welcome to recycled Idaho for to recycling industry veterans bread Eckart mix matters 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 the great state of Idaho in this episode of recycled Idaho I get a chance to sit down with Mike coffee owner and operator of abatement pearl Mike is able to give us some insight on how essential demolition companies truly are enjoy and take a listen welcome everybody we’re here with another episode of recycled I know I’m sitting here with the owner of abatement Pro Mike coffee how you doing I’m doing well thanks thanks for helping me here so Mike I’ve known you for a while now but real quick let’s get into how you got into the demolition and about your company ah I started this started out as a part-time job for me okay in 1992 a friend of mine worked for a local asbestos abatement a demolition company and he called me up and said hey these guys are hiring so

I went in and and picked up a part-time job with them that kind of worked into a full-time job and I ended up staying at that company for 16 years before in 2008 I started abatement Pro and that’s okay that’s about when I met you yep yep right around there because um Mike your father-in-law yeah that’s how I met you guys he was bringing us aluminum in here yeah so back in the 90s when you got into the game in 92 he said 92 what were you what were you doing before that what brought you and then that I I was just a young dumb kid I had I had recently drank my way out of college okay to the degree that they asked me to leave you know it’s it’s better if we split ways here I have the similar standing with BSE oh yeah the same College yeah so I had moved home home in northern I know for a little while and then came back to Boise in in 92 and it was just working several part-time jobs I I worked at Shakey’s I worked at

Rite Aid I worked you know I think I was working three or four part-time jobs just to pay rent do whatever and that’s why when my friend called and said these guys are hiring in 1992 and asbestos abatement worker made about $6 an hour okay and that was a better job than what that was jobs I was working that was better than Shakey’s yeah okay yeah shaky sigh you know I think Shakey’s with paying minimum wage which I don’t remember what it was at the time it’s probably four dollars in something an hour or so okay yeah six bucks an hour looked awful good so when you started in the demolition world did you immediately kind of say hey like there might be a future here did it kind of take some time where you saw you know kind of like this or how did how did that progression work for you um I I think for me it was a lot about the people that I worked with I died I really liked the guy on the guys on the crew we we got along really well we were really productive I

mean we got a lot of work done so you know when work is fun it kind of goes a little easier and you know as I worked there little longer the pay got a little bit better I mean I started kind of climbing the ladder of leadership there a little bit so that’s how it all kind of evolved for me is eventually in the 16 years I worked for them I I was kind of in charge of my part of the business what I was doing for the company so like I got to make a lot of decisions and what were you what were you doing what was your title my well hi my official title was probably project superintendent but by the time you know that’s 16 years was up I I was I was doing most of the hiring for that part of the company I was order and all the supplies I was bidding a fair amount of the work mm-hm and then I would go out and also run the projects as well so I I wore a lot of hats which yeah which was great for me because

I was always learning and kind of evolving within the business which prepared me to open a bateman Pro you know it was a good prep work I I tell people now that you know as the owner of a pet Pro if I knew now what I knew when I opened abatement program it may have gone a different direction but because there’s if you’re not the owner there’s so many things within the business that you that you just don’t have the insight for he you take a lot more personally when it’s your business then you don’t get any work your work anymore no no and even probably back when you’re with that other company when you kind of were climbing is this kind of a job that mm-hmm this is 24/7 yeah I mean kind of like some of the scrap positions there’s so many of these jobs that can our industry that are similar to your industry yeah you gotta hustle it all the time just always like hustling like my wife will get kind of mad at me if we’re at like a dinner party and I’m like all you work

it it’s always so I’m like a what scrap metal be so give me a like Ellie doc can you stop work it for right you know an evening I’m like it’s just like it’s kind of like it scene you know we always say gets in your blood you know it’s it’s what makes you great at what you do is you you still have a passion for yeah for the business and it you get to meet a lot of really interesting people um construction industry in but then no I think the the demolition and scrap people are that’s a whole different niche that that’s just very interesting people a lot of similar type of people pianos for industries and that’s why you’re the second company we’ve done episode on in the demolition yeah and sure I kind of want to like honestly like it all of them cuz there’s they hit it so close to home a for Idaho like a lot of people in Idaho don’t realize how important demolition is right and it kind of goes hand in hand again with scrap right there because without scrap parts without demolition companies like really

building all these new fancy buildings and that that doesn’t happen that piece doesn’t happen um I imagine like being an owner that equipment you guys operates and that stuff’s not cheap no yeah then again it’s as an owner you see how equipments being used you see the lifecycle of a piece of equipment and I you know from the labor standpoint you they don’t always have the view you know well there’s a new widget whatever you want to call it it’s a new ladder or negative air machine or you know something as big as a new excavator not that I’ve ever bought a brand-new excavator but yeah but we own a couple used machines yeah you have a few doing yeah so I see the lifecycle of that equipment so it’s it’s interesting from from an owners perspective again that from new to being used and then what do you choose to do with that equipment how long do you extend the life of that equipment mm-hmm before you invest in a new one again and bring Nick our old stuff yeah yeah you know I love buying a scrap metal but I’d

rather have that of equipment out there working for you yeah and that’s where I think he is he as an owner like you are like I think no one will probably take care of your equipment as good as you would but again the people in place to make sure that it gets happen Donna’s best as possible yeah I think is pretty important to him and we’ve abatement pros been very lucky in that we have you know one of my main demo guys that runs equipment for me he he’s been in the valley working for 50 years in the demolition industry he he worked for Larry Gillingham was that Kurt yeah Kirk Hawk is he’s awesome super great guy and he actually cares about the equipment I he was an independent he worked for Larry Gillingham and then he left Larry bought his own truck and dumped he had a belly dump and some other mm-hmm did his own trucking so he was an owner operator for many years and then abatement Pro we kind of always had a dialogue with Kirk II we would use him on demo jobs and then we started

having a dialogue with Kirk about us buying his truck mm-hmm and him coming to work for us hit that red red truck yeah that and that big red Peterbilt that was traveling around town with abatement Perl on the side now that yeah that used to be Kirk Huff trucking mm-hmm so picking up Kirk was a was a big move as far as the demo goes you know there’s guys like Jeff Brown that yeah you occasionally see in here yep Jeff again has been in the industry for longer than I have he’s he’s a guy who gets it he he does a good job he cares I can tell that and I don’t talk to Jeff a whole lot but when I do he can he’s a guy you can tell it just cares yeah there’s a handful of guys Kirk Jeff Doug Jay they’re there guys that we have picked up over the years that are a real asset to the company that care and you know we try to take care of all of our employees we care about them as individuals some of those guys actually return some of that

care and and do a really good job for us well you just build a new team out you know he’s building uh your your ward family yeah like you know it’s what we’re always saying around here like we got a like a work family like I hang out with a lot of people here more than my family yeah cuz I’m here more right so it’s important to build that camaraderie important to build that trust yeah and then important I think one thing that’s hard for me and a lot of people to do is like to give trust away you know like it’s embedding just as important to be like put a lot on someone’s plate that can do it and then enables like you to go do what you need to do to help grow the business right right so one of my favorite jobs you guys did just cuz my dad worked there till he retired is Idaho state school in hospital yep right there and mapped off the interstate yep so that’s the building the one that you guys knocked over that’s the one that he worked at like his whole really

forever as long as I remember like that’s right go visit him at work since I was like this little and so he got a kick out of it because I was standing on that rubble Kurt was there I think he was a one-man show that job Oh kind of at least there was one other guy that we had hired that was also driving the truck and was kind of an operator but mm-hmm when it came to the demo portion of that job it was Kirk’s kind of up which was impressive like kind of a big building I don’t know this size yeah it was about I think the building itself was about a 95 thousand square foot food I mean all kinds of weird shapes because they were wing here and wing there and additions but well yeah that was good job so I stood on top for that pile because I was looking at some of the copper mixed in there yeah and I took a selfie she sent it to my dad it’s a hey guess where I’m standing I can really tell I get your old office he’s not

good but that was one and so that was a state job yep right um we kind of got into this before we started filming so it seems like you guys do a lot of like schools like um you’re doing at BSU right now we are done No Mas right yeah we still have some backfill and some some other work we’re doing there but in the fall of last year BSU had just brought up their baseball team just just story yeah yeah baseball well they had their eye on this lot down there where some existing buildings were begin Ted was we we did all the abatement inside the buildings and then and then took the buildings down there were I think three four plexes a couple duplexes and uh and another like a total of six structures that we took down there well that space once we got finished backfilling was going to be I don’t think I’m letting any secrets out here but that space was gonna be the new baseball yeah you know I think for BSU yeah I think a lot of people were excited for that yeah and uh unfortunately because

of all this kovat stuff yep the issue is now you know drop the baseball team and they’re uncertain what they’re gonna do with that lot but that was the intent that’s why we went in there and did the work was for that to be because we wanted to do a boots on the ground there um but then this thing hey they got whole gear so we kind of like just learning to navigate through all that you know which it’s still weird you know yeah they’re kind of uncertain and still getting weirder hit you we kind of thought we were putting it back together and yeah seems to come apart let’s say you guys have been lucky able to work all the way through it for the most part we have pretty much been working my crew I don’t like you know I think they’ve had half a dozen days off okay you know since since the shelter in place order started March because the construction industry was was considered a vital you know essential business we were able to continue working on the jobs we were working it so it’s been it’s been a

great thing for our crew and and our business I you know unfortunately other businesses I have haven’t been as lucky as we have yeah we’ve been we had a slow you know a couple months there but we’ve been fortunate to stay open yeah not to lay anybody off and right now honestly it’s cuz everyone was kind of sitting on their hands for a few months where’s like just insanely busy yeah people like trying to get back to work like all these like jobs and these new builds you know you know you know I just looked at a job yesterday and Meridian I didn’t even know it was going up a new FedEx distribution centers going up what I meant by live it just right under our noses there’s so much going on in this valley this Treasure Valley and then high dough in general yeah and one thing I think that the demo business gets kind of a negative look about itself is because the noise the the mass that people think they’re causing you know but it’s necessary just like the scrap business let me kind of like go into that like like

how necessary it is and I almost hate using the word but essential I’ll to use it yeah it’s essential like without demo companies you know knocking these old buildings out they could be hazardous doing the bay meant mmm-hmm you know like without that back it just stops all the new stuff from coming in like if you want to kind of go into that yeah so from my perspective it if you want to revitalize like we have done several large demo jobs not not just take the building down but basically gutted the the old Macy’s bill oh you see Anderson that wasn’t cool another one of your favorites and when we will get I have the pictures of all that stuff we’re talking about I’ll dig them up and we’ll put them on here so if we want to revitalize some of these older urban landscapes or you know I guess its metropolitan or landscapes if we’re talking downtown a vital part of that is going in and taking out the old with some perspective there there there are obviously some some very unique architectural e sound buildings that was a that’s a cool

building it it’s a great building we we basically took the entire Center out of the building a lot of it and allowed the general contractor to come back in and rebuild mm-hmm that building and now Atlas Academy one of the largest charter schools in in the nation that’s their main headquarters building okay I didn’t know that that’s what it is now that’s that’s what the building is so we spent and over the course of probably three years in and out of the building doing asbestos abatement and then LED abatement and basically gutting the entire building chain hoisting six escalators that was a cool that’s part like you’ll get those pictures my driver was like he called me he’s like what the hell have you gotten me into mo man it’s early we got it yeah we made it work I think we had to be creative but I can’t believe you got those escalators out of the building yeah hole yeah because right and I guess that’s a perfect segue into how recycling fits in to the demo site like we recycled those whole things you know yeah yeah entire escalators entire as

late as I can like you know I would imagine when you’re doing a bed maybe you’re not looking at the escalator value right but the scrap metal value you know looking at that and then then it’s important to get it to a scrap company and then they pay you right it is part of the process I part of the evolution of abatement Pro as well as I’ve I have learned to get better at estimating the amount of scrap that’s on a job because that’s hard it’s hard for like anybody yeah like we’ve looked at jobs I’ve looked at jobs with rod and Brett who’ve been doing this their whole lives yeah and we’ll all sit in the truck and we’re like alright how many tons and like one of us is here once here and once here and it’s like with all that experience like the guesses are still like where’s it gonna be you know cause like some jobs are just tough to like put that number on like but the more you do it look it’s so easy better you get yeah so I it’s an evolution it’s a process i I

tried to look at you have to look at every job individually and figure out the best way to even pull your copper out of it yeah yeah and a lot of that goes into you know how much you trust the guys on the crew – yeah you know because some of them they’ll they just want to demo the wall or they want to you know ripped this out I’ll just I’ll go to the landfill everything goes in the debris pile and you don’t take the time to kind of segregate and stuff so it’s a training process with the crew they have to know that that I would rather I would rather salvage a ton of scrap metal that honestly we’re not getting I mean it’s not your fault we’re not the scrap prices just aren’t what there has to be been a while since the scrap copper right now yeah but the scrap metal and not so much yeah so I mean we try to teach the guys that we would rather I would rather recycle a ton of scrap and get paid the 60 or $70 a ton yeah then pay whatever it is

a ton to dispose of that same scrap it if if we have to touch it while we’re demoing it if we have to manipulate that load somehow then it’s always better to separate it and recycle it for many reasons part of the keeps it out of the waste stream yeah why let that go to the landfill if it doesn’t have to and why pay for the disposal and you can come and get paid even yeah you know working out the math on what’s it take a handful of guys to separate a ton of scrap and load it in a truck mm-hmm well that I mean the reality is if I add what it costs to dispose of it if we take it to the landfill and what United metal pays pays us for it it’s probably about a break-even on yeah no scrap but but again that’s a break-even and that’s more on out imagine more I like an interior demo yeah like one that it doesn’t have a whole lot of scrap because you’ve had some decent jobs in the past I had no turn some decent amount of scrap

like like you didn’t Albertsons spoke yeah and then one of the one that the new fancy Albertson yeah what was a I was surprised how much okay that was it was shocked how much because we put some Ross inside the building yeah we turned him like every other day like for a long time fro yeah that that was about a four month job for us yeah I think I think roll offs of scraps are rolling out of that building did have someone load on out of there too we did don’t know no we did yeah we did a the full range of stuff that was a that was a good good job from a recycle perspective and just the amount of work that we were able to get done in that time frame was so I took my kids to that ever since because we were in that like at the village Mackay let’s go check it out yeah let’s grab something for dinner and go home and uh and I tell my wife and my kids oh my god yeah you know we did the recycling in here and you know so I

think it’s cool my god we did all the recycling in this building yeah and I still think it’s like super cool like when I Drive around and see like a building like the Macy’s like you know when I say like you know we don’t forget those escalators out and I’m sure you have some a lot of pride when you see like your job ya know I still like ASA paint houses when like 16 17 I still drive by some of those houses like I painted that house yeah I just have that pride in anything I do really right you know right so do you have any do you see any big changes come in then in the demolition industry I don’t know it there’s kind of the business is always kind of evolving a little bit you know some of some of the demo guys that are out there are innovating in in ways that I wouldn’t think is that with technology or no like what’s the biggest driver on some of the changes or or is it I would think a lot of it’s still like similar to how it was ten years

ago yeah just you just get in there rip it down yeah stuff I I don’t know I some of it maybe just some fresh faces come into the coming to the jobs and kind of looking at stuff a little differently than you know I started 28 years ago and yeah the way kind of the way I’ve always done it is is the path I usually take and sometimes it takes some fresh faces in there dope to really think well why are we doing it that way yeah you know common sense would tell me the new guy who has never done this that you know this would be the easier path and so I think some of its fresh faces so ya know you’re hitting right on the head I think yes like I was touring one of the fiber on they make that a trex decking tighter stuff yeah they had and I don’t exactly remember what the Machine exactly did but they basically had this attachment that they added to it that saved like half the time on doing that work and the guy that figured that out was a temp order yeah

cuz he went in there they’ve been doing it the same way for 10 years and this temp worker they came in is like why don’t we do it like this yeah and they they kind of said well we never thought of it like that you know where were you attending yeah yeah so I think it’s important to like even with like some of the guys I had trained I’m like hey this is how I’ve done it but if you see a better way I want to know I want to be like I want to know how and look at it yeah you know because you just never know like because I get like that’s how I’ve done it that’s how I know it but it is important to get those fresh set of eyes on things yeah yeah it’s it’s it’s interesting it how a business that is that is so much the same you know go in and tear down this building mm-hmm that how some fresh faces or new perspective can drive innovation on how to mm-hmm more economically or just improve how we get the work done yeah you

know so I guess you kind of have to keep your eyes open for that new guy and new person yeah yeah you got to be open to it I think I think the businesses that die are the ones that’s you know are so rigid they’re just so like that’s not how we do it you know yeah the ones that aren’t open to it do you I know we talked about a few jobs already but do you have a like a favorite job or like one that stands out anything like that or any like your funny stories anything like that think of we might already a lot of them yeah I you know we’re abatement Pro is kind of a niche niche business where some of those jobs downtown like the the CC Anderson building on 10th and main where it’s about a block from the CC Anderson building mm-hm those are those are two buildings that that we basically went in and and gut the entire building the 10th and main building we actually anybody who worked downtown a couple years ago we had 10th Street blocked off for a couple months and

it has we saw cut about 70% of the concrete roof off of that building and and craned your tongue yeah these concrete slabs were you know four feet wide six feet wide by 13 feet long we trained those slabs off the top of the building so that they could add another floor to the building another you know a penthouse basically mm-hmm it’s the jobs like that that have you know after 28 years I’ve seen a lot of jobs come and go it’s it’s the ones that have a more technical aspect to them that do a little bit of challenge in you know the diverse kinds of skills that we need to get the job done I think that’s where abatement Pro really kind of shines is that we’re not afraid to take on any of those jobs we we always want to innovate we want to look at things a little differently and try to get those done well I think going into a job like that you’d have you have to be because not every job is the same you got to find a way to do that particular job and yeah

that one’s not as simple as knocked in the building out and taking scrap out you know right yeah there were there were definitely challenges that even the Albertson’s spoke thing that we talked about earlier that there’s a hundred and twenty-five linear feet of the front of that building then that we basically took the entire front wall of the building away so that they could make that new fancy house and there yeah so those are we we saw cut that wall out and then took I got the biggest front end loader that western states cat had available mm-hmm and chained that wall to the front bucket and and laid that front wall down I wish I had in footage that in 40-foot pieces we lay that front wall down with that with that loader and then break up the wall on on the ground okay so cuz you’re not trying to save it no you know just trying to break it to maintain the integrity the rest of it right we were trying to figure out how to how to safely get that wall out of there without damaging any other part

of the building that was supposed to stay what about I think even the conquering the asphalt are you still trying to protect that – what is that yeah all the the sidewalks on the yeah your part I don’t know what they had read Henry do anything that they redid somebody they all okay so you saves it’s a lot of it right we saved what we had to and we you know the part that demo part of it have you been doing dim yeah but but bring in that wall down safely was was what we were after there so yeah a lot of work because otherwise that wall would have been mostly all hand demo you know 125 linear feet of 30-some foot high wall mm-hmm that’s a lot of hand demo what does hand mo mean means guys with sledgehammers or own handheld jackhammer well okay yeah physical hard manual labor so you’re in there with hot sauces that like kind of when you’re using or what kind of sauce hot sauce because that wall was embedded with with rebar okay so there is a there you know there’s a certain amount of

hot saw work or portions of it we had a core come in and saw cut you know lengths of wall linear lines of that wall you know to make that separation so we could take it down in pieces so yeah that that was the whole goal is how do we how do we take it down safely and as efficiently as possible mmm-hmm because ultimately you know productivity drives some of the game but it’s it’s got to be it’s got to be safe you got to find that sweet spot kind of yeah where it makes sense and then I gets the job done right oh well one last question for you Mike how do people get ahold of you guys um we’re in the phonebook abatement Pro Inc his is out there okay yeah he website phone we we used to have a website I used to we used to pay for some people to manage a website and I I don’t think that’s up anymore just because we will put your fiber on this slightly there so that was like in there for you hum yeah yeah we’re always interested in taking a

look at new yeah challenges and put it out there and I mean appreciate you coming to do this I know you’re busy yes you’re headed where you headed right now headed to Pocatello we’ve got a couple jobs going on okay out there so I go out and check on the crew and I don’t get an update on how everything goes of it Thanks time thanks Nick 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