welcome to talk and tires the podcast that delves deep into the world of tires join us as we explore everything from the science behind the manufacturing to the latest Innovations in the tire recycling our aim is to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of tires including how they work how to maintain them and how to dispose of them responsibly whether you’re a seasoned mechanic curious car Enthusiast or an avid recycler talking tires is the perfect podcast for anyone who wants to learn about the essential component of the modern vehicle and heavy equipment so buckle up and join us for an informative and engaging journey in the world of tires all right here’s our first episode of talking tires I’m Craig the president of Tire reclaim and division of United Metals and really this is not about that this is about tires new tires used tires rubber waste practices I mean basically sustainability anything that has to do with tires this is what we’re going to talk about so you know first thing I wanted to do was get a man in here that has taught me a lot about tires and how to process

tires and we’re talking new tires now so yeah I just want to go ahead and Jump Right In and introduce Chase Kavanaugh the vice president of operations for a commercial tire right here based in Meridian Idaho so um Chase welcome thanks for having me yeah great yeah so um you know things everybody gives me advice your first podcast you know what do you talk about and immediately I thought of you chase and um you know not just the experience but inside product knowledge things like that I mean I’d say most times we get on the phone we talk about work a little bit we talk about life a lot and a lot of similarities in you know how we approach our day we have a lot of aggression for new business right and practices and procedures and efficiencies so I really wanted to have you here about that and the the work life balance that’s really important too right so married 19 years so why do you do it yeah yeah so the three children Claire 14 K-12 and Colt 10 right so the family aspect I want you to touch on that

a little bit today and um you know education give you your letters behind your name bachelor’s degree of Science and business administration which worked out for you right you’re administrating a lot of business these days so that’s that’s good different Hobbies uh you noted you like the outdoors fly fishing things like that so I don’t want to get into too many details here because I want to talk to you and get to know you a little bit but uh why don’t we start about how you would describe yourself in Commercial Tire well and talk a little bit about Commercial Tire first um so you know the organization’s been around since 1968 our founder Bob schwingfelter started it up uh kind of a one-man band and a Truck kind of a deal and uh you know grew it uh over the next 50 plus years to what it is today which is 55 locations in four states um you know with 850 employees and you know growing growing and more every day you know so uh you know kudos to Bob I mean he was a Visionary he understood the business he understand he

underst today he still understands how things get done he’s very very smart and I appreciate working for someone like that uh he’s uh he’s a great man so he’s familiar yeah his son Trent is our president um born and raised in the organization has done every job in the company start to finish and another great leader someone you generally go to and get things figured out their their action oriented guys which fits me perfectly I like action I like to drive towards things and so that kind of leads into who I am um so you know I’ve been with the company about 15 years I’ve been an entire business a little longer than that but you know uh just being here through a lot of change is since I’ve been here the company’s more than doubled in size almost tripled and says uh we were a 78 million dollar a year company when I came uh in the middle so let me slow you down let me slow you down a little bit so so right then that day right you were coming from and going into what position started so I I came

from an outside sales role at another another company not an entire business and came to Commercial Tire as a okay we’re like hey this will be to be business to business business outside sales and they’re like hey we’ll see what this guy’s got they threw me on the front counter of a store and so that’s how I started I was just checking out at the store level yep yeah and just green and I’m sure there were people there key people that you know impacted your career I mean from there on I mean you’ve been there 15 years yeah absolutely you liked something oh yeah what do you remember can you think anything about the dynamic of what about Commercial Tire that you like so well I like the family feel of the organization I mean it was uh at that time I think we had about 30 locations 32 maybe um but it still it it’s a small company it it was guys that are like-minded that wanted to work hard um you know you just every day we woke up and you went to it and that’s a pretty cool atmosphere to

be a part of right uh Tire businesses uh I don’t know people believe this or not but I see it as a very smart business there’s a lot of really great people and one thing I noticed right away is the uh Bob in the management of the organization really wanted everybody to have a real understanding of how to do business like uh there’s stuff I I learned in in Business School uh they were teaching everybody they’re teaching everybody the you know profit and loss statements and how what you do affects the bottom line really and all management levels all a Salesman I mean it didn’t matter where you were you were you you had a you had a general understanding of what what the business was all about and that’s not something you see yeah that is in business that’s impressive so that takes a lot of uh confidence as an operator to to show that kind of transparency to anybody that wants to see it that’s to me that’s well I wonder because I have here in my notes that commercial tires employee owned I wonder if that played into that so sure

so that mentality of hey these are my people they’re on the streets you know doing this job I need them to understand what happens to the bottom line if we do this or if we do that do you think that played into that so can you talk a little bit about unemployed when that happens so in 2019 November of 2019 we became employees and you know Bob could have sold the business to anyone I mean I think the major we know some other major names that have sold out to private equity and exactly yeah major players could could have done it he had I think he had you know I’m not going to speak for him but I’m pretty sure he had other people talking to him about it and he made the decision that the people who brought him to the dance were the ones that should benefit from that and you know I think it’s smart and it also maintained our uh the feeling and the management of the organization it didn’t just get handed off to someone else right and I think that’s part of his legacy was to keep uh

to kind of keep things going the way it’s always been which was good it’s been growing it’s you know things are good uh we have a growth mindset and I don’t think he wanted that to change I think he wanted to see that and have that be a part of it and putting it Forward I’ve noticed so it’s on the front of your buildings a lot it’s on the glass oh it’s on your shirt right now so it’s something that you’re pretty proud of absolutely well yeah I mean it’s only five percent of companies in the United States are even able to to be employee owned so there’s highly regulated so you you have to be financially stable enough to make that happen the company has to be able to to to make sense yeah I mean you’re you’re going out you’re you’re sending over the regulation comes in slowly but well what it is is the the you employee-owned companies um there’s tax benefits about being employed and so there’s there’s a lot to it you have to be solvent you have the company has to be able to financially make sure

there’s a firm oh my gosh yeah yeah yeah you know I went to I you know Idaho is a very heavy employee owned um State like I mean there’s a lot big names WinCo Foods that’s the first one I think the Franklin Building Supply Norco Commercial Tire I mean there’s lots of them Treasure Valley Refrigeration a lot of people don’t know WinCo is uh if I get this right Washington Idaho Nevada California Oregon that’s where the name came from right when yes I think so yeah so so same footprint I guess is what I’m very very similar very similar yeah uh so maybe it’s a Northwest Trend and it’s good they’re great and so we so we go to like uh we go to um convention uh and we we spent a lot of time with those guys at convention this last year and you know it’s they’ve been they’ve been a ESOP for 30 years a long time yeah or more 38 years I think I read an article one time it’s the first real knowledge of an ESOP that I have is because I read an article that said you’re you know

your grocer who’s checking your groceries out could be a millionaire so I had to read that yeah and I started reading it through there and I’ll be darned somebody I’ve been there a long time is a millionaire checking out your groceries and happy and smiling and doing the owner of the company yeah doing their job that’s pretty awesome it’s a pretty cool it’s a pretty cool uh benefit for the employee you know and there’s a mindset change and and you know it takes it takes a while to kind of change the culture away from kind of the founders culture to the employee owned culture okay right because you’re trying to teach your folks that they they need to have an ownership mindset and so um and you know it we’re three years into it we’re in our fourth year um and so we’re yeah I mean it’s it’s it’s changing I mean you can feel it you can feel that it’s palpable with people uh you know you go it’s it’s hard to explain to a 22 year old what employee ownership right but uh I wouldn’t have understood or at least I wouldn’t

understood the value of it you know and once they get it they’ll get it like they’re like okay so we’re kind of constantly uh changing on how we communicate that we actually won an award a national award uh for a large company uh for internal Communications of our ESOP so we did a lot of marketing behind that um yeah we’re pretty proud of that or you know it’s funny and myself and our CFO got up and accepted that award and all those people come up and they’re like yeah man you guys are real creative and him and I are probably the two least creative people on the planet so we’re like well actually it was our marketing team yes Adrian Rodriguez give a shout out to Adrian he did a great job that was a shout out to the marketing team our our marketing team’s great and uh you know they they they’re they’re a big piece of of that and Adrian he did a great job and that was his award to win um I wish he could have been there to accept it because it was a it was a you know

it wasn’t it wasn’t ours it was definitely him but uh but you know it’s cool to be recognized as kind of leading in that and we’re four years into it and there’s people that have been doing it for 50 60 years that’s awesome that are questioning hey how do you guys get this communication out which says a lot about your company right when you take something on You Take It On full it’s not you know a half effort if you will and so that’s that’s fantastic the employee knowledge of just how business runs do you I mean certainly you’re not sharing p l statements and things like that but you feel like there’s still that connection of uh of your managers maybe your store managers of hey we need to do this you know to be profitable we need to do it I mean we share our P L’s with our employees I mean if if you’re at a location they have meetings around it so they understand so that’s held yeah uh there’s I mean I don’t it’s not so they’re knowledgeable in that and then product knowledge um where does that come

in do you guys do training on tires yeah that’s coming down the pipe yes anytime we do a rollout we do it we do a you know uh we do a training across our board we bring people in we usually bring in um kind of key stakeholders guys that right and and a lot of times when people say that they think management and they think whatever no no we’re talking about the people that are gonna make a difference in the location there might be there might be one or two guys you’re like hey these guys are the guy these guys are whether they’re a tire guy or their sales or whatever these guys are leaders these are guys are the ones that’ll uh kind of get everybody on board and kind of you know so we train them and then we roll it out to uh the locations and then we usually have some follow-up training and so is that uh I know Cooper Tire is one of your manufacturers so what are some of the manufacturer names and I’m sure they have reps okay so they’re coming and are they in that

training what does that look like so Bridgestone Firestone I would say is our chief partner um I only say Cooper because I saw it on one of the buildings Cooper’s one that’s been around for a long time they’re a good partner of ours as well um Yokohama uh is a big partner so that’s kind of on the commercial and Retail side uh we’ve got some new partners uh Patagonia attire which is a great Tire product through Milestar yeah um and we’ve got some different different I mean we have others you know there’s others but I would say those are kind of our our top tier uh products and yeah it’s a I mean it’s good to have good partners uh when you go through some turmoil like we just did over the last three years uh it’s pretty important to make sure that you’re married to someone who uh who believes in what you’re doing and will and will kind of hold you hold you above and beyond some of the other well they really control your flow right so they’re they’re good partners there and keep happy and you know us keep a

good symbiotic relationship well we got with Bridgestone uh back I mean Bob’s been a Bridgestone dealer since the since the late 60s so we got into Bridgestone when a lot of people in the United States wouldn’t so there was still a lot of there was still a hangover from World War II uh British says the Japanese company uh there was still a lot of that and Bob you know he he saw past all that and they’re up against the big boys yeah at that time they weren’t as big as they are now they’re number one or two depending on what what report you look at um Michelin versus uh Bridgestone they’re typically the top up to that you see kind of go back and forth every other year um yeah and they’ve been a great company to to be uh to be married to so we uh yeah and the other ones as well I mean uh yokama and Cooper have been been great vendors of ours for a lot of years so I was glad to see that you had a sales background I’m kind of an old sales dog I still get

ethered up or excited you know on every single sales call conversation and whatnot so I want to just touch on bring me in that room a little bit so are you talking about new tires that are coming out maybe it was an old tread pattern that’s come back I mean I don’t even know how that conversation happens or we’ve got a new Snow Line coming out in January you know so we’ll we’ll move with the market a little bit on Tire product as far as you know what’s what’s out there um but the the tire manufacturers are very Cutting Edge so they’re constantly bringing new models making things better I mean Bridgestone itself spins I I can’t remember the number it’s like 2.4 billion dollars a year on R D so I mean they’re big on changing and growing product lines and I mean they sell golf balls I mean right right are you in the golf course right there they’re in the hose business they a lot of different things so uh you know you look at it from that that perspective uh so they’re they’re they’re changing a lot so that

drives change throughout the whole industry exactly everybody’s got to be Innovative it starts from the top it does I mean third I mean 20 years ago let’s just okay 15 years ago uh if you had a if you had a pickup tire that lasted you 35 000 miles you were like excited right right now you’re upset if that same product doesn’t last sixty five seventy thousand yeah well what changed right well the Innovation I mean the product changed using synthetics versus natural rubbers and the mix and blend of those two things and uh they I mean they’re tweaking it right and they’re tweaking it to get the value out of the product uh to the customer and also to make sure that they don’t last too long I mean there’s got to be a little engineered outside I’ve heard there’s tires that’ll last forever but maybe that’s forever but you wouldn’t have attraction there is a mix the the the we use synthetic rubber compound natural rubber is harder and if you make a tire completely out of natural rubber it’ll last forever it but you get zero traction so they’re not safe so

that’s why they blend them that’s why they use did you hear that folks the great misnomer right there so you just had an answer from the Tire Guy a commercial tire that well they could make it but there’d be no tracks if you used a if you use a racer to erase pencil and that racer was really really stiff and hard well we’ve all been there and it just spreads it’s a really soft one erases the best but but you have the pink stuff all over your desk when you’re done right so it’s a mix of those two things it’s the same that is rubber I love that finally Vulcan I love that that is what that is so uh it’s the same it’s that idea so yeah the tire I mean you want a tire pressure that lasts to what it says It’s Gonna Last to right and you want it to be but you want it to keep your family safe and you wanted to go down the road you want to be quiet right and you want it to be smooth personally not getting any younger and I keep saying these

things that make me sound old but I have literally seen uh tires advance I mean I I’ve put 40 000 miles on a set of tires you couldn’t even tell right now right and that’s just rotating them properly coming and seeing Tom and you know getting set up and that’s really you’re doing your part as a consumer right I rotate them I said I was gonna do and when I did well and I guess shocks and struts I mean that’s really something you should talk about because I know you told me one time you’re like that is a huge part of our business because I didn’t even realize obviously I’m on the tire side of things so well in 50 000 miles a set of shocks goes through like 2 million actions all right let me finish that thought so the reason I brought that up now is because that tread life also has a lot to do with the mechanics of the vehicle it does so so as your shocks and everything wear and it’s kind of like a slow death right you’re driving you don’t know it’s wearing it’s just it’s all

happening but there’s so many components that are interlinked in your vehicle right so you you have a set of shocks that goes bad and you’re like okay yeah well that’s just Comfort it’s really not just Comfort what happens is as you go to break so 80 of the vehicle’s weight moves to the front of the vehicle when you get into an emergency braking situation it could be up to and if you’re turning at the same time like to avoid something you could have up to you could have up to 80 of the vehicle’s weight or not on one tire so the more that weight shifts forward the easier it shifts forward the more the center of gravity moves forward in your vehicle which means the more weight goes to the front so if your shocks are wear out that’s what’s that’s what’s holding the vehicle stable so as that happens you have to be aware the softer the shocks the more Road and you’ve seen that you see the truck cars that are going down the road they bounce and they’re doing more stuff okay not only that is an issue but it also

puts all that braking on the front axle so if you start running through front brakes a lot you know your shocks are bad on the tire side of that well the tires aren’t being held to the ground the way they’re supposed to be so they start hopping and bouncing you start seeing check wear you start seeing what we call heel toe on the shoulder we’re seeing shoulder right you start seeing that well that’s because the other components are wore out uh alignments you know it starts wearing front end that’s the obvious one right we’re all we all have seen like one piece as well yeah well that’s not always just the alignment right but there’s other things there and then you know like you said they all work together right I mean right down to the bushing it makes sense I mean it’s all a component yeah and when the car is brand new everything drives nice and it’s perfect and then flat 100 000 miles comes around and everybody’s like ah you’re just up selling us on shocks you’re like oh listen your shocks are smoked and I I literally just I I

bought a used pickup uh I’m kind of a used pickup kind of guy but yeah I went about a used pickup here just recently and it was a nice truck Ford Platinum 2018. I can handle this color yeah it was white I was like that’s cool I like white 50 000 miles on it right and I took it into the shop and and uh I because I’m a tire guy I gotta lift it a little bit and I got to put the wheels and tires and you know put some wheels and tires on it it looked like an old guy truck I’m not battled yet so I’m like okay okay cool my guy comes to me goes hey uh well in the lift I ordered it’s three inch it was just just a little bit the lift I ordered comes with new shocks and all the stuff right and so my guy comes to me he’s like hey man good thing got those new shocks with that lift I was like oh what’s the deal and he’s like they’re smoked fifty thousand fifty thousand miles on a new pickup the guy who owned the

truck before me was 81 years old so you know he was just regular guys driving he wasn’t doing anything crazy he wasn’t four buying or anything you know and this was insane and he’s like yeah 50 000 miles that’s what we tell people though little did you know that 81 year old was yeah yeah yeah I agree yeah it’s one of those things you know but but it’s but it’s when we sell that when we tell folks we we we we tell them hey this is this is a recommendation right and it’s something to think about you know and so uh but yeah it’s it’s all this works together yeah you know so you’ve got um quite a bit of technical labor to to maintain there as well so what kind of computer softwares those guys have to learn all these days right yeah we I mean yeah so that’s what we kind of tell everybody is today’s mechanical world really you need to be like a software engineer I mean there’s most vehicles have upwards of 60 to 200 computers on them I mean depending on their little but right there’s a lot

a lot of them and so a lot of the issues you see in vehicles aren’t mechanical issues they’re electronic issues and so yeah all of our facilities we run uh tier one uh scan tools we have to just to get in and make you got to get in and make get things opened up and get them working so you can see if they’re if the continuity is good if they’re right you know you know so the famous check engine light right people come to you with check engine lights oh yeah yeah so you got to plug that in got to plug it in you got no other way you used to be able to stick your head in the engine compartment you’d be like oh yeah you’re doing Fletchers smoked you know and everybody’s like yeah okay it always reminds me of Seinfeld which I quote way too much but you know Jerry’s got his regular guy putty that does his mechanic works and he’s telling George’s story and George goes well putty wouldn’t lie to you and he said oh it’s not putty he’s like well of course he’s lying to you he

can tell you you’re Johnson fluid needs to be changed yeah exactly yeah yeah you can go online now GTS Google that stuff right and there’s a coupon for blinker foot so you can really get your kids now here take that in and get yeah the biggest part is about training training our making sure our people are trained making sure our our customers understand uh you know we try to bring a different level of communication to them so they can they they understand you know I I talk to everybody you know in the world of safety it’s really tough because everybody’s like dude we want our customers in the shop do we want them you know in there seeing stuff and I tell people I’m like keep them safe stop the work around them but show and tell yeah when show the customer I know she had a lot of win we have Windows in all of our shops we’d be able to see and see their car being worked on but we want people we want to take our customers in and show them what we’re what we’re seeing because seeing is believing right

like old Parts is that a policy of your do you show old Parts yeah we’ll bring all the parts yeah yeah we save everything if people want to take a look at it most some people just don’t I’m just old I’m aware yeah 680 for that yeah that’s real deal yeah right I just had my wife’s brakes done on her car last week and you know same thing for me it’s no different you know we’re our stuff wears out too right all right so I think I want to get into uh just your enjoyment you know and I know as a VP of operations a lot of things have changed so you went from Zone regional manager right so talk about that transition a little bit and what’s going on yeah it was uh you know uh as you come up through the company you know uh we’re bigging we’re big into people that work for us and you know promoting them and uh growing the company from within and so yeah I was a like it was a Zone Manager for several years uh which which is a regional operations manager for us

I mean and you were in the Treasure Valley yeah Treasure Valley and Magic Valley uh were my two areas and I did that and uh this position we created this position we didn’t have it uh as a company when you start growing you have to be able to scale your growth right and so we had at that time we had four fours on managers and we decided to put a different layer of management in um what we call Market managers and they managed three to six locations um so they’re the guys making sure things are going right and uh we talk about training they’re the ones that are they’re spurred with making sure the folks are trained and they’re driving towards that mentorships uh making sure the the store managers know and understand what’s coming through the organization and I’m just going to shoot stuff out so communication points you’re doing email you do have text doing group text oh yeah yeah a lot of that oh yeah any way you can possibly I would say it’s probably in our world still email and teams meetings teams yeah that’s a new thing that came

around right I’m an old dog so I get irritated I’m starting to like them well I’m starting to think that it’s all the automatic it was already on when you sent the invite have you done that yeah so all of them are already preset so unless you put a location it just started yeah exactly this just started happening so then now everybody’s you know I see more and more people accepting teams meetings which is great it’s nice to see people’s face you know I talk about and I really wanted to go a whole podcast without mentioning covid but there are some good things that came out of it yeah a lot more efficient with covid and that and that was um because we would you know we really were the entire business especially and I’m sure a lot of Industries are but we’re really a face-to-face business we uh we like to see our people talk to them uh be able to shake their hands see their response whatever but uh we got really involved in teams we were having I mean we’ve actually backed off probably how many teams meetings right

I mean during covet you were like she was like every meeting I had to yeah you had to and uh now we’re kind of I think I think we’re safe and sane with it you know we’re right we’re not gonna blow our hands off we’re we’re we have enough teams meetings that we can communicate weekly but we’re but we’re back to having our you know our get-togethers and you know because I think that’s so valuable in the business to be able to talk talk creatively with your people and make sure that you’re you’re really on the same page it’s not just to you know no no no they got your face turned off you know yeah I love the blurry background you know so you could be anywhere I always I always put one like like I’m in Maui or something like oh is that what that I just figured you were always there I really like that it makes me feel like that’s where I’m at so uh so email text teams you know those are good Communications absolutely you know guys and then you get around yeah so that’s a big

thing is is our Market managers especially they’re they’re face to face I mean our area directors that’s kind of the next step right so we had our we had these we had what we call Zone managers and then we we put in Market managers which was a layer kind of between those guys we renamed our Zone managers area directors uh we broke the company into three three sections and those guys manage those three sections so each one of them has 17 or so locations that they’re over three to five Market managers depending on geography and so I like it yeah those guys so it’s Australian yeah as well as scalability so if we just had to go plop five look stations in Montana which I mean someday that’ll happen but uh if we decide to do that uh that area director can shift and put a market manager in there and you’ll be able to help manage that guy and back to that scalability yeah exactly so wherever we do wherever we grow and we’re going to grow up I mean we’ve we put four new locations in uh the end of 22 in

the first part of 23. so uh we’re doing it I mean that’s no joke well I think it’s great to hear um you know the scalability is a word thrown around but it’s really just growth right and to see I’m going to say an American company with a bunch of good American Freedom loving men and women out there working and working hard to advance Commercial Tire I mean I see the guys there I’ve learned a lot about well in talking tires I’ve learned a lot about Tire men and you guys work your tail often and I say you guys because you started that right I mean you got to throw a lot of rubber you gotta sure you got to get up at night when when others don’t you gotta you know then there might be a truck driver on the side of the road trying to get home I mean and he’s tired and going there in the danger zone yeah right like it’s I think it’s probably one of the most thankless jobs that’s out there the reality of it is is that there’s a semi truck trapped on the side of

the road and it isn’t moving until a tire guy shows up to get it going and cars flying by cars people not changing lanes everybody sees the videos right yeah all those idiots out there and I’m sure you guys have had you know scary times and scary moments so I personally I appreciate the efforts of you and your men and you know your whole company across the board you know just as a partner of Tire reclaim but beyond that just the relationships that I’ve met you know some really good people there you know you and Lee of course and Trent and just everybody through the through the organization that I work closely with and then you know going right into the store managers and getting to know them and what you know their needs and pains are and everybody speaks highly of you and your you know middle management throughout the whole organization so well we’ve got kudos to you yeah we’ve got great people with lots of experience and you know um I challenge uh I challenge you to think about scalability in a different way because it’s on my mind but it’s

something that that we’re actively doing and I know people use that term but what really scalability means to me is is the organization having the people and the processes in place to maintain the business control as the company expands so for what you do it’s the McDonald’s it’s the McDonald’s thing right McDonald’s McDonald’s in Boise Idaho is the same as a McDonald’s in in Iowa it’s the same as a McDonald’s in Florida which it’s used a lot but but for a reason but they did a really good job in their job they are a really a really great example right of scalability and so uh but I’ve heard of New Orleans Big Mac has a creole sauce so you have your little your little differences nuances here guarantee higher in Utah is a little different than a commercial tire in Boise yeah a commercial tire in Yakima is a little different than the commercial tire Boise but but the but the special sauces yes are still really similar you know it’s like the Buns good and all that but yeah there might be a little tweak in there but but for the most part

we’re we’re uh we’re very similar across the board same kind of people same ideas same same values that drove there’s a lot of good quotes in this podcast and that would be one of them on scalability that was a really good description of what a successible scalable company could look like yeah so for sure again I appreciate you being here absolutely thanks and have a great day man cool thank you