I talked before when we set up the yard in Cabo was you know what size oxygen tank you need how much propane you’re gonna need and just you know all that there’s so many pieces to that puzzle you know that

that makes sense but I mean the biggest thing that I you know I wanted you know just to get out of this was just you know you you guys were on a legit shop yeah right you know you guys are good at what you do and I’m always trying to help promote people that are good at what they do Matt in this industry I don’t think we do a good enough job of supporting each other when you run into somebody I think I’m above you know the secret is out right I mean this is how we process our material this is who we use this is who we sell scrap to because I want to help promote the legit people man that are that are doing their doing everybody you know a good job and I think that’s one of the biggest reasons why I want to sit down with you is just say hey like if you guys run into something you know I know from experience that you guys have done us a good job so you know give them a call well I appreciate it you know we really we really

do appreciate the opportunity opportunity to sit down with you guys and of course we know that stigma our industry has still I don’t yeah and that’s why it’s important to do these to say hey like not everybody out there trying to you I guess there’s a couple businesses out there that are that are trying to they’re trying to do it the right way and you know you got your guy showed up and they did the right way and you know they did what they said they were gonna do you know you’re good in my book and so that’s what we do you know where you do what we’re gonna say we’re gonna do and if not let’s figure out what we did wrong or you know where we went wrong in our communication we always wanna you know hits a customer first and we’ll customize our operation now we have to you and so people want to get a hold of you how do they get hold of you you can reach me on my cell phone three one seven two four two nine five zero to R M IME L at premier SP

us awesome man appreciate it yeah thanks yes ru thank you nice to meet 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