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S3-130: Tom Canete, Canete Landscaping & Snow Management, Wayne NJ
699 Plays9 days ago
The guys welcome Tom Canete, the owner and founder of Canete Landscaping to the show to talk about their huge snow operation, including sites such as Met Life Stadium at the Meadowlands in NJ!
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:02
Speaker
This No Jobs podcast episode is brought to you by Top Gun Backblades.
00:00:08
Speaker
you ready for the best damn your life? Give me a hell, give me a girl Stand up right now And give me a hell, give me Stand right ready to She ain't slow She's taking control Pushing the pedal to the floor
00:00:40
Speaker
Here we go, Snow Jobs Nation. We are back again bringing you episode 130 of the Snow Jobs Podcast main show, powered by Top Gun Backblades. As always, I'm Steve. i'm talking to the Juice Box guy.
00:00:51
Speaker
And as always, you know who's right here with me. One of the baddest motherfuckers of all time. One of the best singers and one of the best looking motherfuckers you've ever seen. Hold my drink, bitch. Jeremy Lindstrom is in the house. What is up, Jay?
00:01:03
Speaker
Hey, Steve-O. How we doing, buddy? Doing good. Doing good. How about you? Good week. I had a good week. Good week. Busy, but good. Yeah, same. It's going.
00:01:13
Speaker
It's going good. Doing some dust control, you know. du God's juice? God's juice. Going out. Just got done doing a couple loads tonight. so Are you getting all this rain that Minnesota's getting?
00:01:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, getting plenty of rain. yeah So how the hell does anybody need fucking dust control out there? It's dusty. It gets dusty in hurry. Gravel roads. We have actual gravel. I've seen your guys' is gravel that looks like dirt.
00:01:37
Speaker
The interstate out there, right? The interstate is gravel. Interstate gets really dusty out here. Buffalo. That's good, man. Yeah. You looking forward to Storm Day?
00:01:50
Speaker
definitely am. Definitely looking forward to Storm Day. It should be a good time. should be fun. should Yeah, I'm Yeah, and when this drops, me d and Arctic Steve are going to be in Tomahawk at Case Proving Grounds playing with some case equipment. So I'm looking forward to that. um Nice.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:11
Speaker
My invite must have got lost in the mail to that. Yeah, I think it did. Yeah.
00:02:20
Speaker
ah Probably did. Yeah. It should be a fun time. out I think it's out in the middle woods somewhere in Wisconsin, Tamarack, Wisconsin, think it is. And we're going to play with a lot of fun toys and see a trouble we can get into. And yeah.
00:02:33
Speaker
and I don't know if they're the following week. Well, the weekend before storm, we got a Billy Moore's wedding. We might be doing. We We do. i am very upset that I cannot make that work, but yeah. Billy and Angela, congratulations.
00:02:50
Speaker
it's It's awesome. I'm very happy for those guys. uh, I missed the engagement as well. I couldn't, I, I, I, well, I didn't miss it. I was freaking there. Billy gave us the wrong time. i was there. I could not wait around all night. I was kind of, uh, working, but, uh, yeah, Billy and Angela, congratulations to you both. Uh, we wish you guys all the best and, I hope you guys have a great day.
00:03:14
Speaker
and know. Uh, It's a good time. lot of snow guys there at that. Yeah. Yeah. Are you going? What what are we doing? It's a good to see what's going on. My kids baseball. And I don't know, you know, I don't want to take attention away from Billy. If I go, you know, well, that is true.
00:03:30
Speaker
um and I don't want to look at me. and She's supposed to be marrying Billy. She might say no. Right. like Yeah. i don't I don't want to be, don't want to ruin anything. Yeah. i mean, Jeremy's in the audience. It's like, Oh, do I really say yes? I mean, Jeremy's right there. Like, yeah.
00:03:45
Speaker
i don't know ah Oh my God. That's great, bro. But no, seriously though, Billy and Angela, congratulations. ah We, we wish you guys all the happiness in the world and ah it's, it's great. It's, it's really a great thing. And ah we're excited for you.
00:04:02
Speaker
What else do we have? So today we got a big one, bro. We got a huge episode today. All right.
Guest Introduction: Tom Kennedy
00:04:09
Speaker
And that refers to the huge refers to not only the amount of experience this gentleman has in the industry.
00:04:15
Speaker
ah It also refers to the size of a ah special site that they handle for snow. And if you've ever met the man in person, all right, yeah this is the only guy that can make Matty Muscles young look small.
00:04:31
Speaker
All right. He is an absolutely massive guy. ah It's Tom Kennedy out of from Kennedy Landscaping out of Wayne, New Jersey. He is here with us today. Tom has been in this game a long, long time. And if you guys have never heard of Tom or Kennedy Landscaping, then you're probably not on the East Coast because we all have.
00:04:49
Speaker
All right. They are a massive operations on both sides of the ball. ah They do green. They do snow. ah They're doing it all. And we are super excited to have him here with us tonight. And he's goingnna he' going to get into it. Tell us all about Kennedy and how that company. And they're massive, guys. They are are legitimate ah legitimately. I can't talk tonight.
00:05:08
Speaker
All this trying to get everybody on on the right screen tonight. I couldn't do it. But yeah, legitimately, they are a monster. I actually had to pick up one of my machines from them one time, and I got to go down there and and see their operation, one of the Arctic machines.
00:05:23
Speaker
That's where it was. So I had to go down there and pick it up. Yeah, we do have Tom tonight. We're both super excited to talk to him, see what he has to say. Yeah. yeah Jeremy's looking forward to this one. So am I. So we're going to get into it, with Tom. But first, you know what we got to do. We're going to hear from Team Top Gun and we're going to come back and do a quick week review.
00:05:44
Speaker
Gentlemen, let me tell you about the best kept secret in the snow game Top Gun backblades. Our All-American blade is the largest and strongest pickup truck plow on planet Earth. We're talking about a 16 to 20 foot wide blade that makes other snow plows look like toys.
00:05:56
Speaker
This is what peak efficiency feels like. Now you can do more with less. We're currently offering the fly high edition plows with exclusive perks in honor of our late founder, Jason Yonkers. Quantities are extremely limited. Ask about our new skid steer attachment.
00:06:08
Speaker
Get your order started at top gun blades.com or check us out on Instagram and YouTube at top gun blades. Welcome to team top gun. All right, guys, we are back. So we can review. We're going to go through this real quick.
00:06:20
Speaker
Um, yeah Not super important, but it is interesting to note that this week, as this drops, we will be over 700,000 total listens. So not bad for two idiots talking snow.
00:06:33
Speaker
Not bad. In two and a half years. So that's not bad. Not bad. a niche podcast inside a super niche industry. that's ah That's pretty good. So congratulations, brother. and That's nice. Nice, mild. Great.
00:06:47
Speaker
awesome. What else did we do? Last week, guys, we dropped the Douglas Dynamics rate controller episode. You know, we don't normally drop a a special episode as the main show episode, but so many of you guys were asking us to get information on that product. You saw it at Syma.
00:07:05
Speaker
We got bombarded by it, so we figured, you know, we're going to... So many guys are asking us, we're going make this the main episode this week, and i don't think it disappointed. Everybody seemed really happy with it, right, Jay? A lot of good feedback. Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker
Great feedback, yep. lot guys liked it. We i gave a lot of good information. So answered a lot of questions what we did. Yeah, Seth was awesome. Seth did a great job. um We got got to send big thanks out to ah Jennifer Walth from Douglas, also the entire marketing team over at Douglas ah for setting that up with Seth, getting ah Seth Bergerud on with us, giving the snow guys what they want, which is always a good thing because, so as we all know, snow guys get pretty cranky when they don't get what they want.
00:07:45
Speaker
They don't know. little bit but And also, yeah we'd be remiss if we didn't thank Gene Stork from Stork's Plows who got the ball rolling for us. ah That was great. And all those people came together and got what the snow guys wanted out there.
00:08:01
Speaker
So I think everybody was very happy with that episode. correct All right. What else we got? Storm Day. We just said it. Next week, guys. Next week. There are still a couple tickets left if you want to come out to Mankato and join us.
00:08:14
Speaker
Mankato in August. Where else would you want to be? Exactly. Hey, listen to the show. Listen to the show we dropped to Darcy explaining everything that's going on. Absolutely. To explain everything to the T what's happening and,
00:08:27
Speaker
We'll have a good time there. Yep. Darcy Storm's Supreme Intergalactic Event Planner. ah She handles all the events. And like Jeremy said, she came on last Tuesday. We dropped her little episode ah that she came on and basically just gave everybody a rundown of what's going to happen at Storm Day.
00:08:44
Speaker
And she did say there's going to be plenty of networking time. um We had questions about that, as if there was going to be enough time to network and stuff with the ah itinerary. And she handled that up.
00:08:55
Speaker
she answered those questions on the show and she also was a answered some listener questions from uh that that one guy ron even benzo yeah were all yeah we got that out of the way so ron you're you're welcome but uh yeah so come on out to mankato and uh see us at storm day if uh if you got nothing going on it's ah it's going to be a good day as always what else j got anything else it's the store store We're going to try to sell some more merch here. So, yeah.
00:09:26
Speaker
And hopefully there's what – the sale will be over when this airs, a July sale. So that will be over. yep But we also have – I'll be bringing some stuff to Storm Day to sell, hopefully, on site if guys want to get something there. So get your storm – or get your snow jobs apparel.
00:09:44
Speaker
of well Let's go 50-degree day in Mankato again with the wind howling. Let's go, baby. Didn't we sell out last year? Yeah, I didn't bring enough stuff with
00:09:56
Speaker
Who knew? Who knew it was going
Managing Snow at MetLife Stadium
00:09:58
Speaker
to be 40-mile-an-hour ice-cold wind all day? should have known. It's close enough to North Dakota. should have. You should have known. It's your fault. yeah I'll take the blame.
00:10:08
Speaker
I actually have the i got a question for you. do Do we have the Adidas quarter zip stocked yet? No. Somebody was asking me. I got a few left over. Maybe if I remember to bring them, I'll bring them.
00:10:20
Speaker
Yeah, I was asked if they're available for purchase in the store. Yeah, we I mean, I don't know. they're kind of We'll see. um'll have Maybe I'll bring what I have and see if we can sell a few there.
00:10:32
Speaker
Or do a special order like the Carhartts. We could do that. Like we did that at first, right? Yep. Put them up on the store. They should have some new T-shirts and possibly long sleeves at the show, too. I like their Media Shack's making that up right now. I just got to call the night on that. so Sweet.
00:10:49
Speaker
Love it. All right. Well, can't wait. Going to see you a couple days. Going to be a good time, as always. So the the Snow Jobs Nation store is stocked and ready. Jeremy will personally touch every item that gets mailed out that you purchased. So there you go.
00:11:04
Speaker
Anything else, brother? Well, think we're good, buddy. All right. So guys, let's hear from our partners real quick. We'll pay some bills and we will be right back and we'll get into this with Tom.
00:11:16
Speaker
Hey guys, Steve here. We're always looking for ways to save on labor and increase safety for our people. Last year, I purchased a game-changing snowblower from my company that does just that. It's called the MuskOx.
00:11:28
Speaker
It's patented backdrag feature and design lets us get right up to our HOA garage doors and tight spots, clean them all right down to the pavement without scratching. This beast can also scrape hard pack going forward if you need it to.
00:11:40
Speaker
It's truly a dual-threat blower. Give MuskOx a call. Their staff are extremely knowledgeable and have been amazing with us. MuskOx, snowblowers that backdrag.
00:11:51
Speaker
Step into the future of snow removal with Arctic Snow and Ice Products, where innovation has been our driving force since the early 2000s. We're redefining efficiency and reliability for snow contractors nationwide. Explore our range, from the game-changing sectional snow pusher to the versatile double-down salt bucket.
00:12:06
Speaker
Don't miss our latest innovation as we introduce the Razorback, the first-ever sectional moldboard truck plow. Join us in shaping the future of snow removal. Discover more at www.articssnowproducts.com.
00:12:18
Speaker
dot com All right, guys, we are back. So this is what we're here for. let's ah Let's bring him in. Let's have him unmute and come join us, Mr. Tom Canetti of Canetti Landscaping.
00:12:32
Speaker
He's almost ready. He's almost ready. He's almost ready. There he is. Tom Canetti, how are we? What's going on, guys? are you? We're great, brother. this is This has been some night trying to get everything to work right, huh? Oh, God. What a night. What a night.
00:12:50
Speaker
is what it is. do the snow jobs. If it was easy, nobody would ever do it. I can't stand it. I know we need technology, but I hate it. I hire people that know how to do the technology, so I don't have to.
00:13:02
Speaker
Amen. Thanks, Kevin. Yes, thank you, Kevin. Kevin saved the day tonight. Yes. Kevin is getting a ah full assortment of snow jobs gear. He was invaluable at actually getting this episode to get to the stage. So thank you very much, Kevin.
00:13:18
Speaker
yeah Yep. Yep. right, Jay, you want to take us away? you bet. Hey, Tom, won don't you tell everybody about Kennedy landscaping, when you guys got started and what you're all about? Well, we actually, it's two separate companies.
00:13:31
Speaker
It's Kennedy landscape. and Kennedy Snow Management. So we're on the Snow Jobs podcast here. So i guess we want to talk more about the snow, right? That's fine. Yes, sir. I mean, it started with landscaping, but then it evolved into the snow company. Well, listen, you can talk. I mean, you're proud of both companies, I'm sure. So feel free to tell us about both.
00:13:49
Speaker
Okay, I will. I will. Um, so the snow company, I guess it was back in 2007, we separated the companies. okay Okay. Um, just for liability issues reasons.
00:14:02
Speaker
Uh, and it's, we're, we're pretty big. We, we, you know, ranked pretty high up on the top 100. I think the best best we got was 12th, um, which is, I'm proud of that. yeah yeah Um, so, uh, so, you know, we're, we're,
00:14:17
Speaker
We, you know, listen, we strive for zero tolerance out there, but that's kind of unachievable. It's myth. But we get pretty damn close to it, you know? and So, you know, we we have very, very, very demanding high-end clients that we work for.
00:14:31
Speaker
So you have to, you know, be at the beck and call and, you know, the little things that they that they they call you on all different times of the night or whatever, you know. ah Storm action plans are huge. We do a lot of that with the clients.
00:14:44
Speaker
you know, so everybody knows what they're doing beforehand. That's a big it's a big thing that we do. So, yeah, so, you know, I'm proud of the snow company. That's where, i mean, i I love our landscape company, but I really, really love our, you know, our snow company.
00:15:01
Speaker
and I spend more time in the snow company year-round. We have a full-time snow salesman. That's all he does year-round is sell snow. So I spend a lot of time talking to him and reviewing estimates, things like that, you know? So equipment, it's kind of like...
00:15:17
Speaker
Snow porn. I love it. You know, going to sign up, seeing all that's seen all the equipment. I love it. You know, all the classes. so So when did, when did Kennedy landscaping start? When did you start the original business?
00:15:31
Speaker
Okay. before split So it actually incorporated in 92, in 1992. But I started, I started when I was nine years old.
00:15:42
Speaker
I had a paper route when I was nine. And I asked all my customers, all 70 customers, all within one week. I went around on Saturday to collect the money. And I said, listen, I cut grass on the weekends if you're interested. So right out of the gates and within one week, I had 70 customers to deliver papers to. And I got eight lawns all in one week.
00:16:01
Speaker
So then I got them for snow. So now, you know, the first year I'm out there with a shovel killing myself. My grandfather, he owned a business and he was my mentor. So I i spent a lot of time with my grandfather. He was like my best friend and my mentor.
00:16:13
Speaker
um And he had a snowblower. So it's like, So you want that snowblower to help you out a lot? You've got to work for me for four weekends on Sunday. I want to see you at my house on Sundays for, you know, doing whatever, weeding his garden, washing his cars, yeah you know, doing, get him up on the roof of cleaning the gutters, whatever he needed.
00:16:30
Speaker
You know, and I would, I ended up getting that snowblower. year two, I had a snowblower. So I was 10 years old at the time and I would just drive it around the neighborhood, drive it around the neighborhood, you know, um Then, you know, when I got my my license, was it was, you know, 17 over here in New Jersey.
00:16:46
Speaker
But at 16, I bought 66 Chevy pickup. It's truck number one, okay? I bought it for 500 bucks from a junkyard. And um I was really good mechanically. So I fixed it all up.
00:16:58
Speaker
The only thing I didn't do on the truck was paint it and ah the electrical work. I had to hire someone. But I did all the other work. I switched the engine out. I took the straight six out. of what I put a V8 Malibu engine in there.
00:17:09
Speaker
it was it was it was my It was my truck. you know it was you I had big chrome stacks on the steps. you know and That was truck number one. Now we're at truck 145. We just bought truck 145 a couple weeks ago. so It's it's a been a long haul. you know It's been a long haul.
00:17:25
Speaker
so you know and i' I'm addicted to equipment. Kevin is our controller. That's who you met before. Kevin, I go around. I have time. On Saturdays, I spend a day on the road. I go on the road. And on Monday morning, it's the first thing he says, so what did you buy this weekend?
00:17:41
Speaker
yes You know, so it's yeah it's an addiction, but it's I only buy it if we're going to make money with it, you know, if it's for the business. I don't buy senseless things, you know. I try not, but once in a while I make a mistake and buy something I shouldn't have and I try to sell it, you know. ye so Does Kevin ever tell you no?
00:17:59
Speaker
He's tried. Yes. he's He's gotten help. He's got certain people in the company that will come to me and reason with me. The biggest call would be the accountant is calling you, Tom. You need to speak to him. Gotcha.
00:18:14
Speaker
I've been talked out of things. you know That's awesome. But when I get something in my head, I just go for it. Amen. I hear you. Bought a ship of salt a few years ago. that was actually I went in partners with a ship of salt probably about five, six years ago, but I bought a ship of salt three years ago myself.
00:18:30
Speaker
Uh, and that was an experience because it didn't snow that year, you know, we had a lot of, a lot of storage to do, you know? Oh
Business Growth and Snowfall Predictions
00:18:38
Speaker
man. oh But, you know, we own it. We own a snow company. I saw a company and, uh, know, we have the trucks to deliver it. And, uh, um, I'm friends with somebody down at the port where he would let me store it for a while until he said, you got to get your stuff out of here. You got it. It's got to go, you know?
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. that Um, so yeah. So it's ever since, you know, So I got my license when I was like a sophomore in high school and I had two of my buddies working with me. We'd get out at two, two three o'clock in the afternoon, go out and work till dark and then weekends.
00:19:11
Speaker
And then right through college, I had crews out doing landscape work. I had two three-man crews. So had six guys full time. I'm in college full time. And then I had a couple of my buddies working with me doing topsoil, some sods, some shrub planting, whatever, um you know, after after school, you know, when I wasn't in school.
00:19:30
Speaker
yep And then it just exploded from there. just you know you know I was taught years ago, you know ah you always when you give your word to somebody, you you go to the end of the earth to keep your word.
00:19:42
Speaker
you know And if you're running late, you're doing something, you you don listen, if you if you have ah if you stumble and you have a problem, you call that person and you tell them. you know Now I can have people in my office call that person you know and and and and tell them for me if I have to, unless it's a personal connection. you know But it's it's it's, you know, things that things that I've learned along the way, you know.
00:20:03
Speaker
um Somebody that gave me a house account at a hardware store, it was it more of a farm, like a farm where they sold hay and feed for animals and fertilizer for landscapers and that kind of stuff, you know.
00:20:16
Speaker
And, you know, push spreaders and and shovels. And I went down there and i didn't have the money to buy all the stuff I needed when I first got started. My grandfather went to bat because he knew the guy and he said, listen, you give him credit, give my grandson credit and he will pay you. Trust me. If not, then my grandfather said he would.
00:20:33
Speaker
I always pay the bill. so care that's all That guy, his name was Bob Falconer. Bob, he said, listen. I've seen a lot of guys come and go ah over all the years. The guys that make it are the guys that build it slow.
00:20:46
Speaker
Don't build your company too big too fast. That's when you're going to get in trouble. Build it nice and slow. did that the years. We've had some i did that over the years and you know we's had some some spurts where like, Oh my God, we just landed all these snow accounts and how are we going to get them done?
00:21:01
Speaker
Okay. So that's an isolated incident, but the the rest of the company was building nice and gradual, you know, steady. So that's awesome. Yeah. that That's funny that you say that Tom, because we've interviewed ah like, Oh God, two and a half years. How many guys, a hundred guys, maybe we've interviewed in the snow community.
00:21:19
Speaker
And, All the super successful, the ones that grew huge. Like, I'll never forget it Randy Straight said, very simple. You want to be successful? You want to you want to be a big business someday?
00:21:31
Speaker
Do what you say you're going to do and be on time. And, like, everybody that's been super successful in business that we've talked to, they say, like, be a man of your word. Do what you say you're going to do. Get it done no matter what. Exactly. That's very simple. Exactly. its very simple exactly And you know what?
00:21:48
Speaker
I do a lot of business with Arctic. And, you know, Lucas has been trained great like just like his dad. Oh, yeah. So, you know, it's like – in fact, I was on the phone with Lucas on the ride over here tonight.
00:21:59
Speaker
ah Oh, nice. came back I was home and I came back to an office, you know. so But, yeah, we're we're tight with them and they run a really good professional business. They definitely do. No, they definitely do. And they're they're all three of them are are so much like Randy.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah. They're so much like Randy. Oh, They've been trained well. yep exactly that's awesome exactly exactly so what do like what does canetti do like what services is there anything you guys don't do like what's your specialty would you say well i mean as far as snow i mean we do anything that has to do with snow the only thing i kind of steered away from was we used to do a lot of um we said we don't have the um ah that broom that cleans the tops of the trailers.
00:22:39
Speaker
I used to send my guys, we used to leave ladders at logistics sites and the guys scope, that was so dangerous. They used to scope on these things and shovel them off. So we did that for a few years and luckily nobody got hurt but just thinking about it, like what if somebody takes a header from the top there, that's not good. no So we we got away from that completely but I know the right way to do it now with the broom. you know but yeah um Roofs.
00:23:02
Speaker
We've, we've cleaned roofs before. That's not horrible. It's just getting equipment up on the roof, you know, yeah when it snows, but we haven't had a need for that much in New Jersey lately. It has not snowed a lot. yeah Our market calls for about 27 inches and we, we, we don't even get close to that these days. That's the average. That's what we're supposed to get. You know, we did have a decent winter this year. had 21 or 22 events here, but a lot of salt things, you know, so, um, you know, but, uh,
00:23:31
Speaker
Well, don't worry, Tom, because the weather guys put out their ah their their winter prediction this year. We're ah we're way above average. Oh, really? Yeah, you are above average. That's what they say. we We'll see, though. like It could be. Just a bit outside. tried to order and missed.
00:23:47
Speaker
Is that the one that I just saw come through ah from ah Weather Pros? Weather prose yeah Pros, yeah. Rob and Nick. We're supposed to be above, too, in Fargo.
00:23:59
Speaker
What is he predicting, Steve, for our area? He says above average. I think for – he's actually – the new format – I do have to throw them a little ah plug. The new format they have, I got an email, and you can actually click on your town, and it's got – your average temperature, what it's going to be, if it's below average, above average, and your your snowfall, what they see you getting this year.
00:24:22
Speaker
So, I mean, that's really bad, though, if you put 250 cities on their towns and you you're wrong. I know. I know. That's a lot. But, I mean, he's calling, I think, 10% above average for us.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah. oh Wow. Wow. That's good. We had a good winner last weekend. It was okay. Yeah, take it. I'll take it You got to hit the average, though. You got to hit the 27 weeks. I'll be happy with that. Yeah, got it, got it. Well, you know we didn't have last year that we're normally always good for, Tom? you know We didn't have a single traditional Nor'easter.
00:24:53
Speaker
I know. not once. So that, that really hurts. Cause that, even if you're having a down year, that can be a, okay, we're good now. Exactly. Exactly. But Jeremy, to finish up the question, I mean, just plowing, parking lots and clearing the sidewalks. We do, you know, we have a lot sidewalk equipment and then de-icing everything, you know, you know, the lots and the walks, that's your standard. You know, you start getting involved with other things, you know, uh, we don't, you know, we do brining, also brining. We started, um,
00:25:24
Speaker
Who's it you, Jeremy? You guys just picked up a frat trailer yesterday. Wow. I got it. Yeah, good. You're going to like it. Six hours from here. Six hours from here in PA. We sent one of our trackers up there yesterday to pick it up.
00:25:37
Speaker
Yep. left that's genius though that's really i mean that's genius to use those for that kind of storage great oh yeah oh yeah mean i don't they're they're great i love them i preach about them on all the time because you know what how much of poly tanks cost now i mean plus i don't know frac tanks they don't look that bad sitting in the yard it's just a semi-trailer know on the ground yeah but i don't know i really i i can't i wouldn't go any other way honestly for us anyway so yeah we're at simon and jeremy's telling me all about the frac trailer i wait what is this frac trailer two months ago i know and we just picked And we just bought, we found one yesterday. so
00:26:11
Speaker
And I'm telling Kevin, hey, guess what I bought? Exactly. He didn't know until he was bought. Love it. yeah yeah oh That's awesome.
00:26:24
Speaker
So any sites, ah you you said you do like high-end stuff. Any sites you want to talk about that you're very, very proud of? Very, very proud of MetLife Stadium. that's my That's my baby.
00:26:36
Speaker
We've been there since the Super Bowl was there in two thousand February of
Staffing and Logistics Challenges
00:26:40
Speaker
2014. So we we got the account in July of 2013. And I'm like, how are so the how how are we going to do this?
00:26:50
Speaker
How are we going to yeah so You talk about a storm action plan. So luckily, MetLife has their own storm action plan. We have sit-through training and all the supervisors. So you have...
00:27:02
Speaker
I have on the average between 30 and 35 supervisors that I hire every year that work. they They manage 20 to 30 shovelers per manager.
00:27:14
Speaker
Okay. So, so those guys, we keep them close. We, you know, they, they, so they, they're, they come in every year and everything. The shovelers, that's, that's a different animal in itself. What I had to do that first year.
00:27:29
Speaker
So, I had a guy working for me, okay? And he was connected politically pretty well with the towns and things like that. So he got me into all kinds of municipalities. We set up tables. We had the giants and the jets balloons, you know, going and we're sitting in front of municipal buildings and libraries.
00:27:49
Speaker
We went to, you know, ah ah colleges and universities all around wherever we get and our our office is on a very busy road steve you know if you've come here it's pretty busy county road so every saturday we had the tables out there with the balloons and stuff like that and we have people sitting out there and everybody wants to oh i'll shovel snow this is august september october oh love it i can't wait for the snow we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna kill it you know And then when it's coming down sideways, okay, and it's 12 degrees out and you got to get in there shovel it, it's actually 10 degrees colder in that stadium than it is outside the stadium.
00:28:27
Speaker
It's colder because of all the concrete, right? So nobody shows. So my contract is for 200 to 500 people. And they can call me two to three days notice. That's the deal. Two to three days notice. I got to 200 to 500 people. Okay. Wow. Yeah.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah. So easy. And they want them there. um They want them there. All online. All online. Everybody has wristbands. They get barcoded in. They get, they get scanned in. Okay. um So,
00:28:59
Speaker
They want them online. We have to get in there all the time. We're picking people up through the tri-state area. So I hire, i don't know if you've ever seen them on the road, Academy Bus. Yep. Those big buses, okay? Yep.
00:29:10
Speaker
So Academy Bus, we have a good great relationship. We've been working with them since 2013. And they they go out and they pick these people up. You know, you get 50, 60 people on a bus in a tri- all through New York, New Jersey,
00:29:24
Speaker
and PA. okay So we pick them up. So I have i have a girl in her office that coordinates all the calls and the pickup spots and this and that.
00:29:35
Speaker
So, okay, this this is this is the problem I had. this is This is the problem I had. I had problems at home. Okay? what Because I don't know how to say no.
00:29:46
Speaker
And if someone says, you can't do this, you're not going to do How are you going to shovel that stadium? ah Steve, I'm sure you've been to MetLife before. Oh, yeah. Jeremy, I'm sure you haven't. You haven't there, right? I haven't been there. If you sit in there and you're on the ground level and you look around and you're like, oh my God.
00:30:01
Speaker
yeah It's like 85,000 seats in there. It's like, holy shit, how going clean this? it's It's like scary. Okay? So my wife does...
00:30:12
Speaker
all the payroll. She's HR. Okay. She's not doing, I'm not doing 500 people plus supervisors. I'm not doing payroll for that. Cause she's got now about three, three to three 50 on our normal operations. Right. Yep.
00:30:26
Speaker
I'm sleeping on the couch. I'm sleeping in my truck. I'm sleeping in my office, you know, I don't care because I'm going to make this happen. We're going to, we're going to do this. We're going to get this, we're going to get this account and make it happen. You know?
00:30:38
Speaker
So, I'm like, i gotta figure this out. So I ended up taking all the people. We we recruited about 2000 people. We got a lot of people. And I went to two agencies and I said, listen, here's names. I got names of all these people that I hired. You personally hired these people.
00:30:56
Speaker
I will give them to you. Okay. But I need, you we're gonna sign documents here. I need them when it snows. You can have them the rest of the year. I don't care. I don't want them. All right.
00:31:07
Speaker
So guess what? For six bucks an hour, I got them to not only take care of the payroll, the hours that they work, but insure them for workers' comps. So if someone takes a header from the 300 level, way up, um'm ah um' I'm off the hook.
00:31:23
Speaker
Wow. Good for you, dude. That's brilliant. That's awesome. so I love that. Yeah. Yep. So I kind of built out my office a little better here. It's it's it's almost like a little mini condo down here.
00:31:35
Speaker
Got a full kitchen. i got I got a full bathroom. And, and you know, just so make a little more comfortable. In case, you know, Philadelphia, the stadium over there calls us, you know. There you go.
00:31:47
Speaker
So how long does it take for, you got 500 shovelers in there. How long it take to shovel out? It depends on the storm. I'm going to give that. My first experience was the first time it snowed in there was December 17th, 2013.
00:32:01
Speaker
Okay. Okay. It snowed over there. Right. And it was a Saturday and I'm like, Oh my God, I'm walking around the stadium. I'm doing laps around the stadium. Okay. And I'm like, there's gotta be a better way.
00:32:13
Speaker
There's gotta be a better way to do this. And I came up, I came up with a storm action plan that worked using some power equipment.
00:32:24
Speaker
Okay? So I was able to take their crews, and I sat down with the VP and the president of MetLife Stadium, right? And I showed them. I showed them. We did a whole PowerPoint, okay? i And I showed them what I was proposing to them, right?
00:32:38
Speaker
So we have paddle grooms going, three levels of paddle grooms, okay? We got backpack blowers going, right? And then people on shovels, but it was organized, very organized.
00:32:51
Speaker
And it took it from 30 people per section down to 20. Okay. So they're actually saving money by doing this. I'm shooting myself in the foot. Like, why am I opening my mouth? Because I can just see that there's a better way to do this, you know?
00:33:04
Speaker
So the NFL steps in, takes over MetLife Stadium. Okay. So the NFL actually bought us this equipment.
00:33:15
Speaker
They bought us equipment. It was great. We had a room up there at the stadium. We used to keep everything. So I'd send my mechanic up there. Every spring he would, you know, put everything away nice, you know.
00:33:25
Speaker
And then every every October or whatever, he would get it out, start it all up and get, and we used it for years, you know. And then, I don't know, somebody got into the room, some of the stuff was missing, know, over there and just, they kind of got away from it.
00:33:38
Speaker
And now we're back to doing it the old way. So it's like, whatever. But I know it was is pretty cool. And I have the old paperwork, you know, my drawing, I sat there That next morning, on Sunday morning, i sat there and I did a drawing on what I think I can make this happen. And it and it really works.
00:33:53
Speaker
yeah That's awesome. And do you have to get like you have to get every stitch of snow out of there between the seats and the rows? Everything. Everything's got to go. Everything's got to go. Yeah, everything's got to go.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yep. You don't have to salt it though, do you? No. So we sometimes we do. We we do. yeah We do. But that's not my our main job to get the snow out. They have – so MetLife has about 150 to 200 people that work for them. know, like their maintenance division and stuff like that.
00:34:19
Speaker
Those are the people that are out there throwing their – they have a special ice melt that they're very picky with, you know, and they use that because there's a lot of concrete in there, you know. yeah um But they handle that. But it's it's a challenge.
00:34:31
Speaker
And our people are trained every year, you know. I sat through how many how many years did that? 13 to 25 or 24. So 11 years of it. I sat through 11 trainings, you know?
00:34:42
Speaker
So I can teach it myself, you know? That's awesome. You know? so so you handle you handle the parking lots as well? So go out. So some there's another contractor that's had a few years.
00:34:54
Speaker
And we've gotten called to go out and help him if he's running behind. now I got to get on the phone and call Joe Porter. He's my operations director. Joe... I need some trucks down here MetLife.
00:35:05
Speaker
You know, you're killing me. I don't have, cause you know how, you know how it is when it's snow. yeah You don't have any, you may have it from a couple of pieces sitting, but don't have things sitting around. He'll pull, he'll pull trucks off of this and that and that, you know, come on down. right, you got this truck for five hours, but I need them back. you know, I'm right, that's fine. Whatever, you know? So, um, especially during the super bowl, we were down there cause he had pavilions and all kinds of stuff in the parking lots.
00:35:29
Speaker
Yep. And the, the current contractor, had the big loaders and and the tandem dump trucks with plows on, so they couldn't maneuver around these you know different things that they had set up out there.
00:35:41
Speaker
Gotcha. So is that inside the stadium, is that like a seasonal deal, or is that like you're charging per event type deal with them? I wish it was seasonal, but it's per event.
00:35:52
Speaker
Per event. Gotcha. Yeah. Is it worthwhile to you? You like doing it? I don't know if I like it. I like... I mean, it's something nobody else does. drive That's a nice feather in your cap. Exactly. And in and they know that we know what we're doing. we've been We have a great relationship with them.
00:36:09
Speaker
Great relationship. That's led into landscape work. It's led into irrigation work. We own a garden center. So they buy all their flowers from us and all their, mul like hundreds of yards of mulch come from us.
00:36:20
Speaker
you know date So it it turns, we have a great great relationship with them. That's great. That's how it's done. I just did a, ah personally, I did a really, really nice landscape design took about three days down there i was on it because i was involved with the actual design of it you know um this was uh we started it last year and then we added there those two phases so we finished phase two probably about month ago over there yeah nice so yeah cool you know so so we got met life what are what are like some other sites that you're proud of like what's your bread and butter outside of met life that you guys handle for snow um so
00:36:57
Speaker
There's a place, it's down by the New York Waterway. It's called Lincoln Harbor. Have you ever heard that, Steve? haven't. The Chart House. and Oh, Chart House I've heard of. Yeah, Chart House and Ruth's Chris Steak House. And there's there's all these high end high-end restaurants and hotels right along the Hudson River.
00:37:15
Speaker
Okay? So we... Is that in Weehawken? Down in Weehawken. Weehawken. Okay. I've been there. Weehawken. So we thought was called we actually do all the plowing for all those sites down there.
00:37:25
Speaker
And there's actually a video, if you go on Kennedy.com and you go into the snow section, it shows a picture of our, it says Kennedy Landscape and Garden Center. It's a picture of our sign out front. There's a little play button right there, okay?
00:37:41
Speaker
And you can see pictures of us plowing Lincoln Harbor on that video. um Bloomberg TV called us last year, right? really so and you guys you know if you want to talk about some funny some funny stuff, okay?
00:37:54
Speaker
So Bloomberg TV called us and they wanted to, you know, they interviewed us. It it took like about a month or so until we got picked. There was 11 contractors and we we we got it. And eighteen they came, they sent the people out here and they filmed us during an event.
00:38:09
Speaker
Problem is, dar are we had ah an event, but it wasn't really snowing. It like a soft event. It wasn't really anything that was going to show us doing much. Right. So they came, they got the whole, the office ops and things like that, everything that goes on in the office.
00:38:23
Speaker
And they actually came back another time, which is some of the video that's on that, if you hit the play button, ah down Lincoln Harbor. lot of it's filmed down there. And another big mall that we take care of right up the road in Sea Caucus.
00:38:37
Speaker
So, you know, but yes, the funny thing was, this is the funny thing. They picked us and went, oh great, this is awesome. couldn't get We could not get our dates to a align when it would snow. We just couldn't, every time they had a booking, they couldn't come, the film crew, this that. So it's like we piecemealed it, but we made it happen. It wasn't a huge storm, but we we made it we made it happen.
00:39:00
Speaker
But it was like, oh my God, this is we get picked to do this, you know, and it it doesn't snow. Yeah. Well, yeah. they I mean, and they have probably no idea that, hey, ah we'll just order up some snow when we when we're available. Like, it doesn't work like that, dude. i did they're trying They're trying to say we're going to come up.
00:39:19
Speaker
oh i was not to How do we know? They're booking it a month in advance. I go, i don't have a crystal ball that says it's going to snow on these days. You know? Oh, God. Some people. It's crazy.
00:39:31
Speaker
It's crazy. I know a little show that does some storm chasing, it's called. I know a little show that does that. We could probably set something up at some point. Yeah. Yeah, there we go. Definitely, definitely. There we go. What else you got for Tom here, Jay?
00:39:46
Speaker
So you do a lot of it's all commercial buildings that you're doing? You have to obviously any residentials or anything? You're all doing commercial industrial? that we Okay, so down we have some HOA, but just high-end HOA stuff, not too big. we don't We don't want to do a lot of big HOA places.
00:40:04
Speaker
yep That's the only residential that we would do. We don't do residential houses you know for plowing. um But ah down along that Hudson River, we do... Okay, so for landscaping,
00:40:16
Speaker
We do, from the New York Waterway, we do three to four miles. If you're looking at the Manhattan skyline from New Jersey, okay, about four miles to the left, there's all those luxury high-rise. There's a lot of money there.
00:40:32
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah. The penthouses kind So we take care of, like, all of them. i like circlego And then we got to the right of the of the of the waterway. We got about two ah two to three miles that way, too.
00:40:45
Speaker
So... You go down here on a Thursday, we take we take care, we call it the river. We call it the river. So, because it's a Hudson River. You go down here on a Thursday and there's like 18 Kennedy trucks down here everywhere.
00:40:57
Speaker
like All the crews are down there cut cutting, and cutting and doing all the landscape maintenance, you know? And we do a few of them for for snow, but we don't do all of them for snow. We do we do most of them for landscaping, you know?
00:41:09
Speaker
Gotcha. Cool. I think it's... and We got the big the big box stores that we do, you know? ah you know, your BJ's and and that kind of stuff, you know. All right, Jay, I think it's about that time. You know, your favorite segment of the show brought to you by Dinesse Leasing, the Jeremy Lindstrom equipment segment. This is attempt number three to get this. So yeah I feel good about this one. So Jay, why don't you take Tom into it?
00:41:36
Speaker
yeah yeah As Steve says, my favorite part of the show, I love equipment. So why don't you tell everybody about what you got for equipment from salters, the ah loaders, the pickups. What are you using, buddy?
00:41:47
Speaker
All right, so what we have, we have, I had some international, the bigger trucks, you know, they're a little, they're aged a little bit, but they all run. But we found we've been buying 550s like crazy, F550s.
00:42:01
Speaker
um We started buying them during COVID because Chevy GMC, you couldn't get them. But Ford still had them. I was still getting Fords.
00:42:13
Speaker
So we're seeing an F550 can do what these internationals are doing as street trucks, road trucks. you know So do they got plenty of power. You put the ah the wide out. We've got all wide out XLs on these trucks. you know And I still have some of my older Chevy GMC mason dumps and pickups and things like that, you know, but we're, we're heavy on the Ford, heavy on the Fords. Okay.
00:42:33
Speaker
Um, the salters that we're using in these trucks are the boss, get the boss poly electric salters, you know? Okay. Um, uh, what else? What else? Um, And we also we have some some Double Downs we're using.
00:42:47
Speaker
We just started using them this past year. We love them. The guys love them. They're phenomenal, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one site that's up by you and Fishkill that we do, Steve, we had a Double Down up there. Sure. Yeah.
00:43:00
Speaker
Eliminates the need for a truck up there, right? Exactly. And they're They're fun. They're fun. They're fun. They're And you see, you're looking, you so you got the double down on the front of ah a loader.
00:43:11
Speaker
So you're looking at where the salt is spreading. Yeah. And I'm talking to i'm talking to to Lucas about this. and So you got what? 25, 30 feet at the most on spreader from a truck. okay with These things throw it out 60 feet.
00:43:26
Speaker
And you're watching where the salt's going. You're in in in the loading docks and you're watching where it's going. You got a great visibility. So we we love it. We bought more for this coming winter. um So...
00:43:38
Speaker
So, um, as far as, uh, sidewalk equipment, it's probably on the plows and, you know, course we have, we have the case, the case loaders. Okay. So we've got all the case, the 521s and the 321s and then 280s.
00:43:50
Speaker
Uh, we run, uh, we have some 621s also. All right. Um, as far as sidewalk equipment. Okay. I tried them all. I tried them all. Um,
00:44:01
Speaker
the The ones that we love, though, the best are the Toro Grandstands. Yeah. or We should have had Tom on. Yeah. He's just going to walk machine when we were trying to find more Grandstand guys.
00:44:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So the Grandstands, because we're we have a large landscape company, they're these ah that's a 12-month machine for me. Okay. We have Snow Raiders, but I got the eat the original generation yeah when they were blue and orange.
00:44:26
Speaker
Yeah, the uriia exactly. Yeah. I don't have any, now I look at them and I spend, what I'm spending what I was buying Snow Raiders for, I'm buying grandstand for. I'm getting 12 months use on it, okay?
00:44:39
Speaker
Versus four months use on ah on a Snow Raider, you know? yep So, yeah, so, and know you know we have our Kubota tractors and and this and that, and eventually we have some Ventracs.
00:44:51
Speaker
But, you know, Ventrac, I've gone to their factory and they have a very good business. ah for the larger machines, I believe. The ones that we have the 3200s and the 3400s. Okay. And nope yeah they are incredible.
00:45:07
Speaker
Your first year, your second year, you go into your third year, and you got nothing of but problems. The belts, do you throw the belts on them constantly. And to do it, you have to split the whole machine. It's a major job, this yeah machine, to change the belt, you know?
00:45:21
Speaker
So it's like, all right, we still have them because... you know, what are you gonna sell them for? A couple grand, you know, seven grand, five grand. So we still have and we still, we deal with it, you know. um So, you know, we have some Steiners, some older Steiners that we use, you know, for the sidewalks.
00:45:38
Speaker
But the grandstands are, they move, man. Holy crap. I got video of some of our grandstands clearing sidewalks. It's amazing. Yeah, they're fast. Oh yeah. We're doing a little something this year with them.
00:45:50
Speaker
We're putting my, my one, my head mechanic, Came up with, we got the tanks. We're going put brine tanks on them. Nice. The grandstands, yeah. Whip around on the sidewalks and put brine down, you know?
00:46:01
Speaker
Yeah. That'll be cool. Yeah. Now, do you use, going right into that, do you use granular? Are you guys brine both? What are you doing? So, we we do both. We do both. You know? um Just, ah you got to watch the storm, though If it comes in wet, you know, you can't, you know, you can't use the brine. So, but, you know, and then we go with the bulk. So,
00:46:23
Speaker
Amen. yeah how of ah How have all the cases been? like I have a bunch of cases too. They've been great for me. How they been with you? They've been great. They've been really, really good. They've been really good. So did you see, Steve, did you see the new case? I think it's called an S15.
00:46:38
Speaker
Is it NS15? Right? S15. Is that the compact loader? Yes. A little subcompact? Yeah. like thing Yeah. So we bought three of them this year. got three of them.
00:46:49
Speaker
I just have to buy some kind of attachments like brooms or something for the front of them. Well, at Simon, found what I want to buy for him. Cool. but But they that's going to be a really, really good asset down at the – we do a lot of street sidewalks in a town called Bayonne.
00:47:06
Speaker
Okay, yep. Yeah, Bayonne. We have miles and miles and miles of sidewalks. So we're going to use down there. We're going to use at least probably two of them down there. And those will be 12-month machines for you too. No, because they're sold already. No, no we we bought them this year. That's the business model for these case machines. I got you. i got got there We buy them now, but before you even buy them, you got them sold. gotcha They're leaving next year. go all out on these things. I put vinyl, I put Kinetty, snow management all over these friggin'. We peel the shit all off in the spring and clean them all up and we truck them out.
00:47:45
Speaker
I'm lucky I own my own Transport company called monster transport. So we I did that because the first couple years of me doing this business model, right?
Transport Company and Competition
00:47:55
Speaker
I'm paying a lot of money eat to to have my machines delivered picked up delivered everything So I'm like this so we bought one tractor so now we're up to four tractors, you know with the low boy trailers and We have flatbed trails. because We own a salt company. So we're delivering salt like crazy, you know good for you.
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome try to be a We try to be self-sufficient so we don't have to rely on anybody. We can transport our own stuff. We get our own salt, you know, buy into these ships. So you don't have buy a whole ship. You can into the ship, you know.
00:48:29
Speaker
You have your own pile somewhere, you know. Makes sense. Yeah. You can do it. That's great. Yeah. That's great. Good for you. That's the hassle of snow or else he's sitting here there with a big big bill on your hands.
00:48:40
Speaker
you know yep So we know the answer to this already, but i yeah we got to ask you. what are you What are you putting on all these loaders and skids and stuff plow-wise? ah what do What do you think? Arctic. Arctic sectionals. There is no other.
00:48:55
Speaker
There is no other. Nope. I don't even know what we bought this year. i Somehow I got this number embedded in my head last year. So for the 20... 425 season we we bought $440,000 worth of ah sectionals and one in one year and we went up this year so we spent even more this year because those are all sold they're gone you know after so you're getting rid of the plows too every year every year gone good for you unless there's no snow out there so they're like new yeah they are that's it I'm going to town the next time I need a sectional there you go
00:49:33
Speaker
That's awesome. That's cool. That's cool. what ah What kind of brine equipment? What are you using for brine equipment? What brand? I started off with D-Ice Depot. Okay.
00:49:45
Speaker
um Very good machine. We have no complaints about it at all. But then, you know, at Syma, talking to people, this and that, we ended up up buying three more, the VSIs. Okay.
00:49:57
Speaker
Yep. You know? Cool. Have you used them yet in a season or or you're buying them for next season? No, the VSIs are brand new. Okay. um But the it actually, Boss owns VSI.
00:50:10
Speaker
Did you know that? Yes. Yes. So we have a great relationship with Boss. We really, really do. We buy – how many – how many salters I have from them and you know, everything, you know, you using the boss salt spreaders, but you use Western plows.
00:50:28
Speaker
Yeah. That's interesting. So I did it. <unk>s It's funny. I did a speaking engagement. I know what year it was because it's on a 2012, uh, 3500 Chevy that we have. Okay. I did a speaking engagement for boss and they said, what do you want? What do you need? I go, what do you mean What do I need? I did this for a favor for you guys. You know, did a speaking thing, you know, and they're like, for real. I'm like,
00:50:50
Speaker
I don't know. What you mean? Like a plow? Yeah. What do you want? I'm like, okay. So I had a brand new truck that had no plow on it. So we got a V-Blade. We got a V-Boss V-Blade. It's still on there today. The guys use it.
00:51:03
Speaker
They prefer the wideouts, but we've got to put the right guy in there and they use it. you know so But yeah, we it's funny. V-Blade. BOSS is, they have on, we have vests. All the people that work and in and MetLife Stadium, yeah we have red Kennedy vests, okay?
00:51:21
Speaker
So it says on the back, really big, Kennedy Snow Management, right? And right on the front says, BOSS, snow equipment or whatever. okay ye They actually bought us back when we got the account back in 2013.
00:51:34
Speaker
I think it was like 750 vests, you know? Wow, nice. And every time we go in there, we bring the boxes down with us. And then they come back, they go to the laundromat and get them washed up and folded up and put back storage to go to the next dorm, you know?
00:51:48
Speaker
God, that's so got to be such a logistics nightmare to do that. You've got to have somebody collecting. yeah Two people standing by the door so they don't walk out with the vests. But we learned over, it's like, holy shit, we lost a bunch of vests this time. So next time, next dorm, someone has to stand there and collect the vests, know?
00:52:06
Speaker
But it did that that place is, holy crap, I got stories I could tell you about that, about my life, things that happened there. yeah like Something that big you could never know until you know.
00:52:16
Speaker
like You could never know what's going to happen or or what problems going have until you experience them. I know you know. Okay, well, let's not make that mistake again. We learned. you know yeah i don't I don't know. I wouldn't even know where to start, Tom.
00:52:28
Speaker
yeah but Yeah. It's big. It's big. And you know these people that you have working in there, you hire them. and you don't know really how they're gonna produce till they're there.
00:52:39
Speaker
and This is crazy. They show up in sneakers and they show up in sweatpants and they got a hoodie on, sweatshirt and it's snowing. Like really? That's Jeremy's entire workforce at Glacier. They all they all show up like that. crack We don't get our equipment. But they're inside. their bowl These guys are out in the element shoveling. It's insane.
00:53:01
Speaker
So so what what we had to do what we had to do is we had to lock every other bathroom or every third bathroom because At MetLife, the bathrooms are really warm.
00:53:12
Speaker
So these guys are freezing. And they go, we're losing all these guys. Where are We go up there and they're in the bathroom, all hanging out in the bathroom. Right? um We've caught, people get caught. So there's, New Jersey State Police has a precinct in that stadium with a jail and everything. So guys have got caught wandering around the stadium, end up in jail. We get a phone call, you know,
00:53:37
Speaker
come get your You got two guys sitting in the clink over here. Come get out. Like, holy mackerel, know? Oh, my God. You go there. You go there. You think going to be an easy, eye three, four inches, five inches. You're have an easy night. Yeah.
00:53:51
Speaker
These guys have a way of messing that up on you. What's the average, like an average two- or three-inch storm? What's the time involved to do that now that we're back on MetLife? About eight hours. Eight hours?
00:54:01
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Wow. That's pretty good. Yeah. And what do you do, put it all down onto the playing surface and then cart it away? No. So inside that stadium, there are 22 skid steers running around inside on on on the on the all the levels, all three levels. okay There are it's four four snow melters per floor.
00:54:27
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. and And if you ever go in a stadium, you'll see it looks like HVAC on the wall, stainless on the wall. Okay. take You look at it, think it's for your air conditioning system, you know? But it's not. It's just wide enough for a skid steer bucket to dump the snow.
00:54:41
Speaker
And it goes down all three levels, and it goes below the stadium, down on ground level. It goes down. So that's what those chutes are for. That's amazing. I did not know that. Yeah. So they, you know, you get, you're getting melted and you're getting the snow scooped out, but they're getting the snow fed by my shovelers. Okay.
00:54:57
Speaker
So my people are, they're shoveling it down. you got those shoots that were, we were moving around, right? Take six, six men, to move the chutes. And tell you what, the women that are shoveling are better than the guys, most of them. I'm sure.
00:55:11
Speaker
Meticulous, hard workers, the guys are screwing around, you know. Getting arrested, ending up in Meadowlands Jail. Lately what I do is I tell, I got my supervisors. we got like I think last year we had 33 of them.
00:55:25
Speaker
So I want one at the bottom. So if you go into an area section, I want at one at the bottom and one at the top. Because you've got to keep an eye. you gotta watch This guy's watching up and that guy's watching down. okay And you've got to make sure everybody's working.
00:55:38
Speaker
And you've got to just motivate these people. You've got to talk to them. Come on. This is how you do it. You show them real quick. It's like a lot of motivation. You're doing great. 47 sections left to go.
00:55:50
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, my God. That one storm that we had on that December 17th in 2013. Yep.
00:56:00
Speaker
The game started at 1. You know what time my guys walked out of there? 12.40. We were forced to leave at 12 noon. Wow. All night because it was coming down sideways. it turned to rain, sleet, all kinds of shit. Snow. Everybody got f frozen and wet, and they wanted just to get out and leave. We lost a lot of people that storm.
00:56:20
Speaker
wow Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That's crazy. So outside of MetLife, how many guys do you have on, not counting the the MetLife crew, how many guys do you guys have on during a storm?
00:56:33
Speaker
About 350. 350? Wow. Yeah. Wow, that's big. Yeah, a lot payroll. lot payroll. A lot of payroll. I was just going to say, is your wife still doing payroll?
00:56:45
Speaker
ah Yeah. Wow. Good for her. Yeah. Yeah. 350. Man, I could see now why she didn't want to do anymore. That's not, not, it's not not a good topic.
00:56:58
Speaker
Got it. Got it. yeah Oh man. I don't know. Can you hear me, Tom? the Yeah. Yep. So, Let's get back to equipment. arctics Are you using any Arctic Razorbacks yet? Have you put any of those in your fleet? No, I have not.
00:57:15
Speaker
um Lucas is trying to get me to put one on a truck. We'll we'll probably put one on, you know. um you know they They look like they're heavy duty and we have Westerns already, so they they marry right up to the Western equipment. you Yeah, yeahp ah you'll love them.
00:57:28
Speaker
Yeah, Jeremy's very, very happy with his. so its Oh, yeah? You have have them already, huh? They're impressive. That's awesome. They're heavy. They're very heavy.
00:57:39
Speaker
But there're they actually trimmed a lot. They trimmed a lot down, right? They trimmed 150 pounds off it, I think? Something like that, they said. But, yeah, I mean, i mean you love Artix, and that's how they clean. So, I mean.
00:57:50
Speaker
Yeah, they do. it's It's literally a sectional on a pickup. yeah Pretty incredible. i But I mean, when you think about it, like I was doing that math too. And my MVP three is, I think, a thousand pounds with the map with the mount and all that hardware.
00:58:07
Speaker
The Razorback's only 1100, I think, 1150.
00:58:11
Speaker
Well, don't remember. I don't remember. I want to say it was trimmed down. I was i want to say it was 1300 originally, and then I think they trimmed it down when they changed the wing design. I could be wrong, but that's at least what I have in my head.
00:58:23
Speaker
So I'm sticking to it. but um Anything else you want to go on, Jay, with the equipment, or did you hear enough? think i heard enough. Sounds like all the stuff I like, so.
00:58:35
Speaker
There you go. All case stuff as far as the skids and the loaders, Tom? No, we have a lot of Bobcat skid steers also. How are they working for you? they They work great. They work great.
00:58:46
Speaker
good Good. Some caterpillars. have some cats. Okay. I know, Jeremy, you got all cats, right? Pretty much. Yeah. count They got a good mix. Yeah, we got a good mix. I mean, majority cats. We got deers. We got a case, couple of ovals. So, you know, so.
00:59:03
Speaker
Whatever you get a good deal on, right? They're a melting pot. well We got cats a lot because of our dealership was great. And then we got a bunch of John Deere places, so we had to get some John Deere's to do those places. And COVID hit, so we got some good deals on Volvo's. Nice.
00:59:20
Speaker
We got a few more cases coming from Lucas this year, so we had a few more cases this year. so yeah Cool. You can't do John Deere corporate headquarters with case or cat loaders.
00:59:32
Speaker
they throw they f fra mu me yeah You wouldn't have that contract. and we We were talking about the other piece of equipment here and you're out. That is great. That's so funny, man. ah I think, Tom, I already know the answer this, but I'm going to ask it anyway. is Is there a lot of, for a company your size, do you have a lot of competition ah from guys in your area or you know are you can you pretty much cherry pick what you really want to go after?
01:00:00
Speaker
No, we have competition. And the competition are the guys, they're lowballing. I mean, we know what their numbers should be. Um, and, and I spent a lot of time on, on estimating along with ah my operations director, Joe, Joe Porter, he, him and I take care of all these snow estimates and our snow salesman just feeds us these leads, you know, like last Saturday I was booked all day on the road, looking at that parking lots this Saturday booked, looking at parking lots, you know, just getting ready to, you know, for the season.
01:00:30
Speaker
Um, but the competition, yeah, you got the, the guys are you know, The smaller guys, i guess maybe their overhead's lower or what, but you know we know what the numbers should be. And we know we know what we need to charge to give them the service that they want. yeah yeah That's the big thing. And slip and falls and all that kind of stuff. you know um And I deal with that a lot. The slip falls, I do a lot of expert witness work for attorneys, you know which is very boring.
01:00:57
Speaker
Very boring. Lots of paper to read and stuff like that. you know but it pays very well. It pays well and I do it, you know? And just the things that you look at, and I go out to the sites and I read what these guys do, and it's like, holy crap, you know?
01:01:11
Speaker
Like, we don't want to be we don't want to do that. we you know You learn from other people's mistakes, know? Absolutely. That's great.
Contract Challenges and Weather Services
01:01:17
Speaker
Absolutely true. Yeah. I think, uh, what I've heard from a couple of guys in Jersey is the problem. The last couple of years is you guys have been low in snow and there's a bunch of guys out there banking on the no snow model, basically.
01:01:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it's seasonal. Okay. So I try to get third, 35% seasonal. Okay. We're having a hard time hitting that number, hitting that percentage.
01:01:43
Speaker
People are, they're, they're, they're backing off a seasonal. See, they, you know, come up, you know, Charge me when it snows. you know Give me a per vent number. you know and you know You want to have a certain amount of money in a kitty to pay the bills.
01:01:56
Speaker
you know These payments on these loaders, they're not cheap. you know You ain't kidding. You are not kidding. you know Oh, man. So, what else here? I mean, you just said your your contract structure, you try and keep it 35% seasonal.
01:02:14
Speaker
Yeah. Do you guys use a contracted weather forecast service? Yes, I do. I have ah i have a couple couple. I'm actually personally friends personal friends with Rob Garino from The Weather Bros. Have you seen his Emmy? I know you have. Oh, yeah. I've i' held his Emmy. I've carried his Emmy. It so happens, this guy ends up, I got to, hey, do you have an extra bed in your room? Like when we go to these events. Why, Rob? Oh, because I got here late and I didn't have time to... but Yeah, you you could sleep on the other bed, Rob.
01:02:46
Speaker
He's never been on time for any show. He always gets there late. He's always late. so Good guy, though. Good guy. Rob's great. He's the best. Him and Joe, my my my operation director, Joe, he...
01:02:59
Speaker
He, they, they, they bump heads. They compete. You know, I call active Joe. So Joe should have been a a meteorologist. He is so on point. He's like, the weather is his hobby almost, you know what mean? He, he could predict it's going stop snowing in 22 minutes.
01:03:14
Speaker
Look at your watch. Holy shit. It stopped snowing in 22 minutes, you know? And it's like, he's on point with it. So him and Rob go head to head. They bump me. Like Rob's wrong. He's so wrong. He's, this is what's going happen. And I'm like, a lot of times Joe's right.
01:03:28
Speaker
You know? Yeah. So it's pretty cool. But yeah, i have, um, I have, um, uh, what the heck is it? It was the national weather station at a Keterboro. Okay. All right. But they, they sold to a company called precision weather.
01:03:42
Speaker
He's out of a, he's out of mass Massachusetts. Okay. Okay. Um, and, uh, and then, uh, we get the ion weather report because one of the commercial accounts that we do requires it. So they send it to us for billing, you know, so we get that report.
01:03:58
Speaker
never heard of that before. Like, I just heard of this happening where they said you have to use this company on certified snow totals. Like, how the hell are they? Like, what arrangement is going on there?
01:04:12
Speaker
i know. You know? like i know. you know i'm i'm I'm going to be, ah let's see, industrial site C, and I'm going to require to you to have weather company A to do your certified snow totals.
01:04:24
Speaker
How did that arrangement work out? Like, hey, keep these guys 20% certified under what it actually is, and you guys can keep the contract, I think. WeatherWorks patented that certified snow.
01:04:38
Speaker
You know that, right? WeatherWorks patent. yeah You got the patent on that. Frank, he's a good guy. Yeah. But yeah, we have some accounts that require weather work. So we have to pay per zip code with them, you know, like, like we've month.
01:04:50
Speaker
So they charge it per zip code, you know? So, you know, the other two are different. The other two are different. um You just pay, you know, how many towns you work in and it's this much for year, you know? It's just odd that certain sites require a certain weather company because there's ones that there's ones that require different ones. like i I've heard like two or three of them now across the country that like guys have said, have you ever heard of this before? I'm like, not until the last couple years, yeah but I guess it's a thing. yeah It doesn't happen around here.
01:05:20
Speaker
So we have three that we subscribe to it and then we have the weatherworks that we have to subscribe to, but that's for certain customers, you know? So we actually have mentioned have four four meteorology services that we use. Gotcha.
01:05:32
Speaker
Which one's the best? Yeah, which one's the best? and I'm friends with all these guys. You're going to me do that? Really? You don't have to. All right. We love the doctors. They're all good. They're all good. They're all good. They're all equally good, and they're all equally terrible.
01:05:46
Speaker
Exactly. the The only guys that get paid to be wrong. That's it. 30% the time. Yeah. thirty percent of the time but yeah it's They love us. I mean, but yeah it's true, though. they Only baseball players and meteorologists can bat 300 and yeah be you know make money off it.
01:06:05
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. ah That's great. ah So let's get into some good stuff here, Tom, because I want to hear you've been doing this a ah long, long time. You've seen fads come and go. You've seen things happen to this industry.
01:06:18
Speaker
what What are your biggest issues facing snow management industry today? Okay. All right.
Generational Work Ethic and Insurance Costs
01:06:27
Speaker
these What do these new people call the kids?
01:06:31
Speaker
Zentals? What do they call them? Gen Zs? I just don't even know. I don't even know what to call them. They're called Gen Zs. That's what they're called. You never heard that? but I've heard of it. I don't know what generation we're actually in right now. It's it's so hard. yeah They don't want to work.
01:06:47
Speaker
They don't want to work. People don't want to do this kind of work. You know, we do have our, our guys have been with us a long time, die hard out there working hard through the snow, working through, you know, the blizzards and things like that.
01:07:01
Speaker
Those are the die hard guys that we can count on. And they work for us generally through the landscape year also, you know? Um, so, you know, those, those guys are, but these new guys, these new, they don't want to work.
01:07:13
Speaker
I see it all everywhere. Like, and our garden center too. Like we hire these kids. They don't want to work. They last like three hours and they quit. Yeah. You know, its hot. My feet hurt. My back hurts. Mom, yeah but mom didn't send an extra pop tart. I'm pissed off.
01:07:29
Speaker
Yep. yup So, so that's, that's one of the biggest ones is the, finding the employees. And we're, we're struggling right now on our landscape division, finding, you know, drivers and things like that, you know, and, um,
01:07:45
Speaker
Like, it's it's it's amazing how these guys, they don't want to work. It's 100 degrees out, okay? You know, you're like you signed up for a landscape position. You're working outside. know, when you get in the truck, you' got air conditioning in a truck, you know? There you go. Back when I did it, there was no air conditioning the truck when I was out there cutting grass, you know?
01:08:00
Speaker
Open the windows, you know? Yup. So, but, ah you know, these these guys, they quit. This is the best, okay? Forget about getting two weeks notice. You don't even get two hours notice. They just don't show up. Yeah.
01:08:14
Speaker
No notice. It's just they don't know. No contact. They ghost. Yeah. So the whole work ethic is just done. It's over. It's done. You know, and listen, there's people, some people that will give you some notice, but a lot of people don't, you know, and I guess it's the industries that we're in.
01:08:30
Speaker
you know, type of people that we're working with, but it's hard to find hands-on, hardworking people that, you know, and the ones that you do find, they stay with you, you take care of them, You know, and you do things, you know, for them. And that's a lot to do with parenting, too, of this Generation Z. Because if I left somebody hanging, oh, my God. Like, that was a no-fly zone.
01:08:56
Speaker
Like, you are you are going to show up at all costs. And if you're missing a limb or you're in the hospital, then you're going to call. You're going to make sure they know where you are. You're not going to ghost on them.
01:09:07
Speaker
yeah But now that's, it's, it's like, they don't want to, they're not going to contact you. They're going to ghost because they don't want to have an uncomfortable conversation. Exactly. Exactly.
01:09:18
Speaker
and It's so wrong. It's so wrong. Just man up and say, this is not for me. And shake hands and depart. Yep. I hear you. hold So another issue is insurance.
01:09:31
Speaker
Oh yeah. Very hard. There's limited companies out there writing the policies, right? And it's holy mackerel. Some of the premiums that we pay is ridiculous on the insurance.
01:09:43
Speaker
And you want that up front. I'm lucky enough to be friends with the guy that owns my insurance agency. He lets us pay it off in like two payments, three payments like that. But it's a big number.
01:09:54
Speaker
and Insurance is a huge problem, especially in our area. Yeah. Forget it. You want to put snow next to any policy. Oh, my God. And and hope what's horrible is you could run a company, Tom, like I'm sure you guys do, where you are very safety conscious.
01:10:11
Speaker
You don't have these claims. You do snow the right way. You don't have slip and falls on your records. And you're paying for all the low ballers and the guys that don't know what the fuck they're doing. I know. All that shit. It's bullshit. But that's what we're dealing with in the Northeast.
01:10:25
Speaker
Exactly. And every... Every other commercial on on on the news channels and the TVs is, ah so did you fall on snow or ice or something like that?
01:10:37
Speaker
You know, it's that. And you got the you got the billboards going down the highway. got the billboards. You know, these these ah attorneys, ah ambulance chaser attorneys, you know, even on the buses.
01:10:49
Speaker
I'm sure you've seen the buses. Everywhere. do we cheat them and how is everywhere. They are everywhere. You know. It's so bad, man. But yeah, so so the insurance is one big issue, okay?
01:11:00
Speaker
And the next thing is the cost of the equipment. yeah Big bucks. Big bucks. A lot more than what it used to be 10 years ago. And the whole thing, the the steel went up.
01:11:13
Speaker
Oh, we got to raise the prices. Now it's the tariffs. We have tariffs, you know? you know Yeah, it's whatever the buzzword is. We just ordered tires today for two of our tractor trailers. Holy shit, I want to tell you what that bill is.
01:11:26
Speaker
Holy
Equipment Leasing and Employee Relations
01:11:27
Speaker
crap. and it's the they talk They're talking about tariffs already because a lot of this stuff comes over from China. yeah Rubber. Absolutely. You know, so it's like, Jesus. It's incredible. Yeah. and We've talked about that until we're blue in the face. that just It kind of went from it was always expensive, but at least it was budgetable to now certain companies, unless you're above a certain size revenue stream wise, you can't afford these things. they're You're not going to get your money out of them by the time you know it's time to go. And that's why that that leasing model or the Dinesse model that they're yeah they're talking about.
01:12:01
Speaker
That's why that makes so much sense to a guy like my size and and smaller guys, because that's the only way we can afford to get into equipment. Yep, exactly. Can't afford it. The same machine I paid $42,000 for in 2018 is now $79,000. I know. It's crazy. Are you fucking kidding me? You've almost doubled it in five years or six years?
01:12:21
Speaker
It's insane. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculously ridiculous. It's pretty much the same machine. Pretty much the same machine. It is the same machine. They put a TV screen in the corner. That's it.
01:12:32
Speaker
That's it. and's it But yeah, it's that's why that's making so much more sense for guys now doing it that way. But yeah, it's crazy. So anything, anything else? Cause those are, yeah, those are three huge ones, especially in our area.
01:12:47
Speaker
Um, just to if the the biggest thing is I would wish it would snow more, you know, yeah that, that, but you know, yeah you can't really help that. And, Now you worry about what's going on with the environment. Why did we get so much snow back in back in the 70s and the 80s when we were growing up? And so then now it's like, you're not getting it now.
01:13:07
Speaker
You know, Jeremy's getting it. Holy crap, you get it out there. you're not here two They had two lows in a row, two low years in a row. Yeah, but you got that account. You were saying something about if it snows at one point once in – December, the wind blows it back. Every day you're out. soul Oh, that's true.
01:13:23
Speaker
Yeah, that is true. Right. We'll clear the snow from the wind itself, but yeah, it definitely, uh, it hasn't been good the last two. I mean, what was have? 16 inches two years ago and last year Yeah.
01:13:34
Speaker
They were, you were 57, three years and then 16 and what? 20 this year. Yeah. 16 and 23 or something. It was, or yeah, don't even know. Depends who you asked. Depends who certified it.
01:13:45
Speaker
yeah yeah totally great ah we made the best of it though i tell you that much oh man yeah the wind plays havoc out there yeah tell you all about it that's what you need you need for us we need a big snow in early december or november then and we're good because then the wind just blows everything there you go for the rest of the year He's blowing it around.
01:14:11
Speaker
Well, don't worry, guys, because Dr. Garino said we're we're up this year. yeahp all right zo That's it. The doctor is in, and he said we're going to be up. So that's good. I'm looking forward to it.
01:14:23
Speaker
Oh, man. Um, Tom, if you don't mind, like let guys benefit from your experience and your career doing this. So as long as you have and as successful as you are, have you learned any lessons besides the do what you say you're going to do and, you know, and show up on time?
01:14:41
Speaker
Have you learned anything in your early stages or maybe as you started to scale up that you'd want to pass on to young guys or, or any guys that might just be starting out in the process? Um,
01:14:54
Speaker
Just, you know, listen, just try to do the the right thing. You know, always out there, you know, take care of your people. You have good employees. Take care of your employees. um Do what you can to make them happy. And, you know, we have we have barbecues and we have, you know, of course, around holidays and things like that, we we do things and Christmas bonuses and stuff, you know, always take care of your people. Don't forget.
01:15:15
Speaker
Sometimes you have people that you don't. bring, you know that aren't working landscape, that you don't see all the time. Some of those people could be people that are seasonal, the snow guys, you know, so don't forget those guys, you know.
01:15:28
Speaker
um Image, okay, so if you want it, our trucks, i got I spent a lot of money, a lot of money keeping our trucks looking good, okay. I got a guy that comes to my so my yard every Saturday.
01:15:43
Speaker
It takes him three Saturdays to get through all the trucks. So yeah, this is something my yeah Kevin He keeps track of, you know, he keeps track of the trucks. and there's ah There's a sheet printed out on Friday.
01:15:58
Speaker
He text messages Manny. He's the guy that washes our trucks and puts me on it, you know, with the list of this is what's going on. I trust Kevin. He's doing a good job with it, you know. But that's my controller is doing this, you know. it's kind of It's kind of but beneath him, but it gets done correctly, you know.
01:16:13
Speaker
So that that, the guys, you know, I'm big on the guys keeping the trucks clean. We have a night yard man that works here and night. until about 9 o'clock at night usually. Dumping the trucks. fuel We have our own fueling on the site.
01:16:27
Speaker
Fueling the trucks. He has a whole checklist that he fills out. He inspects it. Because I'm big on scratches and dings. I lose my mind. you know yeah So so you first thing, walk up and down the trucks.
01:16:39
Speaker
Look for that. and Walk up and down the trailers. Look for any any damage. um We have a body ah body guy that comes in a couple days a week. We always got an ongoing list of of work for him to do, body work. you know um We have a spray booth here that could spray. Nice. oh Yeah.
01:16:57
Speaker
So I have a guy full time. This is his job, full time. i mean, he works snow ops. for us uh alejandro his name is and all he does every single day is grind with a needle scaler uh we have a big sand blaster go sandblast he knows how to use a spray gun to paint or sometimes he just brushes it and rolls it on but he said because we have a lot of um we have we have 17 or 18 sidewall crews and they pull open trailers open landscape trailers okay yep
01:17:29
Speaker
So that's where all the equipment, the snow Raiders and next and that kind of stuff goes on those, the vent tracks go on those trailers. Gotcha. And then they got four door diesel pickups and they put the back, in the back of that, they got a pallet of ice melt, whatever they need in the shovels, whatever, you know?
01:17:44
Speaker
So those trailers, he goes through them top to bottom every year, touches them up, cleans them up. um We have an outdoor lift outside. So that he puts them up on that, goes through them. All the trucks, he goes through the frames on the trucks and,
01:17:58
Speaker
Cleans them and you know, we do a four day work week here. So on Fridays, all the trucks are parked here Friday and Saturday. No one's so he he goes to count on them. You know, the mechanics have time. We have four mechanics.
01:18:11
Speaker
The mechanics have time to go through the trucks Friday and Saturday because, you know, unless it stays during the week, they're all parked here on Friday and Saturday. So your image, my image, I like to keep everything nice and clean and painted. And I don't mind spending the money in this guy's salary to to keep it keep it looking good, it you know.
01:18:29
Speaker
Everything's lettered up nice. So it's a big thing out there. You know, people recognize the trucks. You know, trains. You guys are entirely self-sufficient.
01:18:40
Speaker
Like, you're not kidding. like Oh, no. Everything. You got everything. You got any chefs on staff for ah for meals? ah Actually, it's funny you said that. I don't, but the funniest thing, I'm friday friends with Troy Clough, right? yeah So I had to do a speaking engagement in Michigan, right? Years ago, right? Probably 10 years ago.
01:18:59
Speaker
And he he picked me up at the airport, right? And he brought me, he calls on his girl on the phone He has a full kitchen, stainless, something you'd in a restaurant, in his facility. I'm like, oh my god. And and it's a huge meeting room for his guys to have meetings and this and that.
01:19:16
Speaker
And he said, yeah, can you make Tom 10 egg whites, it would cut up some grilled chicken and throw it in there? right This is driving from the airport over here. I'm like, holy shit, this is great. and That's awesome. It's funny. that's yeah Troy's a good guy. Kevin won't let you have that, though.
01:19:32
Speaker
Kevin won't let you have that, though. No, we yeah we actually have two. We have two kids. Well, three kitchens in our building, but nothing big like that. you know Gotcha. ah yeah um Training of operators.
Training and Storm Action Plans
01:19:44
Speaker
That's a very important thing. They can make or break it. you know um We just recently learned, you know because we just started using it the Arctics couple years ago. And why is it it's not cleaning good? there's There's a little, isn't it like a V or something like that? And you have to line it up.
01:20:01
Speaker
Right? Where it's not going level. Right? Yep. guys are not It's not cleaning well. Why is it not cleaning well? It's because they weren't lining up the Vs, right? you know And they're grinding those edges too if if those triangles ain't lined up.
01:20:13
Speaker
So that's very important, the training of the equipment. You know, that the guys generally know how to run Snow Raiders because they're on them 12 months a year. But the Ventrax and the Steiners and that kind of stuff, you know. You know, ah so that's that's important. We do a big ah a big training here, ah PowerPoint, you know, show the guys different things, like pictures of how too much salt on walkways because it becomes dangerous then. Sure. You're walking walking on marbles, you know.
01:20:39
Speaker
Just different things. Don't push snow against the building, you know. You know, drainage problems or could damage the building. Handicap spots, you know. Don't dump your snow over into the landscaped areas, you know. you you know Just common sense things for guys like us.
01:20:55
Speaker
Yeah. But things that you want to train your people not to do. Garbage corrals, fire exit doors on buildings. It sounds like our so our same training. and It doesn't always seem to work.
01:21:07
Speaker
ah They don't work. They'll do what they You do the training, but the guys don't listen. That's it. That's it. ah But you know what? That's funny that you said that because it's amazing what older guys, like we're all, you know, older. We're not Gen Zers.
01:21:21
Speaker
It's amazing what we see as normal, just everyday, basic human survival, common sense that they don't have. I know. It's incredible.
01:21:32
Speaker
It's absolutely incredible. Yep. It is. It is. like God. Yep. So what I started doing and it works is I put some inspectors on the road. Okay. um And you don't, listen, the best inspectors are the guys that don't have plows.
01:21:48
Speaker
So you get them out there in an SUV, because if you have a plow, I'll help this crew, i'll help that crew. Before you know it, there are 20 minutes here, half hour here, 45 minutes on that site, and now they don't get around to other sites. Yes, sir. So inspectors are are very important, you know, and sometimes you can get a A guy that's been with you a long time plowing, he's like, I don't want to do this no more. How about, how would you mind driving around in a four-wheel drive or an SUV in a storm?
01:22:11
Speaker
No plow. Would you mind doing it Because you know he knows what he's looking yeah yeah but look for. So we've ended up getting a couple guys that way. Awesome. Cool. um Storm action plans.
01:22:23
Speaker
You guys do storm action plans for certain places, right? i ye Yep. And there could be multiple storm action plans for one site. depending on how much snow you're getting. you know Absolutely. You got your Armageddon plan for the Nor'easters?
01:22:38
Speaker
exactly Exactly. Start getting hotel rooms booked. Yep. Yep. Yep. Another thing that these guys should learn, okay, is putting away your equipment correctly, taking it apart, taking certain things off, cleaning it well,
01:22:55
Speaker
putting it back together, and then and then storing it correctly, and then taking it out in the fall, and going through it again, making sure it works, you know? um you know So yeah with there's certain things that we learn every year. Like on on some of these boss salters, there's a panel that you gotta take something off.
01:23:13
Speaker
we We didn't know all the salt was getting stuck inside of it and we're running into problems. So now we learned, i come one of my mechanics figured it out, and saw you gotta take this panel off. So that's the new thing for the past two years, taking the panel off, getting inside,
01:23:25
Speaker
cleaning it out you know so and it all that costs money and you got to have hot water pressure washers hot water yeah these guys run the salt the the cold water and it's it cause makes brine you know yes it's ah yeah that's what you're doing um let's see what else what else uh i guess uh
01:23:47
Speaker
I guess that's it, really. you know i don't know um what else I can give advice for. good That was plenty. That's a lot of good stuff. Okay. Do you want to do five and five, Jay? Yeah, definitely.
01:24:02
Speaker
All right, mehas are Yeah, you know what? We'll hit some commercials. We'll be right back in 45 seconds. Gentlemen, let me tell you about the best-kept secret in the snow game, Top Gun Backblades.
01:24:13
Speaker
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01:24:54
Speaker
Experience innovation at www.razorbackplow.com. All right, we're back. We're back. So, Tom, unmute your mic there. Sorry, I hit that by accident.
01:25:07
Speaker
We'll unmute Tom. We'll get right back to... Right back to the show. So he's back. ah So Jeremy, like take us right to the five and five, buddy. All right, Tom, where would you like to see your company go within in the next five years?
Company Growth and Future Plans
01:25:20
Speaker
what are you looking at? Where do you want to see it go? Well, I know where we came from, from five years ago. Okay. And it's been a really, you know, ah I guess a nice ride, I could say, know, we got involved with the whole,
01:25:38
Speaker
the The loader, the whole, um you know, buying all brand new loaders every single year. And then having them sold and gone following year and getting on board to get more new ones.
01:25:50
Speaker
And we're transporting them. I bought the trucks to do it, you know. um So, but but by doing that, we were able to grow our business a lot larger.
01:26:02
Speaker
And I only see it as growing pretty much the same way. going forward because, you know, now, now we have a business model. We can tell the clients, you know, prospects that we're out there soliciting, uh, down showing them, you know, all the new equipment that we have, the lineup and, you know, our plans to to to go forward would be the same thing. You know, um, you know, Brian is, I think Brian is, we're going to start Brian a lot more than we have been in the past, you know, cause it's actually, it's, I don't know if it's safer, but it's, I think it's, uh,
01:26:37
Speaker
It's more effective and especially cost effective for us. yeah. But yeah, think that going to build it pretty well. I think it's like 63 new loaders we bought this year.
01:26:48
Speaker
build it pretty well you know think we have it's like sixty three new loaders we've bought this year so You know, if we can get that number up for the next five years, I definitely would like to see that.
01:27:02
Speaker
Like, you get into more logistic places. You want the sites at that are easier, you know. HOAs, they suck. But sometimes we have to them. We got to do them because we do the landscaping there.
01:27:14
Speaker
And we try not to get the really big ones, you know. oh Big box retail is kind of, it's it's okay, but it's not, you know, you a lot of, you know, pedestrian traffic, you know, yeah walking through, but logistic places are the places you want, you know, hospital logistics, office buildings are okay too.
01:27:32
Speaker
They're not bad except where, you know, you got the the women with their fancy shoes that have to come out when it snows, you know? um So yeah.
01:27:43
Speaker
Awesome. So I think you just answered my part of the five and five there. So I was going to ask you, what what is the best decision you've made in the last five years to get you to where you are today?
01:27:54
Speaker
Would that be the equipment as well? The equipment. Definitely the equipment. Definitely the equipment. And i you know i started with the loaders, and I have a ton of my own snow pushers I've got to sell. got to sell these things. They're sitting around.
01:28:07
Speaker
you know before they become boat anchors. They've got to get rid of these things. you know Different brands and stuff like that. and i um My guys are hooked on Arcus. They grabbed me early in the spring because we did our order.
01:28:18
Speaker
If you want your machines by you know the fall, by November, we put our order in in April. So you've got to start thinking, like I don't know how many accounts. What if we lose accounts and I don't need equipment?
01:28:32
Speaker
I'm buying lowers that I might not be using. You know, so we rented out a couple last year, you know, so I guess we can rent out if we go over and we buy too much, we can rent them, you know? yep So, but what having warranties is crucial.
01:28:49
Speaker
The only thing I don't like is if you call a case to come out and do a road call for you, they they charge you for that road call. they don't They charge you for that. But, you know, but it's warrantied. The work is warrantied, you know?
01:29:02
Speaker
Same thing with the trucks. All these trucks, the Fords that we bought, you know, they're all warrantied. They're all warrantied. It's another great thing. And what I usually do is I buy, you know, enough to get us through seven, eight years on warranties, you know, with the older trucks and stuff like that.
01:29:17
Speaker
And i I always tell them, we're going to sell it at seven or eight years. And guess what's sitting in the parking lot 10, 11, 12 years later? That same truck that was supposed to be sold.
01:29:28
Speaker
Truck number one. That's 67 pickup. It's still there. 66. I got pictures of that truck. Yeah. Yeah. That was my baby. I bet.
01:29:39
Speaker
Spent a lot of time working on that. You don't still have it though, right? No. Man, well that would be like so cool if if you could find another one and like restore it. I like it would.
01:29:49
Speaker
Have it at the shop or something. That would be really cool. I have an old Mac from the 60s in my yard. Really? That I want to fix up. Yeah, an old Mac. Everybody's oh, just get rid of that. No, day I'm going to do something with it.
01:30:03
Speaker
Definitely. Put a crazy engine in there something like that. like i don't know. I love the old Max. Oh, man. Well, that's awesome. Jay, you got anything else for him before we let him go? Yeah, Tom.
01:30:15
Speaker
You got any good snow story or plowing stories? Oh, yeah. Any good plowing stories you want to show, tell everybody?
Humorous Anecdotes and Lowball Contracts
01:30:21
Speaker
Plowing stories. Okay. All right. So there's a psychiatric hospital that we take care of. Already funny.
01:30:31
Speaker
Got it. ah Psychiatric hospital. And I go up there. It's on my route. i go up and I check it out when we're planning it. Right. And it's it's weird, man. Holy crap.
01:30:42
Speaker
um So you go in there and you're in the middle of night, two o'clock, and you see people standing. And the windows on the in the hallways, was just standing. You think they're like statues, and but you see the silhouette of them in the windows. It's crazy, you know?
01:30:57
Speaker
But you got to go in and you got sign in, okay? um But I got to tell you another story in a second when I tell you what happened, okay? Okay. um So you got sign in.
01:31:08
Speaker
So we have an operator showing up directly there to to operate a machine, one of our loaders, right? Well, it didn't go so well for him.
01:31:18
Speaker
right he He had to show his credentials. He signs in. He forgot his wallet or whatever like that. But he was acting kind of weird. Like he got a little like weird on the people. you know They committed him.
01:31:34
Speaker
They put him in. no shit. They locked him up in there. He was in there for... Before before he got out, he was in 68 hours. They kept him detained in in in the psychiatric hospital.
01:31:46
Speaker
Holy crap. the The amount of phone calls that came in to us the next day from him, um it was bad. like Like, it's our fault that you were acting, you know, not normal.
01:31:57
Speaker
You know, like, come on. maybe Maybe you should go there, you know? They didn't kidnap you. There was a reason why they... yeah Yeah, there was a reason why they kept you in there, you know? I mean, security and all kinds of stuff in there. So so he got detained. We actually had the the Wayne police here the next day because he was driving by making threats to us. like it it was It got really ugly back here. So now, like, okay, yeah, we got a guy that is great on a loader, that knows how to run a loader, has worked for us in the past, but he just lost his shit, you know? Gotcha.
01:32:29
Speaker
Yeah, so that, that, that, so I'm in, when we got this, originally got this account, I'm sitting in the conference room, okay, and I'm sitting with ah the director, okay, it's it's a woman, and she's, her phone is blown up.
01:32:44
Speaker
She answers the phone, she's like, I'm in a meeting right now, it was it was me, and it was like two other, or three other, it was like four people in the whole meeting, right? So the patients are beating each other, right?
01:32:56
Speaker
With the tables and the chairs, they just got brand new furniture delivered and nobody bolted and nailed it down to the floors. Party time. you have to nail it down, secure it to the floor.
01:33:08
Speaker
they're They're out there while we were in this meeting beating each other with tables and chairs and stuff like that. Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. And all this director wanted to do, right?
01:33:21
Speaker
She grabs me on the side. She goes, listen, this is when we first got the account. I want to drive in a loader. I don't have to drive the loader. I want to drive in a loader. So I had one of the, you know, that was on my route to check.
01:33:33
Speaker
I actually had to get her up inside one of the loaders with the operator and let him drive the loader while she was sitting there hanging out little you know? Oh my God. It was pretty cool. The director of the hospital. you know was beating each other Beating each other with the furniture. Those are good stories.
01:33:49
Speaker
Yeah. um Let's see. What else? I got to have something else. Yeah. i Okay. So I had ah i had a van. had a van that kind of at there's these two malls in Sea Caucus that they intersect, they touch each other. It's really, really big. It's like a mini city. It's 78 miles worth of sidewalks and and in streets.
01:34:11
Speaker
yeah um it's It's a really big place. So we have a yard over there. And one of our vans, we have a bunch of vans that move the guys around with the bags of material and shovels and stuff like that. They just drive around the mall.
01:34:26
Speaker
So... I don't know, the drive shaft broke off. It punctured the gas tank. it was It was done. It was an older van. It was ready to go, you know? So, like, during a storm. So I jump in, and we had a Okay.
01:34:42
Speaker
five hundred okay You know how big that is, right? you Six and a half yard bucket on it, right? So I jump in it. just just It's like you know like when it's a long storm, it's like you just it's just acting stupid. it It's like 2 o'clock the morning.
01:34:56
Speaker
I jumped in and I scooped up the van. I scooped it up right in the bucket. I lifted it as high as I could lift it. And I dropped it, right? And then I picked it up again and dropped it again. Then I got on top of it with the with the wheels and tires and like a monster truck.
01:35:11
Speaker
It just... Crushed your shit out of it. And then I called my buddy the next day at the salvage yard, and he he came and he flatbed it of there and he gave us $400 for scrap metal. There you go. Win-win.
01:35:23
Speaker
You had fun with it. i wants to do and a night have it do just It was an aggression to just just to do it. Two o'clock in the morning was great. now It's very true. That is everybody's dream when somebody is driving like an asshole when you're the loader. You just want to crush the car. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God. That's awesome. Yeah.
01:35:43
Speaker
There's a lot of stuff that goes on during the snowstorm stories and things like that. you Different things that go on that happen. you know um you know in you learn Listen, you learn your lessons from certain things. you know so Try not to do them again. and you know That's all you can do.
01:36:00
Speaker
That's it. That's all you can do. That's it. ah so You're going to come back on with us, Tom, if we need you in the future. Do some episodes. Whenever you want. That's awesome. Whenever you want. wes great It was great having you.
01:36:13
Speaker
Absolutely, buddy. we We thank you so much for the time. We know you're busy and we appreciate you sticking with us, working through all the technical difficulties tonight. Yeah, we definitely, ah we're always about getting information out there from guys that have experience.
01:36:29
Speaker
You know, we got to train the next generation because our only hope of keeping our private margins in intact is teaching these younger guys what they actually need to charge and what their overhead actually is and all that good stuff and how to do this job right.
01:36:44
Speaker
Exactly. that's That's so true because, they're they you know, they're lowballing. They're at their... And they're getting accounts and they think they're making money, you know, but they're, you know. Until it snows. Until it snows, you know. And, i mean, they get this this whole this whole fallacy with, oh, I got Walmart. I got Home Depot. i got to And I'm going to do it for 30 grand for the whole season.
01:37:06
Speaker
Like, really? Are you kidding me? You know, that's why i had I had about seven Walmarts, but we were getting good money for them. Yeah. We really were. We were getting good money for them. So I was happy. And then all of a sudden,
01:37:18
Speaker
Here comes a national. Oh, yeah. Grabbing them up and trying to give me less than half of what we're getting. And I'm like, you know what? No. Sorry. That's the funny part is they actually go. These guys are so shameless.
01:37:32
Speaker
They go to the contractor that held it last year and to just see if they'll do it for two thirds less money. Exactly. so I mean, I give them credit for balls.
01:37:42
Speaker
Like that's huge balls. oh yeah yeah. Not much for smarts. I know. And you know what? This is what sucks. You're a hero today and you're a zero tomorrow. 100%. With what we do, with what we do it's it's horrible you know on the and yeah So with those seven Walmarts that I got, had I got five right off the bat.
01:38:03
Speaker
And one of them was at that big, the big double mall that we have. Right. okay And I get a phone call from somebody in Philadelphia that they were managing all these Walmarts. Right. He, and it was a blizzard.
01:38:13
Speaker
We had like 30 inch blizzard. Okay. And they were screwed. They're guys that they had going on to these sites. We're not prepared. Didn't have the right equipment. It was ridiculous. They're trying to plow a Walmart with a Lake, a Colorado pickup, a small little pickup, you know,
01:38:28
Speaker
Like, that's it. One truck. Okay? ah So we ended up, we ended up the guy, i told him, no problem. I got you. and And my guys are, I'm at the mall and my guys are like, we can't do this.
01:38:39
Speaker
I'm like, no, we'll get it done. We'll get it done. I actually brought in a sub. that this before I had my little boys and stuff like that, he trucked in three loaders. He dropped them all at these sites. We got three of the Walmarts done that night for this guy. Okay.
01:38:56
Speaker
Three of them done. Okay. And then the next two, one was done the following day and one was done like the following day after that. Okay. But um we, we made, he goes, are you sure you could really, I'm like,
01:39:08
Speaker
I tell you, when I give someone my word and I know I can do it, you know, I had the guy that had the iron and he don't care. He'll go out in a blizzard with his low boy and and move equipment. He don't care, you know? So we got it. we got him done. We got him done.
01:39:22
Speaker
And it was like, we ended up keeping the accounts for a bunch of years because of that. they were They were loyal. They were loyal. Now somebody comes in, new bean counter, you know, and yeah and and there's no loyalty. They don't remember the 30-inch blizzard.
01:39:37
Speaker
No. Okay? They see the numbers that this this this national wants to charge. Okay? and And that's it. You're out. Goodbye. See you. 100%. 100% right.
01:39:48
Speaker
I know. it's ah It's a problem. It's it's definitely a problem. and you know And the worst part is, guess what? They tried to offer you that for two-thirds less than what you were making the year before. But yeah somebody's somebody's taking it at that.
01:40:00
Speaker
Yeah, I know. I know. and Like you said, thinking they're making money. and it's It's bragging rights. Oh, I take care of the Walmart. Or I take care of a Home Depot. I would not be bragging if you're doing a Walmart anymore.
01:40:13
Speaker
We know what the prices are, what what they're trying to get for Walmart and Sam's and stuff like that. it's yeah yeah Don't be bragging about Walmart. I know. It's it's it's crazy.
01:40:25
Speaker
But you're a hero today and you're a zero tomorrow. When they get that bill from you, could be two weeks later or whatever, They got a problem. they got They're going to call you on the phone. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It's ridiculous. you know But you got them through.
01:40:39
Speaker
You got it cleaned up. Everything was nice. you go They went to work the next day, 8, 9 o'clock in the morning. your place was perfect. But then they get the bill, and it's all on the contract. Well, did really need to salt that many times? you know or Really? Yes.
01:40:52
Speaker
Yes, we did. we do It didn't even start snowing yet, and you put your salt down. It's called a pre-salt. I'm saying, come on. Read your contract. It's in there. Yeah. Oh my God. Well, yeah, we definitely like to have you back. Uh, you know, there, there's so many different types of episodes we do throughout the year. So we'd definitely like to have you back on and shoot the shit with you again. Cause this has been fun.
01:41:14
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Great time. You let me know, you know, you've got certain topics you want to talk about and, uh, You know, um I'm there for you guys. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Tom. We appreciate you. And it was great hearing about your start. And I said, you know, I i told Jeremy the other day, i had my son on the phone because he's nine.
01:41:32
Speaker
And well, he's 10 now, but he was nine when last winter and he went out and got himself five driveways. that he went out and shoveled he had a little contract and everything that he went out there. And it clearly said that he cannot come and shovel the driveway until my mom gets up because I'm not allowed to walk around the neighborhood by myself. Oh my God.
01:41:52
Speaker
He had a whole little contract and I put him on the phone with Jeremy. I'm like, listen, let's humor the kid. He really wants to talk about his snow business. yeah And he was at right, Jay. He was good. he was really fucking funny and really good. I'm like, holy shit. like He had it all laid out where I want to go next year. I want to bring my friend on board as a worker, you know, so we can get this much done. that's awesome It's funny that you said you started at nine years old with that because that made me think about that immediately.
01:42:19
Speaker
Definitely. You got it. so You know, just keep on pushing, keep on pushing. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what we do, brother. But yeah, we'll definitely have you back on. And ah again, we really appreciate the time. You got it. Thank you, Steve. All right. Thank you, Jeremy.
01:42:32
Speaker
All right, guys. Well, then that's going to do it. We're going to wrap episode one 30 of the snow jobs podcast main show. As always, want to thank Tom so much. Like we said for coming on, he's a busy dude. ah That's it, guys. Everybody be safe out there.
01:42:46
Speaker
Have a great week. Get your snow bidding done. Keep pushing.