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S3-131: Triple J Contracting, Toronto Ontario
0 Playsin 1 hour
The guys sit down with Dave Gerow, Owner, and Frank Gerendas, General Manager of Triple J Contracting! Dave and Frank take us throught Triple J's incredible operation and growth of their snow portfolio
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Banter
00:00:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Here we go, Snow Jobs Nation. We are back again bringing you another episode of the Snow Jobs Podcast, main show powered by Top Gun Backblades. As always, I'm Steve. You know who's with me.
00:00:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
Snowby One Kenobi, Chuck Norris of Snow. He's got a lot of names. Only one Rick James. What's up, bud?
00:01:03
RICK JAMES
Hey, Steve, not a lot. How about you, buddy?
00:01:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, not much, man. lot of driving today. You flew, but we're both here. We're both doing it. It's a sunday another Sunday night recording for Monday morning release.
00:01:13
RICK JAMES
Sunday night. Yep. That's how we roll.
00:01:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gotta to love it.
00:01:15
RICK JAMES
That's how we roll.
00:01:16
The SnowJobs Podcast
nothing like Nothing like having it under pressure that nothing goes wrong, right?
00:01:20
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
00:01:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
How was the wedding?
00:01:22
RICK JAMES
Nothing. Wedding was great. It was a good time. i had a really, really fun time with, um, Billy and Angela, and I want to wish them congratulations. And yeah, it was a fun time.
00:01:32
RICK JAMES
Got to see some see some snow guys there.
00:01:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
00:01:34
RICK JAMES
So it was short and sweet, but we had a blast.
00:01:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
Angela said yes to Billy, even with you in the audience.
00:01:43
RICK JAMES
Yeah, she did. it was ah She was looking at me, though, the whole time.
00:01:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
00:01:48
RICK JAMES
So I don't know.
00:01:49
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, shit.
00:01:50
RICK JAMES
Just let her, you know.
00:01:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
She probably figured she already paid for the caterer, you know, whole flowers and stuff.
00:01:54
RICK JAMES
Yeah, yeah. When I left, I said I had to go hug her and tell her goodbye. and She whispered to me, she goes, I'm sorry, but I said, that's okay, I understand.
00:02:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
on Oh my God. It's so funny. Oh man. But congratulations, Billy and Angela.
00:02:08
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:02:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
That is awesome. We're so happy for you
Upcoming Snow Events
00:02:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
guys. Uh, we wish you all the best, all the happiness and, uh, all the good business considering Angela's like running the show now at executive, right?
00:02:19
RICK JAMES
Yeah, she's TikTok queen on for Mr. Executive there. So she's Mrs. Executive now, I guess.
00:02:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
that She's Mrs. Executive. I saw that on the, uh, what is that?
00:02:28
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:02:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
A pickup?
00:02:30
RICK JAMES
Yeah. On a truck. Yeah.
00:02:31
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's awesome. Good for them. That's great. I'm glad they're happy and I'm sorry. I could not make it out there. Just schedule was too full, so I could not do it, but I wish I was there.
00:02:39
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:02:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
I wish I was. I didn't want to miss it, but that's great. You had a good time, man. No, no problems with the flights.
00:02:47
RICK JAMES
As couple of delays on Harry, like always, but that's, that's where you go. No big deal. It was, wasn't too bad. So got there and got back.
00:02:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gotcha. Gotcha.
00:02:56
RICK JAMES
So how about you getting fun this weekend?
00:02:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
No, zero. ah What did I do? Yesterday worked 24 and today drove six hours, drove some dogs up to the lake and then drove right back so we can record this and then back to work tomorrow and then fly out Tuesday morning from New York City.
00:03:16
RICK JAMES
Ah, yes. That'll be fun. Oh, I also got to hang out with Matt McIntosh here for and CJ on Friday night from clip from Clippers.
00:03:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice, nice.
00:03:24
RICK JAMES
That was fun to see them, guys.
00:03:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
How are the Clippers? How are the Clippers?
00:03:26
RICK JAMES
That was great. They're good.
00:03:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
They're good.
00:03:28
RICK JAMES
They're real good. Excited to go to Storm Day.
00:03:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
Are they? They're coming. Yeah, they're coming to storm, right?
00:03:31
RICK JAMES
Yep. Yep. They'll be there.
00:03:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
Awesome. Yeah, it's this week. This week. Couple days.
00:03:36
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yep. Yep. They haven't got your tickets.
00:03:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Couple days.
00:03:39
RICK JAMES
Get there. Place to be.
00:03:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
Get it done. Get it done. All right, buddy. Well, what are we doing today? so Back to back big episodes here, right?
00:03:48
RICK JAMES
Yeah, ah you bet.
00:03:48
The SnowJobs Podcast
Two weeks in a row.
00:03:50
RICK JAMES
yeah Yeah, they're all big.
Meet Triple J Contracting
00:03:51
RICK JAMES
They're all big episodes.
00:03:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, they're all big, but some are bigger than others, man. We got to stop. This this is going to be spoiling, guys. They're going to expect home runs every time. this is ah This another massive another massive episode.
00:04:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
Massive Canadian snow company coming on with us today.
00:04:05
RICK JAMES
North of the border. North of the border.
00:04:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Crazy. i'm I'm expecting the snow mafia from Canada to bust my door down and stop the recording at any time right now.
00:04:15
RICK JAMES
Possible.
00:04:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
But it's always possible, man. The snow mob is strong in Canada. Don't talk snow. There's rules. You can't do that. But these guys came prepared to face the wrath of the snow mafia across the border.
00:04:22
RICK JAMES
so
00:04:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
They're going to talk about the Canadian snow game and and all the secrets that go with it. But it's extremely brave of them to do.
00:04:33
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:04:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
But all kidding aside, we got Dave Giroux and Frank Gerendis from Triple J Contracting today. They're up in Toronto. They're a little bit outside Toronto and Bradford. but You know,
Challenges in Snow Operations
00:04:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
they service a lot of Toronto and, you know, that's in Ontario, obviously.
00:04:49
Dave Gerow
Thank you.
00:04:50
The SnowJobs Podcast
But that's all we got today. there Triple J is massive. If you've ever seen their Instagram, um if you follow them, you know what I'm talking about. They are a massive snow company up in Canada.
00:05:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
um And ah possibly ah possibly one of the the one of the running in the running for a storm chasing episode is what what I'm hearing.
00:05:03
RICK JAMES
Yeah, they're...
00:05:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
if we
00:05:12
RICK JAMES
Possible.
00:05:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
Apparently, we're not allowed.
00:05:13
RICK JAMES
If we can get north border.
00:05:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, what we're not allowed north we're not allowed American photographers, right?
00:05:15
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:05:18
The SnowJobs Podcast
It has to be Canadian photographers.
00:05:19
RICK JAMES
Right. That's right here, yeah.
00:05:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's crap, dude.
00:05:22
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:05:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
How about you control all your wildfires that are smoking me out every day, and then you can tell me what photographers to use?
00:05:23
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:05:28
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:05:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
How about that?
00:05:29
RICK JAMES
okay yeah
00:05:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
I'm just kidding. Dude, it's been bad down here. The Canadian wildfire smoke is ridiculous.
00:05:36
RICK JAMES
It's terrible. Going on for like 10 years.
00:05:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
I thought we had ah thought we had better border security.
00:05:40
RICK JAMES
don't think there's...
00:05:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
how How's all the smoke getting through? I've got to put up a screen or something.
00:05:44
RICK JAMES
Oh, God.
00:05:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's crazy.
00:05:46
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:05:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
But yeah, dude, it was banked down.
00:05:48
RICK JAMES
and the Maybe that is their smokescreen. You know, what is it? The Indians used to do that smoke singling. Maybe they're singling for their government that's not doing so great up there. So...
00:05:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
its so We don't get political on this show.
00:06:01
RICK JAMES
yeah I just, had to throw it out there.
00:06:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
oh man.
00:06:04
RICK JAMES
so
00:06:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
Dude, it was bad this week, though. Like, three straight days, we were banked down. Like, it was really bad up north.
00:06:10
RICK JAMES
Yeah, same here.
00:06:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
but
00:06:12
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:06:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
What are you going to do? But yeah, these boys are here with us.
00:06:13
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:06:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
Triple J is in the house. They are going to tell us all about their operation, which is a big one. They do a lot of cool stuff, a lot of different type sites. So we're going to hear all about it. But as always, you know what we're going to do first.
00:06:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
We're going to hear from Team Top Gun. We're going to come back, do a quick week review, a couple announcements about some regional shows, and then we're going to get into it with the boys. Be back in 30 seconds.
00:07:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right, gang, we're back. Thank you to Top Gun as always. couple of announcements we're going to make about some some regional events that are coming up for snow guys if you're in those areas. August 19th, the Connecticut Groundskeepers Association, they're going to be having their Ground and Ice Expo. That's at the Durham Fairgrounds.
00:07:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah They're boasting over 50 vendors as well as free food, a couple of seminars and classes. If you're in Connecticut, I guess this meaningful. It means nothing to me in New York. I don't know what they are, but they they have classes that are offering three a and 3B Connecticut deep credits.
00:07:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah Don't know what that is, but sounds ah sounds important to you Connecticut guys. So for more information on this event, head over to cgka.org backslash events.
00:07:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right. And we we said we'd get that out. We'll talk some more about that in the next week. We'll get that out again as more information becomes available about that event. What else we got here?
00:08:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
Thursday, August 21st. A lot of Thursdays are a big day for shows, I guess. ah third Thursday, August 21st in Buffalo.
00:08:08
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:08:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah You got the Buffalo Snow and Ice Conference. This is one-day event in Amherst, New York that's right outside Buffalo. ah It's being put on by some awesome snow pros up in the Buffalo area. ah So yeah if you guys are in or around Buffalo,
00:08:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
um in that neck of the woods. Make sure you come and check it out. We'll put their flyer with the QR code to register on our Instagram, ah so that way you guys can find it there if you haven't already found it.
00:08:33
RICK JAMES
Artic Stee is going to be
00:08:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
Arctic Steve?
00:08:35
RICK JAMES
Yeah, he's going to be up there for that one.
00:08:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
Is Phil going too? Oh, no.
00:08:39
RICK JAMES
No, no.
00:08:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
No, Adam's going. Adam Hanson.
00:08:41
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:08:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
Adam's going. So Adam and Arctic Steve. and Yeah, I think I'm actually going to go to that. um I think I found a way to make it make it happen, so I'm going head up there and support the event.
00:08:53
RICK JAMES
be fun.
00:08:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, I may take the little man, too. he's ah He has no hockey that day, and he's not in school. So, like, all my normal excuses of why he can't come to snow shows are kind of blown up. So I might have to bring him along for the day.
00:09:07
RICK JAMES
Cool.
00:09:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, he'll enjoy it. August 27th in Ohio, the Ohio Landscapers Association is having their annual snow and ice clinic. That's going to be at St. Michael's Woodside in Broadview Heights, Ohio.
00:09:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
um We'll also post that information on our Instagram for anyone that is attended or interested in attending that one. What else? As we said before, Storm Day is this week out in Mankato, Minnesota.
00:09:31
The SnowJobs Podcast
that I think they still have a couple tickets, right? There's still a couple tickets available?
00:09:34
RICK JAMES
Yeah, there's a few left I heard.
00:09:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right, so if your vacation plans fell through or you didn't get them yet and you're really, a really true snow guy and procrastinating to the last second, there are still a couple tickets if you want to get in on this event.
00:09:48
The SnowJobs Podcast
It should be a great couple days. They got a good plan. And, um yeah, well we'll we'll both be
Equipment and Logistics
00:09:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
there in force. Rick James has some new snow job shirts he's bringing, right?
00:09:59
RICK JAMES
Yeah, got some t-shirts and long sleeve t-shirts there. So yeah.
00:10:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
Cool. So if you're, uh, if you're able to come on out to Mankato and, uh, come to storm day and we'll see you there. What else? No jobs nation store as always is stocked and ready for your orders. All right. That you can find that off the website, or you can just go to snow jobs, nation store.com.
00:10:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
Uh, make sure you get all your snow jobs gear and, uh, that's it. You got anything else, buddy?
00:10:25
RICK JAMES
i don't think so. I should do it.
00:10:27
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right. Then let's hear from our partners real quick and we'll be back and we'll get into this with Dave and Frank.
00:11:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right, gang, we are back. So let's ah let's do this. Triple J Contracting is in the house. Dave and Frank, welcome to the Snow Jobs, guys. How are we?
00:11:46
Dave Gerow
We're really good. Thank you for having us. Happy to be here.
00:11:48
Frank Gerendas
Thank you for having us.
00:11:49
The SnowJobs Podcast
No problem at all. Glad to have you guys. This is ah this is a big treat for us. ah A very large-sized Canadian snow company willing to talk snow. It's like a huge no-no up there.
00:12:01
Dave Gerow
letting loose lips go today. and We're going to tell you all our secrets. like
00:12:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
I love it.
00:12:06
RICK JAMES
ah Nice.
00:12:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, awesome. Did I, did I pronounce the name right, Frank? I i believe I did.
00:12:12
Frank Gerendas
You got a bang on there. Thank you. thank you
00:12:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
Love it. Love it. No problem. No problem, brother. All right, Jay, you want to take us away? I want to hear about these guys.
00:12:20
RICK JAMES
Yeah, you bet. All right, Dave, why don't you tell us, ah tell everybody about Triple J, how you guys got started, what you're all about, if you would.
00:12:28
Dave Gerow
right, we've been in business for about 26 years. I started the company way back with a $5,000 F-250 pickup truck that pretty much broke down every single time it went out.
00:12:39
Dave Gerow
ah The old school Myers straight blade on it that would scream trying to lift it and salt around the back, but it was a good experience at the time. The truck was you know was rough, but you know you learn a lot.
00:12:53
Dave Gerow
You learn how to chain up a plow when it breaks down. You learn quickly that salt can't sit in the back of a truck for more than a day. you learn the the hard way of how you got to get rid of it so Yeah, we had, done you know, I guess working on the trucks, working on the tools myself for quite a few years.
00:13:11
Dave Gerow
And as the company grew, you know, we've, we've, established ourselves and with hard work and everything else and basically building our company off reputation. So we build relationships with our clients and, and one by one, we've, we've established ourselves to being one of the ah larger stone removal companies and in the Toronto area where you also have locations throughout Ontario from all the way from the east out in Ottawa to the west in Windsor and pretty much everything in between.
00:13:41
Dave Gerow
So, yeah, we're a decent sized company pushing a lot of snow.
00:13:47
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:13:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
what's What's the distance? Like ah for for the American guys that are not familiar with Canada, like myself, like I can't really see the whole map of Canada. How far apart is Ottawa and Toronto?
00:13:59
Frank Gerendas
About four and a half hours there, five hours.
00:14:01
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay. Thank you for putting it in time and not kilometers because that would not help me at all.
00:14:04
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:14:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
So i I appreciate that.
00:14:07
Dave Gerow
yeah
00:14:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
So four and a half hours. so you guys So you guys are spread out.
00:14:10
RICK JAMES
the
00:14:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
you got You got a lot of different irons in the fire.
00:14:15
Dave Gerow
Yeah, and and if you look at going to Windsor from there, you have another four and a half hours. So it's a 10 hour spread between locations.
00:14:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
wow
00:14:20
RICK JAMES
wow
00:14:21
Dave Gerow
So that's been one of the big reasons that we've invested heavily in new equipment. And then also now this year, we've got a lot of tractor trailers that we're starting to implement on the roads to be able to feed the the locations and things like that. So if we get a breakdown or if we've got to move equipment quickly, we can do it in house.
00:14:40
Dave Gerow
So that was one of the big things last year. We had big purchase of equipment. And get into these snowfalls where they guarantee we work with deer quite a bit and they guarantee that the 24 hours of can't be fixed, they'll give you another machine.
00:14:52
Dave Gerow
But what they don't guarantee is how you're going to get the machine. When there's a snowstorm coming, there's not a lot of floats available and things like that.
00:14:56
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:15:00
Dave Gerow
so what we started to do and or started that was our big kind of realized point was we need to get our own equipment. We need to be more self-sufficient. We need to have the the proper infrastructure
Weather Predictions and Challenges
00:15:11
Dave Gerow
in-house to be able to support our operation. And it's happening a lot.
00:15:15
Dave Gerow
So it's it's been something that we kind of put in in the in the motion last year. Now the trucks are starting to arrive. We've got our first one. And it's working out well. We're hauling material now. We'll be also using it to support all of our own salt domes and and things like that across. you know Now we can pick up salt directly from the mines.
00:15:34
Dave Gerow
We'll still be relying heavily on our salt suppliers, but keeping the trucks it shouldn't be a problem to keep the trucks busy.
00:15:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome. Good for you guys.
00:15:41
RICK JAMES
That's great.
00:15:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
So what, what type of sites is triple J's bread and butter? Like, how did you guys start to scale? What, what, what were you targeting site-wise?
00:15:51
Dave Gerow
ah we We do a little bit of everything. We're mostly in the larger ah distribution type properties, and machine sites. we don't do We don't fight for the you know the the gas stations and the the corner plazas, things like that.
00:15:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:16:04
Dave Gerow
It's all large scale properties, um distribution, airports, government contracts.
00:16:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:16:11
Dave Gerow
We've got a lot of military. Army, well, sorry, military and then airports. So we were one of the only companies that manage an international airport.
00:16:23
Dave Gerow
We've got the Toronto Island Airport. There's not too many in the Toronto area that have international airports kind under their belt.
00:16:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice.
00:16:27
RICK JAMES
Well.
00:16:30
Dave Gerow
And for that, we had one with Bombardier, which is they they make aeroplanes and aerospace and and
00:16:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sea-Doo.
00:16:39
Dave Gerow
Yeah, yeah.
00:16:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:16:40
Dave Gerow
One that we do for them though is the planes and there's a live runway there.
00:16:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gotcha.
00:16:43
Dave Gerow
So that's been one of our bigger contracts and something that we've had for quite a few years and we were happy to take it over and was from a failing, it was kind of something that they reached out.
00:16:56
Dave Gerow
They weren't happy with the current provider. It gave us an opportunity. was something we were a little bit nervous of when we first went in, we expected that we'd be just handling the hangers and not the actual runway.
00:17:06
Dave Gerow
And to find out that the runway was part of scope, it's, no, exactly.
00:17:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
00:17:11
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:17:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, did we not mention that?
00:17:14
Dave Gerow
So it started a pretty serious conversation with them and, and you know, we took on the challenge. But I can tell you one thing, the first time that we were servicing during a snowstorm, it's still snowing.
00:17:26
Dave Gerow
we're We're working, it's a big runway where we've got our sweepers going up and down it and the plane's coming in. So we get the call that there is going to be a plane landing. we got to get off the runway.
00:17:37
Dave Gerow
and our first question is, is it plowed? And it's not. So as that the plane's landing, we do have it manageable where a plane can land. But that's something that, you know, unless you've experienced it, it's pretty crazy because, you know, yeah it's it's not 100%.
00:17:50
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:17:54
Dave Gerow
We know it's not 100%, but that plane's going to land regardless. So that's something that, you know, Frank could probably speak a little bit more on.
00:17:58
RICK JAMES
Great.
00:18:01
Dave Gerow
He was very involved with that contract. But dealing with airports, dealing with dealing with the aerospace and the testing and just how all the meticulous paperwork and everything that's got to be in order that is just, you know, it's it's next level.
00:18:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, I'm sure.
00:18:15
Dave Gerow
So Frank maybe speak a little bit more on that. That was one of his contracts. Okay.
00:18:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
that And that was Bombardier?
00:18:22
Frank Gerendas
It's Bombardier, yeah, aerospace.
00:18:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's a...
00:18:24
Frank Gerendas
There'll be times where the plane's coming in. And if, your you know, first question, obviously, yeah, if it's plowed, but they're, you know, in the private sector for a manufacturing site like that, they can really manipulate what their expectation is. You know, yeah I've been to Pearson, I've landed on snow, but here at Bombardier, you got to see that dry tarmac.
00:18:42
Frank Gerendas
So the equipment that we got to use, the chemical that we got to do to get a turnaround, it's two kilometers long. One of the longest runways and widest in Canada used to still be a military emergency landing runway. So we were always still expected to clear the full scope of that. So it doesn't matter what kind of conditions, I think can ice over in a matter of a minute.
00:19:06
Frank Gerendas
Uh, but you know, when, when there's a plane coming in or they've done a ferry flight or whatever they're testing and then they got to come back earlier and we're servicing the runway.
00:19:07
RICK JAMES
Oh.
00:19:14
Frank Gerendas
I'll tell you a spectacular site is when you get a call from air traffic control and they say, you know, move over to one of the run-ups, the plane's landing. And there we are nerve wrecking static. And then, you know, a hundred meters from not even come landing a Bombardier private jet and the heaviest snow storm you can think of.
00:19:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah
00:19:31
Frank Gerendas
yeah You know, if I, I didn't know definition of clenching until then. um Okay.
00:19:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
And ah that, yeah, that's gotta be ah a site in your rear view mirror when you're in a loader plow at 10, 12 miles an hour, see the three lights of a plane coming down.
00:19:36
RICK JAMES
Okay.
00:19:39
Frank Gerendas
but
00:19:40
RICK JAMES
but
00:19:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
Are these, are these like corporate jets? Are they test planes? Like what, what's flying and and out of there?
00:19:49
Frank Gerendas
they're They're manufactured here and then they're they go up for test runs. So a majority of the plane gets done here, just ah shy of maybe some interior work and the final coat or the final paint scheme.
00:19:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
I gotcha.
00:19:53
RICK JAMES
um yeah
00:20:00
Frank Gerendas
They go to Montreal for that.
00:20:01
The SnowJobs Podcast
I gotcha.
00:20:02
Frank Gerendas
But still, again, they you know they run the airport, so they snap their finger. They want that runway. They want that airtime.
00:20:07
RICK JAMES
Oh yeah.
00:20:09
Frank Gerendas
You know we go and it's basically jump and we ask how high.
00:20:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gotcha.
00:20:13
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:20:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
So it's like, uh, yeah.
00:20:15
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:20:16
The SnowJobs Podcast
So it's like a boutique airport type thing where you gotta be on call and they make some big planes, right? They make like the challenger and stuff and the Lear jets.
00:20:23
Frank Gerendas
Absolutely. Just launched a new series.
00:20:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:20:25
Frank Gerendas
Yeah. The 8,000 series fastest and the most economical right now, private sector.
00:20:28
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:20:30
Frank Gerendas
Everybody loves them as a private jet.
00:20:33
RICK JAMES
wow
00:20:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
i I mean, that's ah that's a that's some private jet.
00:20:37
Dave Gerow
You're
00:20:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
I mean, yeah.
00:20:40
Frank Gerendas
$80 million dollars in change.
00:20:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, yeah. I think seven. I'm looking it up right now. 78 million. Yeah, American. Wow.
00:20:48
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:20:49
The SnowJobs Podcast
um i mean
00:20:49
Frank Gerendas
Imagine plowing right up to the nose of one of those things or going around those wings.
00:20:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, my God.
00:20:53
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:20:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, no, no, no.
00:20:55
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Insurance has got to be really good there, huh
00:20:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, I don't even want to think about it.
00:20:58
Frank Gerendas
but
00:20:59
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:21:00
Dave Gerow
not going to wait.
00:21:01
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:21:02
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
00:21:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
I don't want to think about that.
00:21:03
RICK JAMES
so
00:21:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
My God. Wow. That's, that's wild.
00:21:06
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:21:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's wild stuff.
00:21:07
RICK JAMES
That's impressive. so
00:21:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
And they don't give you any kind of schedule. Like when planes are supposed to be due in, it's just like a phone call. Like, Hey, get off the runway.
00:21:15
Frank Gerendas
there there There are expectations set up, but unfortunately they they always get moved around.
00:21:15
Dave Gerow
Thank you.
00:21:20
Frank Gerendas
We might know that six in the morning there's going flight taken off and we got to get it ready. You know what kind of resources you got to put into a ah runway. You know they're nervous, 6 a.m.
00:21:28
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:21:28
Frank Gerendas
comes around. You know, thankfully the flight gets delayed, but you know, you're still on the hook, right? The client can do what they want.
00:21:34
RICK JAMES
Right.
00:21:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, absolutely.
00:21:35
Frank Gerendas
So another hour out, another hour out.
00:21:36
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
100%. Gotcha. Gotcha. ah
00:21:39
Frank Gerendas
And the expectation is crazy. They could go out there, they'll they'll do their friction test, index test, they'll check out the conditions. And, you know, for example, like you're driving your vehicle, you get a little slush or ah a packet of snow that falls off your vehicle.
00:21:53
Frank Gerendas
They'll see that out there. They're like, well, Triple J is not done yet. They got to get back out there.
00:21:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
gotcha
00:21:58
Frank Gerendas
So, you know, you're sending out all these resources to go over and over like a fine comb.
00:21:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
ha
00:21:59
RICK JAMES
Uh-huh.
00:22:02
Frank Gerendas
So the expectation is hard.
00:22:03
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:22:04
Frank Gerendas
Resources are definitely, you know, valuable and, know, It's really hard to judge you know what they what they think is complete sometimes.
00:22:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
I mean, and I, yeah, that's gotta, that's gotta to get a little, uh, little crazy at times, but I mean, let's be real though. I like, we always talk about, you know, snow removals, unforgiving, like and improperly done snow removal at an airport.
00:22:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's gotta be really frigging unforgiving.
00:22:28
RICK JAMES
Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's either want You don't want to make the news there.
00:22:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
like's There's no room for error on that one.
00:22:31
Dave Gerow
No.
00:22:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
No, didn't the, didn't the plane flip over at a Canadian airport last year?
00:22:34
Dave Gerow
No.
00:22:38
Frank Gerendas
It did.
00:22:38
Dave Gerow
It did at Pearson.
00:22:38
Frank Gerendas
It did.
00:22:39
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:22:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
That was a Pearson.
00:22:40
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:22:42
Dave Gerow
It was right in front of one of our contracts.
00:22:42
Frank Gerendas
That was a pure point.
00:22:43
Dave Gerow
So we've got work. We do quite a bit of work at Pearson, but GTA handles the actual airport in the in the runways. but We've got lot of facilities that butt up, I guess, to the so the airport.
00:22:50
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gotcha.
00:22:55
Dave Gerow
And that's one of them. And it was literally right in front. and first Nowadays, it's almost hard to tell if it's AI or not. that comes to pictures online.
00:23:01
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes.
00:23:01
RICK JAMES
Right.
00:23:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes.
00:23:02
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:23:04
Dave Gerow
And then next thing you know, it's our people. So we communicate through Teams, through Microsoft Teams is our internal channel. And all of a sudden, pictures started to come from our side too.
00:23:11
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:23:14
Dave Gerow
And we could see it and, you know, it's within sight from one of our from one of our locations.
00:23:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
Holy crap. You make a quick internet post.
00:23:20
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:23:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
That was not our runway.
00:23:22
RICK JAMES
I bet you.
00:23:22
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
00:23:23
Frank Gerendas
Yeah.
00:23:23
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
00:23:24
RICK JAMES
ah
00:23:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
We're not maintaining that.
00:23:26
RICK JAMES
youre like yeah
00:23:27
Dave Gerow
Well, I can't say that at the airport.
00:23:28
RICK JAMES
and let
00:23:29
Dave Gerow
Well, we've got the other airport for Toronto and they're happy that that did not happen there. And there might be a few, uh, little jobs that get thrown Pearson's way and things like that.
00:23:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
I bet.
00:23:39
Dave Gerow
But even though it had nothing to do with the, you know, with the maintain of of the runway and that was very large, most armed too, but, uh,
00:23:40
RICK JAMES
Nice.
00:23:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
no. no
00:23:44
RICK JAMES
Right. Yeah.
00:23:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
ye
00:23:47
Dave Gerow
It is high pressure to handle these these contracts and you know they delicately like to say that this is the post-mortem. After every event, we have to go into a meeting, discuss when went well, what maybe could be improved.
00:23:59
Dave Gerow
And of course, there's always something that somebody can say that you know could be improved and things like that, even though in our eyes, we like to say that it went well and there were
00:24:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:24:06
RICK JAMES
Right.
00:24:09
Dave Gerow
pretty much to to scope, but you know, there's times that, you know, we can, you know, they'll sit down with you and you just, they just want to go through it and it's every single event and wish they had name for it, but you know,
00:24:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah. Dot their I's, cross their T's, make sure everything's documented. I'm sure it's, uh, I'm sure it's a lot of legal ease, man, at an airport. Yeah. to Deal with everything.
00:24:30
Dave Gerow
and just like Jeremy said, so we, we did our post season meeting at the airport. It's our first year with them. The contractor that we took over for had it for 30 years. And it was one of those contracts that we came into difficult.
00:24:42
Dave Gerow
you have to get a lot of you have to get your rate passes, your security clearances, things like that. So there's a lot of legwork to just get into that contract. But we had a very successful year with them. And, you know, when we sat down at the table, the first thing out of their mouth was, well, we didn't make the news.
00:24:52
RICK JAMES
Good.
00:24:57
Dave Gerow
So got a couple of big farms and
00:24:58
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:24:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's a win. That's a win. Check.
00:25:01
Dave Gerow
Pearson shut down some runways. We did not. not We were not part of the runway, but we kept the terminal open the entire time. And yeah, we had a successful year with them for, especially considering was our first season, first time ever doing an international airport.
00:25:16
Dave Gerow
We've had lots of aerospace experience in the past.
00:25:16
RICK JAMES
um
00:25:19
Dave Gerow
We deal with a few different like Bombardier, like we were mentioning and Few other different airlines, but never a terminal. And it's a beast.
00:25:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gotcha.
00:25:30
Dave Gerow
it's It's its own set of rules, their own governing bodies.
00:25:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
I bet.
00:25:31
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:25:34
Dave Gerow
They set the rules. You don't follow their rules. Guys are kicked off site and they won't think twice, but they don't care that we only have certain amount of people that are maybe rake certified and they've they've got their clearances in place. If someone doesn't follow one of those rules, obviously they're kicked off the site and you know now it's our problem again.
00:25:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
Wow. Well, yeah, I'd imagine, like I said...
00:25:55
RICK JAMES
sense.
00:25:55
Dave Gerow
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:25:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, ah zero room for error with airports and stuff.
00:25:56
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:25:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
Too much at risk. That's awesome. Good for you guys.
00:26:01
RICK JAMES
so So what kind range of snow between all your divisions? Is it a big range of snow once you guys get a year, or is it kind of the same? Or what are you guys going?
00:26:12
RICK JAMES
Centimeters, right? What are guys getting up there?
00:26:13
Frank Gerendas
Yeah, we do centimeters.
00:26:14
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:26:14
Frank Gerendas
We do get some good dumpings along some corridors. GTA can be anywhere from five to up to 30 centimeters of snow. Around the metropolis of downtown Toronto is a little bit different. When you go north, Barrie, Innisfil, Bradford is north the city.
00:26:31
Frank Gerendas
They're very common and famous to get 30 plus centimeters of snow up there. Anything around Great Lakes will get a great effects. You know, Niagara region, um
00:26:41
Dave Gerow
Thank you.
00:26:43
Frank Gerendas
you know out west, out east on our corridors, it dumps snow too. So um city-wise, you know, we we we juggle fifteen ah five to 15 centimeters, a lot of salting events.
00:26:55
Frank Gerendas
But once you start getting out of the city, maybe an hour out of the city, youre you know, you're pushing events, 15 plus, 30 centimeters. And lately we've been getting some healthy dumpings last few years, you know, 25, 30, 30 plus centimeters.
00:27:07
Frank Gerendas
thirty plus centimeters
00:27:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
What's your seasonal averages in centimeters? Like you're talking, you're talking 30 centimeters per storm.
00:27:15
RICK JAMES
ye
00:27:15
Frank Gerendas
and We've had some, yeah, we have had 30 centimeters. Unfortunately, sometimes what we think is 30 centimeters doesn't always get officially documented to be a 30 centimeter.
00:27:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, sure. That's, that's the same in same in both countries.
00:27:23
RICK JAMES
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:27:24
Dave Gerow
and Yeah.
00:27:24
Frank Gerendas
But I've got to say, we we do we do exceed 100 centimeters.
00:27:28
Frank Gerendas
So I would say 100 to 125 centimeters, 130 centimeter range, we've seen.
00:27:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay.
00:27:33
Frank Gerendas
So not much less than 100. It's obviously, you know, usually we get healthy winters over the length the month.
00:27:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, it's 50-inch winner.
00:27:41
Frank Gerendas
Yeah, there you go.
00:27:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, that's that's it.
00:27:42
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:27:43
Frank Gerendas
So...
00:27:43
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:27:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
Got it.
00:27:44
Dave Gerow
If you get into the lake effect areas, that's where it can get, they can get, you know, and it can go on for days and there's a lot that, you know, it's just, it's unpredictable too.
00:27:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, sure.
00:27:48
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:27:53
Dave Gerow
So it's all whichever way the wind's shifting is where you're working. So um yeah, you know, there we've had one case this year where it wasn't one of our accounts for the hydro company.
00:28:04
Dave Gerow
Hydro was shut off to an entire city. They got about three feet of snow. I'll keep it in feet for you.
00:28:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah Thank you. We appreciate that.
00:28:11
RICK JAMES
Hmm.
00:28:11
Dave Gerow
mean And the the contractor that they had in place wasn't able to service the site. So we got a call Sunday night around 5pm asking if there's anything we can do.
00:28:25
Dave Gerow
And again, like we're not even contracted this property. We don't even have a property that's probably within an hour and a half of this site. So made some quick calls. Again, this is where we're deciding that the loader are getting off our own floats and load loads where, you know, it's goingnna it's going to be very beneficial to us.
00:28:43
Dave Gerow
So we started to call around people we know, see if we get a float on Sunday night at 5 p.m. Turns out the best answer for us is from an hour and a half away, someone jumps in the loader and starts heading down.
00:28:54
Dave Gerow
So we were able to get that within about, what, Frank, about two and a half hours. They were on site.
00:28:59
Frank Gerendas
Yeah, 2 and 1.5 from a brief.
00:28:59
Dave Gerow
Start digging it out, literally, guy comes in and able to flick a switch or whatever he's able to do. And next thing the power is back onto the city. But it just shows with, if you don't have the right equipment in some of these snow-swelled areas, then it adds up quick.
00:29:13
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:29:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
Was this in Nova Scotia?
00:29:17
Dave Gerow
No, this was in a row yet.
00:29:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay. Because ah we i think I think Hotter was telling us about, like, something got shut off up there last year when they had their big storm, that they had a guy trying to do, like, the public works building for water and and power.
00:29:20
Dave Gerow
So it's been an hour and a half.
00:29:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
They were trying to do it with two pickups, and they couldn't keep up, so they literally couldn't get to the thing. Do you remember, Jay, what they had to shut off?
00:29:41
Dave Gerow
Mm-hmm.
00:29:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like, there was no power or something to the town or no...
00:29:44
RICK JAMES
No.
00:29:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
There was something.
00:29:46
RICK JAMES
I thought ah thought that was the one where they hit something, wasn't it, and blew something up? No?
00:29:50
The SnowJobs Podcast
I thought it was the pickups. They couldn't keep up with it.
00:29:52
RICK JAMES
Oh.
00:29:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
They couldn't get in there, but I don't know. i could be wrong, but something, something like that. You're absolutely right. You got to have the right contractors and it's, but you know, a lot of people don't know. A lot of people outside of snow don't know.
00:30:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
And they don't know to even ask. They just say, Hey, can you take care of snow here? And you say, yes, they might not ask any follow-ups like, okay, what do you got? Well, I got a, I got a walk behind Toro snowblower.
00:30:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
like they they yeah They don't know to ask the follow-ups.
00:30:18
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:30:21
Dave Gerow
But we always say that anybody can handle the two to five inch snowfall.
00:30:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:30:25
Dave Gerow
Once you start to get into, and I'm quickly doing the conversions that I have, but once you start to get into the, you know, the six to 10 inch, you know, the foot snowfalls, that's what really starts to set everybody apart.
00:30:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:30:35
Dave Gerow
And that's what we're set up for.
00:30:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:30:36
RICK JAMES
and
00:30:37
Dave Gerow
And that's why we've got so much equipment and we're able to move it around. We've got, Our infrastructure is strong with our service trucks. We've got our crimpers on the truck. We can cut our own lines, make our own lines.
00:30:49
Dave Gerow
you know Typically, that's what seems to go more than anything else is just a quick fix hydraulic line on on one of the machines.
00:30:53
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:30:56
Dave Gerow
So we're set up in a way to be able to send our own guys out there, service it quickly, get them back up. Our guys are also trained on how to repair and and change a quick line if needed.
00:31:07
Dave Gerow
Minor repairs, obviously. but
00:31:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's awesome.
00:31:10
Dave Gerow
Yeah, so we try to we try to think of everything or at least as much as possible before you know each snowfall and and set our company up in a way because we've seen it all. We've seen you know what can go wrong how you you know and then that's part of the you know the the morning meeting. um well What can we do better?
00:31:26
Dave Gerow
And we always just try to keep making that happen. And you know I think that's something we've done well over the years is we've really grown with the clients that we have are are very, very demanding, obviously.
00:31:37
RICK JAMES
But...
00:31:37
Dave Gerow
And we don't have a big sales team within Triple J. And we've grown organically over the years and and we've grown just by servicing clients well, doing exactly what we say we're going to do.
00:31:49
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:31:50
Dave Gerow
our Our growth is it's very staggered and strategic. We have planned growth throughout the country, not even just the province. So when we open a new service center, it's it's usually when...
00:32:02
Dave Gerow
We've got a few million dollars worth of work into that market.
00:32:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
sure
00:32:05
Dave Gerow
ah We subcontract out. I think a lot of people would even be surprised with what contracts we even have that they might be subbed out for a few years. But until we build up enough of, I guess, revenue in that area or even also to another thing that's big with us is that we keep growing more and more in a lot of our concentrated areas.
00:32:24
Dave Gerow
that we continue to have to sub out contracts. And as long as we have the right contractors and the right people in place, then you know it works in that sense.
00:32:30
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:32:32
Dave Gerow
and and our clients and And that's the thing.
00:32:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
00:32:34
Dave Gerow
And our clients are taking us on and and we're very organized. We've got a big administration staff. The the communication is always key. And that's been a big reason that we're growing to the size that we are now.
00:32:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's super smart doing it that way.
00:32:48
RICK JAMES
That's
00:32:48
The SnowJobs Podcast
100%.
00:32:50
RICK JAMES
That's what separates an average snow company from a great one, you know, just to ah we always plan for the worst and hope for the, you know, instead of just hoping, and hoping don't get that.
00:32:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
hundred percent
00:32:57
RICK JAMES
Like some of these guys do, they just hope, you know, we're going to hope we can maybe get through it, but that's, see that's, you got to plan for you. Always. That's what we always do. We always try to have a more than enough equipment and plan for the worst.
00:33:09
RICK JAMES
And, you know, no, it does not.
00:33:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
Hope don't plow snow.
00:33:11
Dave Gerow
Hope don't play.
00:33:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's true. It's like my grandfather used to say, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which gets filled first.
00:33:18
Dave Gerow
That's right.
00:33:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like, I wish it, oh, I'm going to take this contract, but I hope it doesn't snow. There are still guys out there doing that.
00:33:22
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:33:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like, ah, you know, ridiculous, like ridiculous.
00:33:24
RICK JAMES
Every, all the time. yeah
00:33:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
But that, dude, that I love that growth plan. and i mean, that's... You can't fail doing it like that. I think that's really smart, actually, that you don't even get tempted to push the plan when you get bigger contracts in those areas that you're not currently in.
00:33:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
You sub it out for a couple years until you have more work and it's beneficial to you to make that kind of expansion. that' That's brilliant. I love that.
00:33:49
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:33:49
Dave Gerow
sure And sometimes we get pushed into that area a little sooner than we want to just because of the type of client, they might be a zero tolerance. We don't and it might be a big portfolio that we're servicing for them, too. So we will open up a little sooner than maybe we would have normally planned.
00:34:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:34:04
RICK JAMES
right
00:34:04
Dave Gerow
But, you know, that's all kind of contract based or contract based. And again, if we can get away with it, we we trust the vendor that we have there, they're doing good work, then you know we have a good relationship with them.
00:34:17
Dave Gerow
They're kind of following by you know exactly how o do service in the property and we can kind of help them if they get themselves into a little bit of trouble, then it works.
00:34:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep. It's awesome.
00:34:26
Dave Gerow
Mm-hmm.
00:34:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
Love it.
00:34:27
RICK JAMES
typically typically windows winter start up there in december november when when do you guys get your first snow
00:34:33
Dave Gerow
Usually you always get an early one.
00:34:33
Frank Gerendas
Thank you.
00:34:35
Dave Gerow
We're we're under contract. Depends on which one. Airports start October 1st. You're not going to see snow for the most part in October or October 15th.
00:34:39
RICK JAMES
Okay.
00:34:43
Dave Gerow
Actually, i think this one is.
00:34:45
Dave Gerow
And they want to see the equipment on site. It's got be certified.
00:34:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, they got to have their winter plan though, right?
00:34:50
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:34:50
Dave Gerow
It's got to be inspected and it's got to be ready. So that that's the earliest contract that we have and then the rest of the contracts are typically in november 1st to 15th you might get a little snowfall little dusting before the 15th but uh typically you're kind of in that range and then it and then goes same thing april 1st april fifteen
00:35:08
RICK JAMES
like
00:35:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
Cool. Love it. That's awesome. that's That's great. i Yeah, that's pretty cool that you do Bombardier, actually, because, Jeremy, you were you you we're not familiar with the 8,000 series.
00:35:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
We were looking at the 5,000 series, right, the Bombardier plane that we were looking to, the Snowjaws plane?
00:35:26
RICK JAMES
Yeah, yeah, that's a weird looking, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:35:27
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:35:28
Dave Gerow
Yeah,
00:35:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
we look we You know, 8,000 is a bit much for our needs. but
00:35:32
RICK JAMES
Yeah, didn't need that one yet.
00:35:33
Dave Gerow
I think I saw one with your logo on it.
00:35:34
RICK JAMES
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:35:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, man.
00:35:36
Dave Gerow
Fresh paint.
00:35:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
But, yeah, that that's – I mean –
00:35:38
RICK JAMES
Pretty close to pulling that pin, so.
00:35:40
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
00:35:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
I think we found yet another, I think we found our guys to sit down with, uh, with Mr. Dickerson there when we talk airport stuff.
00:35:48
RICK JAMES
Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.
00:35:50
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome. See, we're trying to fill that episode.
00:35:51
RICK JAMES
Top.
00:35:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
Cause there's a lot of guys ask questions about doing airports and stuff.
00:35:53
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:35:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
And there's, there's so, if you think about it in the, in the grand scheme of snow companies, there's so few snow companies that can say, I do an airport.
00:36:04
Dave Gerow
That's right.
00:36:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
like as part of our thing. So that, I mean, that's definitely, you want to talk a niche market inside a niche market. That's, that's even, there's even a smaller number of guys that can actually handle an airport and do it well.
00:36:10
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:15
Frank Gerendas
me tell you some challenges about the airport.
00:36:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
So yeah.
00:36:17
Frank Gerendas
to the runway you know you can't have as As you traditionally plow, you can't have any windrows left behind. So anywhere a plane can go off the runway or for emergency or whatever reason, the yeah the infrastructure has to be strong.
00:36:30
Frank Gerendas
You can't have a frozen snowbank just smashed through the aluminum hull or the wheels.
00:36:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:36:34
Frank Gerendas
right so We're already challenged with when wind rows and snow blowing.
00:36:36
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:36:41
Frank Gerendas
One year, last year, we actually had one of our sites alongside the airport and it's a a removal site. There is no room to keep snow there. I think one night's event brought 220 triaxle loads to do offsite haulage.
00:36:57
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:36:57
RICK JAMES
All
00:36:57
Frank Gerendas
And that's just one event. We use specialty products. There's formate, there's acetate. So nothing for your traditional plowing is pretty much utilized here. Never mind all the training that you need. And you imagine if you ever blow a line, any any repair is needed. You can't just be doing this airside.
00:37:16
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah
00:37:16
Frank Gerendas
So the challenges that it brings and, you know, was going to say that earlier with a few things too, that, you know, when, when the client asks, if you can do the job, you know, we're, we're faced with different responsibilities outside of traditional plowing.
00:37:16
RICK JAMES
right. Great.
00:37:30
Frank Gerendas
We have municipal contracts where we got to break down the snow banks. That that's a, that's an orchestrated operation.
00:37:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
Wow.
00:37:36
Frank Gerendas
You know, that's not something that you go in there with a blade, you're pushing it all down.
00:37:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
00:37:39
Frank Gerendas
Safety is the number one factor, of course, when you're working alongside all the traffic, you're hauling all the snow. <unk> we're We're basically doing what, you know I dare to talk about Montreal's operations, but you know that's pretty much how they clear any municipality road there.
00:37:56
Frank Gerendas
It's all pushed down, wind row, snowblower, it's orchestrated. That's what we're doing for some of our corridors.
00:38:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, I think I just saw a red dot appear on your chest there, Frank.
00:38:05
Frank Gerendas
I did see that too.
00:38:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
You mentioned Quebec.
00:38:06
Dave Gerow
Yeah, much more.
00:38:07
Frank Gerendas
actually I moved a little bit outside of the window range.
00:38:07
RICK JAMES
Oh,
00:38:11
RICK JAMES
is
00:38:13
Dave Gerow
up
00:38:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah That's awesome. Yeah, I've seen those videos of Montreal, the city of Montreal, doing the snow removal.
00:38:16
Dave Gerow
so what
00:38:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
that's that's you're You're right. It's an orchestrated ballet. They got that down to a science.
00:38:25
Dave Gerow
It's a tough job for us.
00:38:25
Frank Gerendas
Absolutely.
00:38:26
Dave Gerow
ah and And that one always comes on the heel of a big snowstorm too. So what Frank's speaking about right now is we have about 50 kilometers of of roadway, highway shoulders that we have to remove the snow for.
00:38:38
Dave Gerow
And so part of this, we have to bring in skid steers.
00:38:38
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:38:40
Dave Gerow
they They push everything off into the road. Then we have to make it into a big wind row. um Then we run the blowers all the way down. blow into dump trucks.
00:38:51
Dave Gerow
This is about a million yards of snow that gets moved and we've got to take it to different dump sites.
00:38:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
wow
00:38:58
Dave Gerow
And and yet last year we had two big snow storms, one week apart. So our guys, we got the first one done, they called us out. And then as soon as we got the, coup and this is also, this is a contract that doesn't have a standby on it for payment. for payment it's and But it is a 24 hour call, actually I don't even think it's a 24, I think it's a 12 hour call out.
00:39:19
Dave Gerow
And whenever the call comes, we've got a dispatch 200 people onto this job.
00:39:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
Wow.
00:39:25
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:39:25
Dave Gerow
And it's obviously, it always comes right on the heels of a big storm. So we've had this for about five years and we did the first one as far as we could get before the second snowfall was coming in.
00:39:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:39:36
Dave Gerow
Then they called us off. So the one good thing about it is if it's snowing, we don't have to go. But if it's if the weather's clear, then we have to go in regardless. It's political because they want i to go out of there as quickly as possible.
00:39:48
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:39:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
And this is in Toronto. Toronto.
00:39:52
Dave Gerow
This is in York Region, so just north of Toronto.
00:39:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay, gotcha. Okay.
00:39:55
Dave Gerow
And so this year, we did the first one, got called off. Second snowfall comes out. Basically, we clear it all. The wind starts to pick up. So we've got to use, it's the same people that we're using to do a lot of our other our other sites.
00:40:11
Dave Gerow
Same equipment, same people. So now we have about two feet of snow over just ah over a week period. The winds start to pick up. And we'd have wind drifts that were 10 feet high and loading bays and things like that. We needed this equipment.
00:40:26
Dave Gerow
This was probably one of the only times... that we tried to push back on the region to say, you know, can we have an extra day? And of course, ah just to add, to make things even more fun, So this happened over the weekend. This was a Sunday into a Monday. The Monday was a holiday.
00:40:41
Dave Gerow
So we've got our plows on off obviously all our loaders.
00:40:42
RICK JAMES
Well,
00:40:44
Dave Gerow
They're still pushing snow. We've got to change them, put the buckets back on. And it's a big operation. have to get almost 200 guys on this job that have now been awake, you know and almost day and night for the last eight days and bring them out onto this job.
00:40:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:40:59
Dave Gerow
So this was probably the only time I tried my hardest to push back on the region and say, you know, and called it even to a safety issue because the winds were so strong you couldn't even see across the highway.
00:41:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:41:11
Dave Gerow
and the
00:41:11
RICK JAMES
well
00:41:12
Dave Gerow
But they said the winds are going to die down. You guys got to get out tonight.
00:41:16
RICK JAMES
Oh.
00:41:17
Dave Gerow
when We limped out, to be honest. It was kind of a limp out, but we made it out. We started the operation. you know We didn't get the production that we typically get, but this is a huge job and it's a lot of brokers. We're going to manage the dump sites.
00:41:31
Dave Gerow
We have to manage the everything from traffic control. and I think, you like you said, you've seen some of our videos on it. It's going back to COVID. and You can see some of the masks everything, but We've had that for about five years, very successful contract for us.
00:41:45
Dave Gerow
We get praised by York Region, which is also another thing when you do your your yearly meeting and the meeting lasts 10 minutes. It shows that you're kind of doing something right.
00:41:54
Dave Gerow
and
00:41:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
00:41:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, there's nothing to talk about.
00:41:55
Dave Gerow
Especially you're
00:41:55
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:41:56
Dave Gerow
It's a large project, ah brings in a lot of different resources. And, and yeah, we got a you know glowing review each year for that. So that's another one of the, I guess, feathers in our cap. But so, again, not many people could take on a project like that. And, and you know, we're proud of that one.
00:42:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome. Good for you guys.
00:42:15
RICK JAMES
I know, I know, ah I know a thing in Canada where I've talked to a few guys up there, like dump sites are a big thing. Do you guys own your own dump sites or do you have to like, paper load at the ones you go to or what
00:42:26
Dave Gerow
We have a few. We do have a few that we were able to use. Some of them are a little too far north. So we do try to find the closest, obviously, dump site to keep the hollow drape down.
00:42:37
Dave Gerow
So we get paid on this job.
00:42:37
RICK JAMES
what?
00:42:38
Dave Gerow
We get paid by the meter too. So that's the other scary part of this project and knowing how much snow because we didn't finish the first round. So now...
00:42:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
Ah, okay.
00:42:47
Dave Gerow
Snow banks were three, four feet high, at least, getting pushed over. We've never moved that much snow before. So after the first one was done, of the snow dumps started to fill up.
00:42:54
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:42:58
Dave Gerow
And, and of course, everybody's hauling snow. are All our other clients do the same thing.
00:43:01
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:43:03
Dave Gerow
Dump trucks are hard to come by. um You know, everything was getting a little bit more difficult. Dump sites were filling up. And again, we had to go to the region and tell them we might have a problem.
00:43:14
Dave Gerow
Luckily, we were able to figure it out and we found another dump site and it was no problem. But at the beginning, it was just there was a lot of snow. And like I said, two major snowstorms within a couple of weeks.
00:43:23
RICK JAMES
you know
00:43:25
Dave Gerow
And it it took its toll. Guys that finished that job, you know they're pretty tired by the end of it.
00:43:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
I bet.
00:43:32
Dave Gerow
So it's a long trip.
00:43:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
I bet.
00:43:33
Dave Gerow
It's a long go.
00:43:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah the
00:43:35
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:43:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
The municipality doesn't have to provide you with dump sites for their own contract?
00:43:41
Dave Gerow
Nope, not on this one.
00:43:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
you Really?
00:43:43
Dave Gerow
No, they know where it's going for an environmental standpoint.
00:43:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, God.
00:43:47
Dave Gerow
So we have to test it and we take care of everything like that.
00:43:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
I won't.
00:43:49
Dave Gerow
But yeah, from York Region State, it's part of the contract is haul and haul and dump.
00:43:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
Wow. Are melters a thing for you guys up there? not It's not feasible to do that.
00:44:02
Dave Gerow
Not really. we we haven't really fought We haven't really came across them too often. A lot of people to talk about it.
00:44:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay.
00:44:09
Dave Gerow
And then when they start to see the price and the operating cost of them, the conversation usually goes away pretty quick.
00:44:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:44:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:44:15
Frank Gerendas
They wreak havoc, eh? They use a lot of fuel. you know every Every tree hugger is going to come yelling and screaming, you know?
00:44:18
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:44:23
Frank Gerendas
So...
00:44:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
00:44:24
Frank Gerendas
we did we didn't We did just see one of the rooftops.
00:44:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
I hear you.
00:44:25
RICK JAMES
All right.
00:44:28
Frank Gerendas
So we have a few rooftops that we do. Interesting there, because you got to watch out what the the roof is made of, different types of membranes. But we did just price out a site that has a ah rooftop melter on it.
00:44:41
Frank Gerendas
little bit of a slow and steady process. Maybe if it's a little contained area, you know you could see it entertained. If you want to be clearing the whole area thinking that's your only little chute to get everything gone, not not the best.
00:44:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah
00:44:54
Frank Gerendas
One interesting thing though, we have we have a site out in Ottawa that has some snow shoots.
00:44:54
RICK JAMES
right
00:44:59
Frank Gerendas
It looks basically like a garbage shoot on the rooftop and you know you shake all the the snow buckets into the hole and down she goes.
00:45:03
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:45:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice.
00:45:09
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:45:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's cool. See here, every, everything in America, no matter whether it's in the North or the South, that doesn't get any snow is all designed by architects in Florida. They don't put any thought into snow at all.
00:45:19
RICK JAMES
All right.
00:45:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
Even, even in Arctic tundra cities here, they're all like, uh, what, what do we have?
00:45:22
Frank Gerendas
Yeah.
00:45:25
Dave Gerow
No.
00:45:27
The SnowJobs Podcast
Curbside that said the, the one, that one complex they do, like there is nowhere for them to stack snow there.
00:45:31
RICK JAMES
oh yeah
00:45:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's, it's, it's impossible.
00:45:34
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:45:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
And that's in Minnesota.
00:45:35
RICK JAMES
It's everywhere. It's everywhere.
00:45:37
Dave Gerow
do
00:45:37
RICK JAMES
everywhere
00:45:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Everywhere. Yeah. Nobody, nobody puts any thought process into, into properties when they're building them and designing them for snow here.
00:45:46
Dave Gerow
no
00:45:46
Frank Gerendas
You think they'll be blown away knowing about heated driveways or heated ramps?
00:45:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's actually becoming a little more prevalent here, actually.
00:45:51
Frank Gerendas
Yeah?
00:45:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
There's there's ah ah another site going up like five minutes from here that they actually have heated sidewalks and heated entryways ah into the parking lot.
00:46:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
Not such a heated parking lot, but the actual drive lane in is heated because it's slightly uphill.
00:46:08
Frank Gerendas
yeah
00:46:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
So, yeah, it's coming.
00:46:11
RICK JAMES
but got We got a Shields in town here. They have a heated sidewalk, which is great. It stays clear, but the sidewalk's clear, but the curb isn't heated.
00:46:22
RICK JAMES
So where do you think all the runoff it and ice gets?
00:46:24
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
00:46:25
RICK JAMES
So where does everybody step on that curb?
00:46:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, yeah.
00:46:27
RICK JAMES
So you're still kind of screwed there, you know.
00:46:27
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:46:29
RICK JAMES
So, I mean, it's great, but yet, you know, you're you're not going to heat that curb.
00:46:29
Dave Gerow
Treat
00:46:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
Indeed.
00:46:33
RICK JAMES
So you still got to, that's where you're just going to ice up. And so we've had some issues with that.
00:46:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
hundred percent
00:46:37
Dave Gerow
it.
00:46:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
100%.
00:46:38
Dave Gerow
you
00:46:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
Jay, you want to do your favorite portion of the show here?
00:46:44
RICK JAMES
Yeah, you bet.
00:46:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
The Jeremy Lindstrom equipment segment brought to you by Dinesse Leasing. Take them.
00:46:49
RICK JAMES
Yes, sir. All right, Dave or Frank, where everyone wants answer this. You know, I love my equipment. Who wants to tell me all about the equipment you have? equipment Loaders, pushers, salters, pick up everything. Let me hear it.
00:47:01
Frank Gerendas
I can dive a little bit into it and if Dave wants to interject here and there. As Dave mentioned, we did a big purchase last year. So with John Deere, so we're we're running couple dozen loaders right now.
00:47:13
Frank Gerendas
We have cats. We got a lot of agricultural tractors. So, you know, heavy iron, everything's equipped with hydraulic wing blades, HLA, Live Edge, Metal Plus.
00:47:27
Frank Gerendas
Those are all what we have on the loaders. kind of horse setups for a lot of Vikings for our dump truck setups, heavy pushers, wide blades. Those are just maybe, know, tilt resistant.
00:47:39
Frank Gerendas
i Typical salter setups. So a lot of our trucks are set up with basically a slip in salter and then conveyor, auger, hydraulic motors. But we're we're basically set up to do a lot of different applications. We do do salt like everybody else, but de-icing products, we do a bulk de-icer, beet juice, fusions.
00:48:03
Frank Gerendas
We have Axe Ice, which is a treatment of just magnesium. We do the acidset that sort of the potassium acetate for specialty sites, sodium formate spreaders.
00:48:14
Frank Gerendas
We have a wet app system for some of our formates for sites. So over because of some of the sites being dedicated sites and municipal or different types of attachments needed, it's been very hard for us to stay conventional with some of the equipment.
00:48:29
Frank Gerendas
We've changed up. So Hitachi JCB's kind of infiltrated our fleet too.
00:48:30
RICK JAMES
Yep. Uh-huh.
00:48:34
Frank Gerendas
And yeah, so we have a bunch of unique things. Eddy net is one of our new things that we dapped into. It's a special sweeper and it's a front mount sweeper rotary. It actually levels itself out and knows the optimal position for us.
00:48:48
Frank Gerendas
So not burning out the bristles.
00:48:50
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice.
00:48:50
Frank Gerendas
run That's a big fleet. A lot of our pickup trucks are standard across the board, Western wide out blades. Heavy iron is more what we use, but you know, you have those tight spots that you got to get into drive-throughs or smaller parking spots, alleyways.
00:49:02
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:49:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:49:04
Frank Gerendas
So that's kind of a little bit of our, you know, rundown of some of the equipment.
00:49:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
Do you guys have any of those multifunctionals you see at at airports with the, ah they got the 25 foot or 30 foot broom. They got a blade. It's like a tractor trailer thing almost.
00:49:20
Frank Gerendas
So we do, so we have we have an Oshkosh an international truck, which would be the first unit.
00:49:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice.
00:49:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:49:28
Frank Gerendas
Following behind would be a tow behind or a pull behind trailer. um There are definite definitely different types of manufacturers. MB Sweeper is a very good one, common one that we use.
00:49:39
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:49:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep. yep
00:49:41
Frank Gerendas
ah Stevenson, there's a Sweepsters. ah But definitely one of the best uses that we've had is the MBs. They're versatile, good turning radius.
00:49:51
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:49:53
Frank Gerendas
The bristles are strong on them. And to be honest with you, they're actually pretty economical on fuel. A lot of the other things because of the blowers and the the air dryers and how much of the weight of the cassettes are for the the heads to turn around. So I was pleased to see how those ones operate better. So MB, we still use it sometimes, even on some sites where it might not be an aviation sector, but they want a powerful sweep for whatever reason.
00:50:22
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:50:22
Frank Gerendas
<unk> We've utilized it, but MB sweeper, yeah.
00:50:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sweet.
00:50:25
RICK JAMES
Nice.
00:50:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
Jeremy, you got MBs, right?
00:50:28
RICK JAMES
Yeah, we got three MBs. So yeah, we like them.
00:50:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice.
00:50:31
RICK JAMES
They're they're nice. So really do good work. How about the blowers? What kind of blowers are you guys using?
00:50:36
Frank Gerendas
We actually have a Oshkosh blower from Mount Ribbon.
00:50:37
RICK JAMES
You got any leveros?
00:50:41
Frank Gerendas
It's a separate engine. So the the unit drives off one.
00:50:43
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
00:50:45
Frank Gerendas
Another engine drive Detroit engine drives the snowblower. That thing can wail snow 250, 300 feet away from here. It's it's unbelievable.
00:50:52
RICK JAMES
Oh.
00:50:53
Frank Gerendas
Multi-shoots. We have some sickard blowers. They work awesome because it's very like mechanical. Just on, off and candy cane hook on that one.
00:51:04
Frank Gerendas
And we have a new Idaho, New Holland old dog snow blower. We use it for the municipality. It's good because it has a good guide blade that it just goes above all the manholes.
00:51:18
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:51:18
Frank Gerendas
ah Some of the other ones scrape a little too low.
00:51:18
RICK JAMES
um
00:51:21
Frank Gerendas
And then we utilize a lot of rear implementation, three-point attachments for the agricultural tractors on the back ends.
00:51:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
Cool.
00:51:29
Dave Gerow
We have a little bit of a museum over here with old airport equipment and things like that, but we maintain it well.
00:51:29
RICK JAMES
Gotcha.
00:51:36
Dave Gerow
And at the end of the day, every everything has, it you know, you get into the large snowfall sometimes and we got to load a lot of trucks quickly. And the municipal jobs always been something that it's not the prettiest equipment that we bring out, but it does the job and it does the job quickly.
00:51:49
Dave Gerow
So you might see some of those videos with, you know, there's probably 1970 blower that's going down the road, but you know, did it works well.
00:51:49
RICK JAMES
Right.
00:51:57
RICK JAMES
They work.
00:51:57
Dave Gerow
And exactly.
00:51:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, if if that was well-maintained, give me that over today's stuff any day with all these sensors that go bad and all these ah and they're not made.
00:51:59
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:52:03
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Deaf. Yeah. Everything's out. Deaf.
00:52:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Everything today is made for needing parts.
00:52:09
Frank Gerendas
Oh, man.
00:52:11
Dave Gerow
That's right.
00:52:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
that's how they yeah That's how they guarantee their money.
00:52:14
Dave Gerow
That's right.
00:52:14
Frank Gerendas
Some of these words that they're using to describe the the machines is like death, regeneration, limp mode.
00:52:14
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:52:21
Frank Gerendas
You need the death.
00:52:21
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:52:22
Frank Gerendas
All these things now, ah just because of what?
00:52:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:52:24
Frank Gerendas
And it just leaves you there dead on the road. It's unbelievable.
00:52:27
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:52:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah. I mean, you go back to the seventies, I guarantee you go to manufacturers in the seventies of pretty much anything, but I don't think anybody was building things saying, Hey, we have to have a financial plan with this product for the next 15 years to make sure that it's going to break at this point in this point. So we can continue our revenue streams.
00:52:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
Now, now everything is made to do that. Like, you know it like, hey, let's put this O2 sensor here.
00:52:50
Dave Gerow
That's right.
00:52:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's going to malfunction because it's too close to this thing. That's going to keep fucking with it.
00:52:57
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:52:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
But you know what?
00:52:59
RICK JAMES
Make it read a different...
00:53:00
The SnowJobs Podcast
They're going to have to send our mechanic out from our local dealers. or Our dealer is going to get money. They're going to have to replace that.
00:53:06
RICK JAMES
Clear code.
00:53:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
set Yeah, it's it's all it's all factored into manufacturing today. So you give me a 1970s blower that's been maintained. I'm in. I'll take that every day.
00:53:17
Dave Gerow
But there's a saying, you're you're obviously an old operator.
00:53:17
RICK JAMES
You don't...
00:53:19
Dave Gerow
Old operators love old equipment. New operators nowadays, it's got to have the bells and whistles.
00:53:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
hundred percent
00:53:24
Dave Gerow
It's got to have the backup. You know, we can't find people to drive. We'll drive by properties and you see some of these old pieces of equipment that are sitting out there. And I couldn't pay someone enough to be able to drive into one of those machines nowadays.
00:53:37
Dave Gerow
Like it's, you know, it's hard enough to find in operators as it is, let alone drive something old.
00:53:41
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:53:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
Listen, I like to be comfortable, but I'll tell you, my favorite workhorse ever that I had was an old Trojan loader from the early 80s.
00:53:42
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
00:53:50
The SnowJobs Podcast
And that thing was beat to shit, had no air ride seat, nothing. You were lucky if the heat worked. But man, that thing never failed. like and And it was not maintained. I'm talking a farm loader.
00:54:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
You know, that was it was 30 years old and it was not maintained. It had a blown main seal that leaked oil out of it. But the guy said, we got to take half this machine apart to fix it.
00:54:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
You don't got to worry about anything. Just check your oil level every eight to 10 hours. Keep putting oil in it. It'll keep running. And it never failed. We so we sold that thing after 35 years of use and it still never failed.
00:54:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
They don't make machines like that anymore.
00:54:27
Dave Gerow
no No, exactly. Even with us, we we we did two large orders of of loaders last year, one with deer one with cat. And I could probably let you guys could probably guess who's fighting over which machines.
00:54:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah oh yeah
00:54:39
Dave Gerow
They're both brand new machines, beautiful machines, but everybody's fighting to get in the cat. Everybody wants, you know, it's got a little more.
00:54:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
Creature comfort.
00:54:47
Dave Gerow
That's right. And, you know, especially to the operators that have been around for a little longer, they yeah they pull that sonority card pretty quick and say, you know, I want that, I want that. And, you know they You know how things are nowadays.
00:54:58
Dave Gerow
They tell us, what one and we got we got a comedy, right?
00:54:59
RICK JAMES
Oh yeah. They, they, they got us. They know, they know they have us.
00:55:04
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
00:55:04
RICK JAMES
So we need, we need them.
00:55:05
Dave Gerow
Especially the good ones.
00:55:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:55:07
RICK JAMES
We need them more than they need us. Right.
00:55:08
Dave Gerow
That's right.
00:55:09
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:55:10
Dave Gerow
hey Yeah.
00:55:10
RICK JAMES
It's a true story.
00:55:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
It is.
00:55:11
RICK JAMES
I mean, unfortunately that's the way it is.
00:55:13
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
00:55:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
It is.
00:55:13
RICK JAMES
You guys don't have any those. What do they call that old? I see it on some videos. It's like, it's got arms and stuff. And it like goes like conveyor snow up.
00:55:20
Dave Gerow
No. Yeah.
00:55:22
RICK JAMES
What are those things called even?
00:55:22
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
00:55:24
RICK JAMES
Those are pretty crude, but man, they seem to work.
00:55:25
Frank Gerendas
I see them lot more.
00:55:25
Dave Gerow
I don't know. I get that a lot because people will send that because of that municipal job that we do. So people will send that to us all time.
00:55:30
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:55:31
Dave Gerow
You got to get this. You got to get this.
00:55:33
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:55:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep. Yeah.
00:55:34
Dave Gerow
We don't have a anything like that.
00:55:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
00:55:35
RICK JAMES
Yeah. That's a lot of moving parts of that thing. Holy cow.
00:55:37
Dave Gerow
That's right. Yeah.
00:55:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
help
00:55:39
Frank Gerendas
I have seen them.
00:55:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah
00:55:40
Frank Gerendas
I think I must say that I think I've seen some of them in the States, but I think it's a very European setup.
00:55:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:55:46
RICK JAMES
Yeah. i think it is too.
00:55:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, definitely.
00:55:47
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:48
Frank Gerendas
Yeah.
00:55:48
The SnowJobs Podcast
Definitely. Yeah. I'm sure that thing's got limp mode. Absolutely.
00:55:52
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:55:52
Dave Gerow
Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh
00:55:55
Dave Gerow
yeah
00:55:57
The SnowJobs Podcast
man. That's awesome. So how many guys, how many employees is triple J running?
00:56:01
Dave Gerow
We have well over 500 in the winter time.
00:56:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
Wow.
00:56:06
Dave Gerow
Summertime, we're we're nowhere near that that big.
00:56:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yup. Sure.
00:56:09
Dave Gerow
So wintertime when we're going full steam and that's just in the, mostly in the GTA is is around 350 bigger snowfalls.
00:56:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yup.
00:56:17
Dave Gerow
We'll bring in around 500. um well We have have sites alone that are 30, 40 guys. You know, we have quite a few of those.
00:56:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
00:56:24
Dave Gerow
So it starts to add up quickly. Sometimes you lose track of how quickly really starts to add up, especially when we get into snowfalls.
00:56:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
I bet.
00:56:31
Dave Gerow
And, you know, we have a lot of clients that are zero tolerant and, know, We have to make sure that, you know, no matter how long the snow's going for, the wind's blowing or whatever it is, we got to make sure that there's guys on site.
00:56:43
Dave Gerow
So we we do ramp up quite often. We have some good relationships with some temp agencies that when we see the big ones coming in, that we make sure the guys are trained and and everything ahead of time and we can bring in them for additional resources and just kind of top up the original people we have and things like that. so
00:57:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:57:03
Dave Gerow
But in house, we're probably around 500. We're definitely a growing company. Every year, it seems to be that number seems to be growing pretty quick. This year will be a significant increase just on the workload that's coming in right now.
00:57:16
Dave Gerow
And what we're looking at to have to possibly self-perform. um Again, we're coming off but somewhat of a bad winter, at least a bad February last year. We're two major storms where some of our subcontractors maybe didn't perform to where we hoped that they would have.
00:57:33
Dave Gerow
So that's opening up discussions right now and we have new portfolios that are going in there and we don't want that to affect the bigger, I guess, regions and things like that with the rest of the portfolio. So that's something we're working on. And it looks like right now we were awarded a large contract last week, which I mentioned to you guys before, I think it's over 2 million square feet of $2 million.
00:57:55
Dave Gerow
of asphalt that needs to be clear plowed. it's
00:57:57
RICK JAMES
Nice.
00:57:58
Dave Gerow
It's all distribution center work, big contracts, which is nice because we're noticing, you know, we're we're having some tough times in Canada right now. So there's a lot of contractors that are, you know, they're pricing low to get the work a little stability.
00:58:10
Dave Gerow
So that's something that takes a little bit of pressure off us and I guess our sales team to land the big one now and kind of puts us back at the even bar for some of the stuff that maybe we lost earlier in the year to low bid.
00:58:25
Dave Gerow
So and it's an interesting year.
00:58:26
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:58:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
for you guys.
00:58:27
Dave Gerow
Seems to be a lot of stuff that's out for tender. And, you know, we like I said, our clients are, we have a lot of conversations happening right now with clients that are, wanting to bring us on to different properties and and because last year is one of those years that that kind of sets the bar. If you failed last year, then it's fresh in their mind.
00:58:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, 100%.
00:58:47
RICK JAMES
Yep. Yep.
00:58:48
Dave Gerow
There's a lot of changes.
00:58:48
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah Good for you guys.
00:58:51
RICK JAMES
So do you get a lot of you, you get a lot you guys from temp agencies or are they farmers or where do you get all your operators for that?
00:58:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's great.
00:58:56
RICK JAMES
Or I heard you say temp agency.
00:58:57
Dave Gerow
We have a lot of farmers. We have a few different resources.
00:58:59
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:59:00
Dave Gerow
We're on a but a good street in Bradford. So one of our neighbors is a very large paving company and they gave us quite a few operators.
00:59:07
RICK JAMES
Oh, nice.
00:59:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
00:59:10
Dave Gerow
um And then we've got another construction company across the street. That's same thing when it snows, their guys, their dump truck drivers aren't working. So we're able to call in when we need additional resources that we can call in them. So our normal guys can run the the night shift or the typical shift, I guess you could say.
00:59:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:59:26
Dave Gerow
bring in some relief staff just to keep everything opened up and running during the day. rely a lot on them. temp Temp agencies, we do use some. um We try to limit the amount that we're doing there, especially. But you know last year was a good example where it was all hands on deck. And know you sometimes you make that call that you need bodies.
00:59:47
Dave Gerow
You need people as you can.
00:59:48
RICK JAMES
Get what you get.
00:59:49
Dave Gerow
them and exactly give us what you got and the airport's a good example you go you're not putting machines under wings you got to handle that so you you know they're they're we got to tie up all the resources there we can't really budge on that because there's security clearances and things that ties up a lot of our resources and everything so um yeah there's sometimes where it's a big event we're a big company we need people and we can't fail yeah fail so we got figure it out one way or another
00:59:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:59:57
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:00:05
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
01:00:16
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
01:00:17
RICK JAMES
Yep.
Winter Forecasts and Reliability
01:00:18
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, don't worry. The American weather doctors are calling for like an above average winter for a lot of us here in the Northeast. So that would probably mean you guys too. Speaking of the doctors, do you guys use a contracted weather forecast service up there?
01:00:32
Dave Gerow
We sometimes, well, we do, but I can tell you, we don't have good ones.
01:00:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay.
01:00:38
Dave Gerow
not
01:00:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, I mean, are any of them really, i think all of them are like, yeah.
01:00:39
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:00:40
Dave Gerow
yeah that's gonna say ah the The basic weather network seems to do the trick.
01:00:42
RICK JAMES
ah
01:00:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:00:46
Dave Gerow
And it's funny because we we paid a lot of money to a service and it doesn't pick up lake effect. So it's going to tell you that the beautiful night stars are out and you're looking at your window at, you know, an inch an hour falling and, you know, it's lying to you.
01:00:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
01:01:03
Dave Gerow
So it's hard kind of pill to swallow sometimes paying that fee, knowing that it's just kind of generic across the board.
01:01:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:01:10
Dave Gerow
So we, have we
01:01:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:01:11
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:01:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
They'll tell you, oh, nothing on the radar. Well, we're getting a foot here. Well, nothing on the radar.
01:01:14
Dave Gerow
that's right. Yeah. And i mean of course i of course, our clients love to tell us when it's going to snow.
01:01:17
RICK JAMES
How about weather cameras?
01:01:20
Dave Gerow
So we never miss one.
01:01:21
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:01:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
There you go.
01:01:22
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:01:22
Dave Gerow
You get that call.
01:01:23
RICK JAMES
is deal
01:01:24
Dave Gerow
know it's going to snow tonight, right?
01:01:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's it. No, no, we didn't. We had no idea. Thank you.
01:01:29
Dave Gerow
No.
01:01:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
What would we do without you?
01:01:30
Dave Gerow
No, I don't check the radar every five minutes. No.
01:01:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
01:01:33
Frank Gerendas
How many memes
01:01:34
RICK JAMES
Oh, we're on the contract where you call us, not us.
01:01:36
Dave Gerow
That's right. Yeah.
01:01:37
Frank Gerendas
um many memes have you seen where you see this snow but the snowplow guy laying in bed checking his phone?
01:01:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's it.
01:01:41
Frank Gerendas
You don't think that's what we do all day every day?
01:01:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
That is absolutely what we do.
01:01:44
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:01:45
Dave Gerow
We zoom in to see where's dark blue and where's a little bit lighter blue.
01:01:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
My God.
01:01:49
Frank Gerendas
On the radar.
01:01:49
Dave Gerow
Just so you know.
01:01:49
The SnowJobs Podcast
A hundred percent.
01:01:49
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:01:50
Dave Gerow
Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:52
RICK JAMES
Do you cameras, though? you put cameras out or anything?
01:01:54
Frank Gerendas
we We do have cameras on some sites.
01:01:54
RICK JAMES
Have you tried that yet?
01:01:56
Frank Gerendas
We do. um
01:01:57
Dave Gerow
Thank you.
01:01:58
Frank Gerendas
the The cameras are great. The municipality has a lot of cameras up. But even the we we work with a lot of airports to in the military sites and they all have accurate.
01:02:09
Frank Gerendas
They have good weather systems that they use to. So what we do is pretty much cross reference what you see.
01:02:12
RICK JAMES
Gotcha.
01:02:15
Frank Gerendas
you know Have you ever pulled up your your phones, typical your your iPhones weather, then you check the weather network and you check your local news.
01:02:16
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
01:02:23
Frank Gerendas
You check the the newspaper if you still have it. But you know, you're always cross referencing everybody's.
01:02:27
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:02:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's it.
01:02:29
Frank Gerendas
You're hoping, OK, this is going to be the right one. This one's going to be less. you know So
01:02:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
01:02:32
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:02:33
Frank Gerendas
You're always checking them all to see which one's going to give you that well-rounded image.
01:02:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
01:02:37
Dave Gerow
And we have a lot of sites that are manned 24 seven. So even if it's not snowing there, hopefully keeping an eye out for us and letting us know when and the flakes start to come, especially when it's not you know not called for.
01:02:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
oh there you go.
01:02:48
Dave Gerow
it So yeah, we use kind whatever's available to us, but sometimes the basic, you know keep it simple.
01:02:55
The SnowJobs Podcast
Cool.
01:02:56
RICK JAMES
Yeah, definitely.
01:02:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
Do you, you guys, I missed it. I know you said you use a lot of different
De-icers and Regional Preferences
01:03:00
The SnowJobs Podcast
de-icers. Do you guys do liquids up there? Are you doing liquids? Salt, Brian?
01:03:05
Frank Gerendas
We do. We do. Yes.
01:03:06
RICK JAMES
Be choose.
01:03:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay, cool.
01:03:07
Frank Gerendas
A lot of it is client based. We do find that there are challenges and preferences to it. Not a lot of people. If we have a site that has high pedestrian traffic flow, it's not a place they want to see all this liquid being tossed around.
01:03:22
Frank Gerendas
You know, there's a splash effect, the residual effects. um it's It's a little bit of a calculated formula. yeah i beg to differ sometimes of which is more effective. Sometimes we we need to get that salt on the ground.
01:03:35
Frank Gerendas
Then there's a later time you can do the treatment. So I think that it's hard to fall fall dedicated to some liquids if the property is dialed in for it and you know you've had that refinement opportunity.
01:03:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
01:03:47
Frank Gerendas
um But there are other applications that we use. And so we've we've used some, but I find that salt still a big player and you know everybody's trying to do their best to bring in the environmentally you know safe products.
01:03:57
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
01:04:00
Frank Gerendas
But again, you got to be effective. And sometimes you don't always have that luxury, right? To experiment.
01:04:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, absolutely.
01:04:06
RICK JAMES
Okay.
01:04:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
100%.
01:04:06
Dave Gerow
And sometimes we have old dog supervisors too, that they don't see the instant reward, I guess, of it.
01:04:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah percent
01:04:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
01:04:12
RICK JAMES
you know
01:04:13
Dave Gerow
And they don't want to tire out somebody, one of their guys calling them out early, having them put down an application before and not really seeing the results that, you know, we're kind of all hoping for.
01:04:24
Dave Gerow
And then he puts his hands up that, you know, he thinks this is a waste. And we're still one foot in, one foot out. We do have sites that are dedicated, but the sites that aren't, it's a hard work.
01:04:35
Dave Gerow
We're not in there yeah a hundred percent yet. And by and i think that it's it is also difficult because we do have a few tankers, but we don't, our salt quantity every night is very high and we need the spreaders and we need to cover a lot of ground that we can't do in a liquid format yet.
01:04:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
sure
01:04:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah
01:04:55
Dave Gerow
So, and and I think again, we haven't really seen, it's not as, I think the way it sounds, ah it's a lot used a lot more in the States than it is here.
01:04:55
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gotcha.
01:04:55
RICK JAMES
Right.
01:05:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay.
01:05:05
Dave Gerow
I think the Canadians are couple steps behind. Hopefully not.
01:05:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's not used that much. I mean, it's catching on, but I wouldn't say it's widespread use here either.
01:05:14
Dave Gerow
Okay.
01:05:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
I think there's pockets. There's pockets that use it more than others. Like when you have the ah the dry, the light, fluffy, dry snow, like out in Minnesota where Jeremy is in North Dakota, I think it works if you don't have the wind.
01:05:27
The SnowJobs Podcast
I'll preface that, Jeremy, because I know that's a big thing with North Dakota.
01:05:28
Frank Gerendas
Yeah.
01:05:31
The SnowJobs Podcast
The wind blows on top of the the brine. But like here where I am, we we have so much moisture content in our snow, and it's so hard to get the additives.
01:05:33
RICK JAMES
Go
01:05:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's not widely used here by contractors. um It's just not done. It requires too much too much planning, i think. And and it's it's a huge cap expense. It's a huge, to get into it, to start it up, it's a huge cap expense. So, no, here, granular still is king around here, too.
01:05:58
Dave Gerow
That's right. and And no, that's what I was going to say.
01:05:59
RICK JAMES
i definitely go ahead, go
01:06:01
Frank Gerendas
Yeah. gradually
01:06:02
Dave Gerow
like It's just a lot of the guys, they don't see the results right away. for They're kind of against it. They just think it's a you know it's it's somewhat still a waste and they're just wasting some of their resources by doing it and they'd rather just stick to salt.
01:06:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
We've asked some of our sites if they'd actually like to experiment with liquid, and they said absolutely not. Like, they want to see it. You know, they want to see it down. They want the crunch. You know, they want to know that something has been done.
01:06:27
Dave Gerow
That's right.
01:06:27
The SnowJobs Podcast
And if they're not watching you at 4 in the morning and it doesn't look like you put anything down, you know, then they get a little nervous.
01:06:27
Frank Gerendas
yeah
01:06:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
So, yeah, here they're they're still big old school granular.
01:06:33
Dave Gerow
That's right.
01:06:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's what they want. I mean, everything we use is treated. We'll use treated granular, but, ah you know, salt granular salt is still king around here.
01:06:44
Dave Gerow
That's right. And we use a lot of, and we're the same, lot of treated, pretty much all treated now. But yeah, it's, you know, the we haven't really kicked on to, we've always had one foot off. We start the season a little stronger.
01:06:56
Dave Gerow
January where it starts to snow every day, then, you know, we fall off pretty quick.
01:06:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
01:07:01
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep. hundred percent
01:07:02
RICK JAMES
Yeah,
01:07:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
100%.
01:07:02
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:07:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
What else you got, Jay? What else you want to ask these guys? We got some time left.
01:07:09
RICK JAMES
yeah no. So I was going back to their sites. So
Industrial Focus and Technology Use
01:07:12
RICK JAMES
you're doing mostly and industrial now or much or you don't do any residential, obviously, I'm guessing, right?
01:07:12
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah
01:07:17
Dave Gerow
No, we don't have any residential. So we have some retail, which is very small for us.
01:07:17
Frank Gerendas
you
01:07:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
that
01:07:20
RICK JAMES
Yeah. So.
01:07:23
Dave Gerow
It's maybe 15% of our total business.
01:07:24
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
01:07:26
Dave Gerow
It was high at one point, but just like everything else is slipping.
01:07:27
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:07:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure. When you're growing, you evolve.
01:07:30
RICK JAMES
um it's there's a lot of, is there a lot of, obviously there must be a lot of industrial up there in your area that you're servicing.
01:07:36
Dave Gerow
Yeah, yeah it's, it's all distributed. There's quite a few distribution centers. so
01:07:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, shit, yeah.
01:07:40
RICK JAMES
Okay.
01:07:41
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:07:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
You got to see, like, around Toronto Airport there, around Pearson, like, how many warehouses and stuff is there.
01:07:45
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:07:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
we were we we had Our hotel was down that way. So it was like, wow, they got a lot of warehouses down here.
01:07:52
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:07:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
But that's that's pretty much the area around any international airport is all distribution centers, warehouses, stuff like that.
01:07:54
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:07:56
Dave Gerow
For sure.
01:07:59
Dave Gerow
Mm-hmm.
01:07:59
RICK JAMES
i wish I wish we had more of that around here, because I'd love to do but more of them than what we're doing. so
01:08:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
You got to have more than one 400 foot dirt runway that you need like an international airport.
01:08:11
RICK JAMES
We have an international, it's Hector International Airport.
01:08:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, come on.
01:08:13
Dave Gerow
That
01:08:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
Where do they fly?
01:08:15
RICK JAMES
Look it up, Steve, look it up.
01:08:16
The SnowJobs Podcast
where Where do they fly to without making a stop?
01:08:18
Dave Gerow
yeah yeah
01:08:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, I guess they go to Canada.
01:08:21
RICK JAMES
Wherever the plane wants.
01:08:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, I guess they go to Canada.
01:08:23
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:08:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
It could be an international airport. Yeah, they go to Canada.
01:08:25
RICK JAMES
Yeah, yeah, it is.
01:08:26
Dave Gerow
gonna work there for the smoke.
01:08:29
RICK JAMES
There's a big FedEx and UPS hub here and stuff. So yeah.
01:08:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
Gotcha.
01:08:33
Dave Gerow
and That's our client.
01:08:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah Do you?
01:08:35
Dave Gerow
So we do a lot of like ah like a lot of the UPS and FedEx and and like that and and then distribution centers and so large
01:08:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
if
01:08:39
Frank Gerendas
you
01:08:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
sure
01:08:45
Dave Gerow
parking lots is is our biggest thing. anything anything big, obviously we're interested in it and we'll we'll do a big push for it. Again, we're just trying to get away from some of the retail, the times have changed where we don't just take kind of everything that's offered to us.
01:09:00
Dave Gerow
We're thinking about it now a little more and thinking why we shouldn't be doing it instead of just doing it.
01:09:00
The SnowJobs Podcast
hundred percent
01:09:05
Dave Gerow
we're fortunate to be in a position now that we can kind of pick and choose the contracts that are coming in and and who we want work for who we want to work with.
01:09:12
RICK JAMES
How
01:09:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
So you said before, ahead, Jake.
01:09:15
RICK JAMES
about start? was going to say, what was going to ask earlier too, do you run any kind of software in all your stuff, your equipment or GPS or what do you guys, are you guys keeping track of it like that or?
01:09:28
Frank Gerendas
Well, yeah, we have a GPS and we have all sorts of other types of tracking programs. One one main GPS system monitors the efficiency, tracks all maintenance logs.
01:09:39
Frank Gerendas
We can do pre-trip inspections with it. And then for ourselves, we can monitor where they all are too. So that's a really good one. We've got ah other ones that offer camera systems inside, outside.
01:09:53
Frank Gerendas
we have We have some units that actually do the bean counting of our salt.
01:09:54
RICK JAMES
Thank you.
01:09:58
Frank Gerendas
So we even have Viasi counters and they're great.
01:09:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nice.
01:10:04
Frank Gerendas
They just literally go right onto the unit and per gram or per pebble, it literally calculates how much is going down and we can virtually adjust those if we know it's going too much.
01:10:17
Frank Gerendas
We can geocache our sites to you know engage the salter when it's on the property. It comes out of the fence. It'll turn off the salter. Tell us how much ah product has been put down within the parameters.
01:10:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
cool
01:10:28
Frank Gerendas
And that can go right to the client.
01:10:29
RICK JAMES
Nice.
01:10:29
Frank Gerendas
That can come to us internally. you know We can better you know calibrate that.
01:10:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
You guys have low jack on all that stuff for when it gets stolen. I hear that's a huge problem up there.
Equipment Theft and Legal Issues
01:10:41
Frank Gerendas
It is a huge problem.
01:10:41
Dave Gerow
It is a huge
01:10:43
Frank Gerendas
um we
01:10:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
I was told do not stay at a hotel that does not have a gated parking lot with on duty 24 seven security company in it. Do not park your car there.
01:10:53
Frank Gerendas
Okay.
01:10:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
I said, wow.
01:10:54
Frank Gerendas
that That sounds, it sounds a little bit very serious, but listen, I think it's great advice.
01:10:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay. but
01:11:00
Frank Gerendas
ah um i
01:11:01
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:11:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah That was coming from Canadians. That was coming from guys up there.
01:11:05
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:11:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:11:07
Dave Gerow
Especially by the airport.
01:11:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah
01:11:09
Frank Gerendas
um
01:11:10
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:11:11
Frank Gerendas
let Let me tell you something. we We actually have a, let's call it a hospital and we got some dedicated equipment there. And one minute to the next, we get a phone call from the police. Our GPS units are lighting up and there is a half ton truck. They just tied a chain to one of our sidewalk tractors and dragged it right up and over a berm through a school field, dragged that thing out. And that was it. And then, you know, the rest is history that that it was ah ended up in an impound.
01:11:39
Frank Gerendas
So just like that thing, it it doesn't go casually.
01:11:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah Oh.
01:11:42
Frank Gerendas
It's not that, you know, we left it with a key in the equipment, you know, it was somebody been planning that out, you know, staking it out.
01:11:47
RICK JAMES
ah
01:11:51
Frank Gerendas
Okay. I think we got the plan get that rusty chain.
01:11:52
RICK JAMES
Made somebody mad.
01:11:54
Frank Gerendas
They go in there, they, you know, grab it and go right. Snatch and grab.
01:11:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
Jesus.
01:11:58
Dave Gerow
You the unfortunate thing is that we do have a lot of parameters on our GPS units and one of them being is speeding. So they beep when the guys are speeding. And now you get a truck stolen and you think you're going to find that truck because you're going after that GPS, the last known spot.
01:12:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm.
01:12:12
Dave Gerow
And obviously the guy, cause it's beeping at him probably for speeding. and don't think criminals drive the speed limit.
01:12:17
RICK JAMES
Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:12:18
Dave Gerow
the one
01:12:18
The SnowJobs Podcast
here
01:12:19
Dave Gerow
So we've had that happen but a few times too, where we got DPS unit back, but unfortunately the truck wasn't with it.
01:12:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, that sucks That sucks My god, man that's That's really crazy that the theft is so bad up there It's really wild Is it just because they're not doing anything about it?
01:12:25
RICK JAMES
Oh, that sucks. ah
01:12:39
Dave Gerow
Pretty much like, yeah.
01:12:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah That's what Yeah That's Yeah
01:12:40
RICK JAMES
That's normal. That's normal. if you if you knowt If you don't punish what's the prohibit them from doing it?
01:12:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, I swear to God I saw this, that there was a Canadian police force, this is like the i hope this is fake. like what ah What do they call it The virtual thing? whatever ai ai generated.
01:12:57
Dave Gerow
yeah
01:12:57
RICK JAMES
AI. ay
01:12:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
But I saw a press conference where Canadian police force was telling people, if your house gets broken into, just keep your key fobs by the front door. That way you won't get hurt.
01:13:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
They just want the key fobs. So make it easily accessible for them when they break into your house. is that Did that happen or is that AI?
01:13:18
Dave Gerow
No, that's true.
01:13:19
Frank Gerendas
that's true. that's true
01:13:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
touch Jesus Christ.
01:13:20
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:13:21
RICK JAMES
ah hu
01:13:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
Nobody down here can believe that when I tell them that I saw that.
01:13:23
RICK JAMES
um
01:13:23
Dave Gerow
yeah Well, and they usually have the the guy from the ah Florida police chief after that saying, someone comes in your house, shoot him.
01:13:32
RICK JAMES
Shoot him, yeah.
01:13:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's it.
01:13:32
Dave Gerow
You know, we're we're on the total opposite end of this one where, but it is like nowadays, what they do is they see the nice cars and they smash through the doors, the glass windows on the doors and they come in and they take your car.
01:13:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
100%. ah hundred percent
01:13:44
Dave Gerow
So, you know, and and that's the problem that we have is that if you defend yourself in your own home, even you will be charged.
01:13:50
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah Yeah. Oh, 100%, which is ridiculous.
01:13:53
RICK JAMES
That's so stupid.
01:13:54
Dave Gerow
so if you hit someone with baseball bat, yeah, you're in trouble.
01:13:55
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely ridiculous.
01:13:57
RICK JAMES
oh
01:13:57
Dave Gerow
It's
01:13:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, my God. That's so bad.
01:13:59
RICK JAMES
I can't even imagine.
01:14:01
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah, I know. It's so bad.
01:14:02
Dave Gerow
little backwards.
01:14:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
But anyway, um do you guys have a lot of competition for snow? I mean, I know you said there's low bidders out there. It's the same in the U.S. Do you guys have a lot of competition from companies that are somewhat on your level up there?
Client Relationships and Differentiation
01:14:14
Dave Gerow
We do. I think there there is a lot of competition, and i like like i like to say that that we're a little bit –
01:14:15
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:14:22
Dave Gerow
but I don't want to say better than than the rest of our competition, but we're different. And we are different because we put a lot of resources into every contract that we get.
01:14:27
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
01:14:31
Dave Gerow
We don't typically lose contracts based on service. If we're going to lose it, unfortunately, it's and during a tender process.
01:14:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
sure
01:14:38
Dave Gerow
um We've had a lot of the same clients for many, many years going on 20. If we went through our Rolodex of properties and clients, a lot of them have been with us for, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20 years.
01:14:51
Dave Gerow
And that's you know something we're very, very proud of. and And like I said, we don't have a huge sales team here. And for the size of our company, we get the calls. It's funny because we had a call the other day and they're like well, what are you guys doing for advertising your you online this and that?
01:15:06
Dave Gerow
Nothing. We actually don't.
01:15:09
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:15:09
Dave Gerow
And and you know we have a little bit on Instagram that You know, it's very, you know, we do our little part. We make videos of the the cool stuff, I guess you could say, that we do and that we want to highlight.
01:15:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
oh
01:15:19
Dave Gerow
But a lot of it's just iPhone videos and and little things here and there.
01:15:20
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:15:24
Dave Gerow
And in just, again, like quality work. and Our clients... are known to bring us on and we, but where we're also the relationship builders. Like we want that client for a very long time. We know that there's a lot of competition and we work really hard at keeping our clients and, and from everything. And we want to build the experience with them. And, you know, so we, we have lots of events kind of also that we put on that we invite our clients to,
01:15:51
Dave Gerow
We're trying to do something, think outside the box, and we want to be not just a service provider. We want to try to go back to those old school values and build those long-term relationships and do good work. I know that nowadays, lot of it does come down to price and a lot of it is out of people's controls. It's not really the way that it used to be 20 years ago.
01:16:16
Dave Gerow
but you know If things are going to change, then we don't want it to change on service. we want, you know, we won it's unfortunately going to be probably based on price, but you know, we always try to create a good experience, at least while we have the customer, try to make it as pleasant as possible and do good work.
01:16:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
01:16:30
RICK JAMES
Yeah. All
01:16:31
Dave Gerow
And if you do, you know, lose the account, we're going to lose it with our head. I'll die. And, and you know, hopefully one day we get it back.
01:16:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Amen. Love it.
01:16:39
Dave Gerow
No.
01:16:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely. That, I mean, that's the way to, that's the way to do it.
01:16:41
RICK JAMES
right.
01:16:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
If you don't have high turnover, you don't really need a huge sales force.
01:16:46
Dave Gerow
No.
01:16:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
Honestly, if you're not losing any accounts every year, you know, you're just going after the, like you said, we're picking and choosing now, which ones we're interested in, which ones were not.
01:16:50
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:16:55
The SnowJobs Podcast
And that's a, that's, that's the position you, everybody wants to be in where you can pick and choose.
01:17:00
Dave Gerow
Mm-hmm.
01:17:01
The SnowJobs Podcast
And as for you doing the events and stuff to engage your customers, that's that's genius.
01:17:01
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
01:17:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
And that's a thing like for for the younger generation that's listening to this show, I help a couple younger guys in the area. And I was having a conversation with one of them last week who just started out like two years ago.
01:17:18
The SnowJobs Podcast
And said, hey, do you know your customers? Like, do you actually know them? Have you had conversations with you? like Well, a couple of them. I'm like, listen, dude, do yourself a favor. Develop a personal relationship with your customers.
01:17:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
Know their names. Know their kids' names. Know that if you have that personal relationship, that will buy you somewhat of a decent amount of forgiveness when and if you ever have a problem.
01:17:44
Dave Gerow
That's right.
01:17:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
If people fire companies all the time, people are hesitant to fire people they consider friends or that they know well.
01:17:51
Dave Gerow
right.
01:17:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
like That relationship is everything, and I think that's something that's lost on a lot of the younger generation in business.
01:17:58
Dave Gerow
For sure.
01:17:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
where they do so much of it through their phone and digitally, they don't have the personal handshake, the personal, I mean, I can't find a teenager that'll look in the eye anymore and have a conversation.
01:17:59
RICK JAMES
Oh yeah. All
01:18:09
Dave Gerow
Mm-hmm.
01:18:10
RICK JAMES
right
01:18:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like, I'll give you a hundred bucks. You can present me a 16 year old that'll look you in the eye for longer than four seconds and have an actual conversation.
01:18:17
Dave Gerow
That's right.
01:18:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
crazy, but that's what, that's how you keep customers.
01:18:19
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:18:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
Even for a long period of time, they, you develop that personal relationship. You take the time to get to know them, what they like, what they don't like. That's the key. That's huge.
01:18:31
Dave Gerow
Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. and And the times have changed and now it's, it is really promoting the family life and that, and so the events, some of the events that we put on we'll rent where the Toronto Maple Leafs play.
01:18:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
i love it
01:18:43
Dave Gerow
So we rent that ice and we can bring out 200 people to that event. So exactly what you said, where you're you're bringing now our customer, their kids, and they're getting experience something that maybe they wouldn't have had an opportunity to experience before. and it' a To be honest, that's one of my favorite ones. It didn't go over as well as I hoped.
01:19:00
Dave Gerow
So I felt like it was a really hot or cold. So we had some people that you liked it or if you were coming, you were excited to come.
01:19:03
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:19:07
Dave Gerow
Some people that aren't hockey people or this and that, they could care less. But it was kind of funny to watch a lot of these 30, 40-year-old men stepping on the ice where the tournament is playing, and they're skating out there, giving it their kind of all, and you know you're kind of chuckling to yourself watching them come out as if these guys think they're in the NHL or whatever.
01:19:16
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep. That's cool, though.
01:19:27
Dave Gerow
But and you're skating where the Leafs logo is, and you're and you're going around, and it's just it's cool.
01:19:33
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
01:19:33
Dave Gerow
It's nostalgic. You're amazing.
01:19:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
awesome.
01:19:34
Dave Gerow
making it all in. And we, we have a lot of sporting events that we go to and different things too. And, and again, maybe you don't get that opportunity to to go in a box or go.
01:19:45
Dave Gerow
these and and again, and that's my favorite thing.
01:19:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:19:46
Frank Gerendas
Bye.
01:19:48
Dave Gerow
When someone comes up to me, Oh, this is my son, blah, blah, blah. And this is first time. you know It's my first time coming to a box. I love it.
01:19:55
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah
01:19:56
Dave Gerow
So excited. So excited to be there. You know, and again, it's creating the relationship. We're also doing this as an owner. We're also doing this that fun. I got two young boys. They're into hockey. They're every year we get to bring them for their birthdays. They bring all their buddies. That's, that's one of the games throughout the year.
01:20:10
Dave Gerow
Other than that, we're bringing our customers and we're telling them to bring somebody with them.
01:20:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome.
01:20:15
Dave Gerow
It's, it's not one-on-one it's bring somebody with you that you want to be also at that game. And then afterwards, because we do a lot of work with the the Toronto Maple Leafs and MLSC, we're able to, well, not every time, but there's, we can go onto the ice after the game.
01:20:29
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, Jesus.
01:20:30
Dave Gerow
you know, everybody gets.
01:20:31
The SnowJobs Podcast
My son's going to listen to this, Dave. Stop talking about it.
01:20:33
Dave Gerow
yeah yeah
01:20:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
like He's going to hear this.
01:20:34
Dave Gerow
Well,
01:20:35
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:20:35
Dave Gerow
I'm telling Steve from Storm, he's he keeps saying like he wants to plow up in Canada. If he does, going get him to a game, get him on the ice and everything as well. So you know I'm looking forward to getting him up here.
01:20:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's nuts.
01:20:45
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:20:46
Dave Gerow
He's he's pretty exciting. so He's never plowed snow in Toronto. So we've been talking a lot over social media. So definitely looking up here at some point.
01:20:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, yeah, that's awesome. That's great, man. That's awesome. Like you get it I love that. And like for, for younger guys, it may be like, like, let's scale this. What do you think for younger guys?
01:21:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like I always tell guys, dude, you can do something. You could be a one man business, a two man business, just starting out your first year, whatever you can have 10, 15 customers doing something simple as sending them a Christmas card.
01:21:17
Dave Gerow
That's right.
01:21:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
that winter to thank them for the season. That's a great, inexpensive way to start, but it builds that relationship. And then you scale it.
01:21:23
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:21:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
Like then you get as big as you are and you're, you're doing grander things, which is awesome. I love, I love from, from jump to there.
01:21:29
RICK JAMES
you
01:21:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
There's a lot in between that anybody and any scale can do, but they need to do that kind of thing.
01:21:37
Dave Gerow
For sure. And not even just with the customers too, even with your employees. And we get there we have a couple every year that we bring out the guys and we have a good time and you know everybody really enjoys it.
01:21:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes, absolutely.
01:21:41
RICK JAMES
Right.
01:21:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
01:21:46
Dave Gerow
And you know again, something special. Some of these guys haven't had to experience ah you know a box or different or going on the ice after the game.
Client Engagement Events
01:21:54
Dave Gerow
We do a big golf tournament every year. And it's funny kind of even the way that started where we were just going to take a few customers out for for a round of golf.
01:22:03
Dave Gerow
And then all of a sudden it turned into... We had a lot of customers that are were interested in coming. And from there, we started thinking, why don't we get some of our suppliers, and talk to them about it as well. Before we knew it, we were able to cover the cost of the event, invite our customers.
01:22:18
Dave Gerow
We raised more money than what the event was going to cost us to rent out the course for the day to do a tournament. So now we're donating money back to the hospital as well.
01:22:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, that's awesome.
01:22:27
Dave Gerow
picking charities every year.
01:22:27
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's great, man.
01:22:28
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:22:28
Dave Gerow
It's our second year we've done it. It's been a blast. It's been something that every hole has something fun on it. It's really well received. It's again, something different that we can offer to our clients that we can put.
01:22:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
When do you do it? When do you do it?
01:22:41
Dave Gerow
We do it first week of June.
01:22:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right. Let us know next year. We'll sponsor a hole or something. Absolutely.
01:22:46
Dave Gerow
All right. Sounds good.
01:22:47
The SnowJobs Podcast
That'd be awesome.
01:22:48
Dave Gerow
Yeah, it's a great it's a great time. and you know two years in a row, it's been a sellout. And you know we we have a really we really enjoy it. And everybody that attends it has been saying the same. We We're a little bit, the weather wasn't in our favor at the beginning, but it held off for us and, know, turned out to be a great day.
01:23:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
What's the charity?
01:23:05
Dave Gerow
this This year was Southlake Hospital, the Cancer Treatment Center. Well, it's a local hospital for us.
01:23:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome. Good for you guys.
01:23:10
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:23:10
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's phenomenal.
01:23:10
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:23:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
I love it.
01:23:11
RICK JAMES
Yeah,
01:23:12
Dave Gerow
That's right.
01:23:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely awesome. ah What else you got, Jay? Actually, you want to hit some commercials real quick?
01:23:17
RICK JAMES
it's fine.
01:23:18
The SnowJobs Podcast
These guys get a drink?
01:23:20
RICK JAMES
I was going to ask him about what he does to keep his morale up. that He kind of already said all that. So.
01:23:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right, cool. Let's ah let's hit 45 seconds. We'll be back.
01:24:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right, gang. Oh, what happened there?
01:24:23
Dave Gerow
kept secret.
01:24:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
Wow.
01:24:24
RICK JAMES
ah sir
01:24:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
That shut right off or jumped right on again. Sorry about that. We are back. So let's let's see. What else you got, Jay?
01:24:33
RICK JAMES
I was, well, he kind of already answered. Well, like I guess he could probably try and answer a little more about, ah like during ah like that storm were talking about where it you know, a week long, whatever. How do you keep the morale up for you guys? Are anything special for them when or and they're out in event? You know, if they're working long hours and how do you guys...
01:24:50
Dave Gerow
That's one of the things about though the being in the snow business. it's very difficult during the winter months to do events. I think, Frank, what did we plan our Christmas party three times? One ah was a pretty sad picture that we put out.
01:24:59
Frank Gerendas
Yeah.
01:25:00
RICK JAMES
Yep. yeahp
01:25:02
Dave Gerow
It was literally... You know, the decorations up, the tables set, you know, everything was ready to go. And, you know, I think we were doing on what a Monday and we had the over the weekend, we'd have to kind of pull the plug.
01:25:13
Dave Gerow
And then we tried to reschedule for another day. Same thing turned into a snow event. So we don't want to leave anybody out. So it is a difficult thing to do over the winter months. We try. We definitely do one in the fall. We do one in the spring where we can do big barbecues and different activities.
01:25:28
Dave Gerow
You know, the activities and games and contests and things to try to keep, ah you know, again, like you said, the morale up because you want to do the little things. and And I think with our company, we have done a good job with advertising ourselves as being close knit.
01:25:44
Dave Gerow
group where we do a lot of things together. um We, you know, a lot of the guys that work for us have worked for us for a very long time. They, I feel that they feel that they've got skin in the game.
01:25:55
Dave Gerow
They work very hard for us. They'll do the, you know, the big, big, long shifts that, you know, maybe longer shifts than we wish that some of these guys would do, but, know, they, they want to see the results just as badly as we do.
01:26:02
RICK JAMES
Right. Yep.
01:26:06
Dave Gerow
And then, know, they're committed to us and working very hard for us and, uh, We wish we could do even sometimes more for them in the winter months, but it's not the easiest. So, you know, it might be as simple as gift cards, you know, that we're sending out.
01:26:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
No.
01:26:17
RICK JAMES
right
01:26:20
Dave Gerow
um You know, even if it's just coffee, little things, the breakfast or whatever it might be, try to think of whatever we can for them.
01:26:22
RICK JAMES
yep
01:26:29
Dave Gerow
But again, like I said, the Christmas party was a little bit sad this year.
01:26:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sounds like you guys are big enough to have like a, like buy your own food truck and have it roll around with egg sandwiches and stuff, giving them out to the crews.
01:26:38
Dave Gerow
Yeah. Yeah.
01:26:39
RICK JAMES
have
01:26:40
Dave Gerow
yeah
01:26:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's a, but like, that's, i I say it all the time on this show.
01:26:41
RICK JAMES
yes
01:26:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's something as simple as like chicken fingers and fries. My sidewalk guys, all of them, they're all young kids. And all they want at the end of the storm is 6 a.m. Chicken, fingers, and fries. As soon as the one restaurant opens up.
01:26:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
And they're they're set. Like, they don't ask for anything else. They don't want anything. But I think I'm going to do this year. Somebody – do you remember, Jeremy, who gave us the idea that said they – They pack up two giant like ah Tupperware bins, and they have it and in a truck.
01:27:10
RICK JAMES
Oh,
01:27:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
And one of the supervisor's trucks just goes around. It's nothing but chips, power bars in one, all these snacks, and then ah basically all soda in the other one or drinks and stuff.
01:27:14
RICK JAMES
yeah.
01:27:17
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:27:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
I think i'm goingnna I'm going to have that done in one of the trucks this year.
01:27:22
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:27:24
RICK JAMES
Yep. um I can't remember who it was, but remember somebody talking about that.
01:27:26
The SnowJobs Podcast
i don't know, but I remember thinking that like that for a smaller company, like that's that's phenomenal.
01:27:28
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:27:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
that That's a great idea.
01:27:32
Dave Gerow
For sure. Yeah.
01:27:32
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:27:33
Dave Gerow
And then snacks are key. You know, you get the, it's just, again, it's the little things, right? They go in, they punch in, they see a few trays of snacks laid out for them and just something to grab on, grab and go.
01:27:43
Dave Gerow
Then yeah, it it means a lot to them.
01:27:46
The SnowJobs Podcast
depending on your crew, tobacco products.
01:27:47
RICK JAMES
No.
01:27:48
The SnowJobs Podcast
Maybe if you know what, uh, you got a heavy smoker, you got a heavy, uh, chewing tobacco guy, maybe we have a couple of tins ready.
01:27:52
RICK JAMES
Not allowed.
01:27:54
Dave Gerow
Yeah. No.
01:27:55
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
01:27:56
RICK JAMES
Not allowed on the learning machines.
01:27:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah Not in Canada though. Cause you can't get them up there.
01:28:00
Dave Gerow
now
01:28:01
The SnowJobs Podcast
You can't get any like Marlboro or anything like any of those brands. You can't get up there.
01:28:07
Dave Gerow
I, yeah.
01:28:07
Frank Gerendas
No, because they're American, right?
01:28:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
They are American. Yes, they are American. Wow. Okay. Okay. Even pre-tariffs?
01:28:16
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:28:16
RICK JAMES
so
01:28:17
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah
01:28:17
RICK JAMES
Some things are best kept out here, Steve. We don't need to share everything.
01:28:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's true. I just got to know. Well, that explains why he asked me when I crossed the Canadian border how many tins of skull I had. Because I was dipping at the time. He says, are you bringing tobacco over the border? I said, yeah.
01:28:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
He says, how many tins? I said, ah I don't know.
01:28:35
RICK JAMES
Find them.
01:28:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
A couple.
01:28:36
RICK JAMES
He said, find them.
01:28:36
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:28:37
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah. ah full
01:28:37
Dave Gerow
Yeah. Yeah. good.
01:28:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
But he asked how many.
01:28:40
Dave Gerow
yeah
01:28:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
Crazy craziness.
01:28:42
Dave Gerow
good
01:28:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
But anyway, ah what what do you guys in the in your early stages as you started to grow?
01:28:47
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:28:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
You knew this thing was going to take off for you. What what lessons did you learn early on that you want to pass on to guys as far as, ah you know, business lessons that you had to learn, maybe the hard way?
Lessons from Financial Setbacks
01:29:03
Dave Gerow
and say the probably the biggest lesson I've ever learned is and passed along too would be be careful who you work for. That's a big one.
01:29:11
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:29:11
Dave Gerow
It's one of my biggest contracts. So this is kind of a plus and a minus, I guess, against us. So we we were so excited when we landed massive Chrysler plant and brand like just outside Toronto.
01:29:24
Dave Gerow
And we had it for a few years. We were successful with it. Without notice, it was given to a supplier that took over all of the Canadian plants.
01:29:36
Dave Gerow
And because they had a relationship, they were able to get a tier one ah vendor status that we didn't have. So this guy came in, didn't have any experience in the business, and how to found a partner.
01:29:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
01:29:50
Dave Gerow
They weren't even going to get into snow. going to auto parts. Decided to do snow. He knew nothing, the one guy. The other guy did know a little bit. And they came in, they took the Brampton plant from us.
01:30:02
Dave Gerow
And before we knew it, we were just going to support them on the site. We obviously wanted to keep it. It was it was a large one. We did well with it the years that we had it.
01:30:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
sure
01:30:11
Dave Gerow
And first snowfall comes and we were going to support them with just a few pieces of equipment, few loaders. They didn't have anything on site. get a skiff of snow, dusting of snow, and they're calling us to salt the property.
01:30:26
Dave Gerow
There's no salt on site. There's usually a so you know large site, hundred acre site that takes a lot of salt and lot of demand. And we're scrambling now to to send a salt truck through there that we've got to go do 20 tons at a time, go pick up loads, bring it in.
01:30:42
Dave Gerow
By the time we were finished that site, it was almost starting to even melt. So client wasn't happy right off the bat that it was taken from us. And I'm given to one contractor to have long story short.
01:30:55
Dave Gerow
It was a difficult relationship throughout the season. We started to hear rumblings of people not getting paid other contractors.
01:31:04
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, oh,
01:31:05
Dave Gerow
We're into them for big money now. And I was a smaller company. This goes back maybe. back to probably 2010 and we're into these guys for almost a million dollars and we're hearing about guys not getting paid for five, 10,000.
01:31:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
oh Jesus.
01:31:21
Dave Gerow
So of course it goes through its process. We ended up having to go to court. It's the first time I've ended up having to take somebody to court. And even, and and that was probably one of my biggest lessons too, is learning that when you take some to court, even when you win, you don't necessarily get paid.
01:31:38
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep. yep
01:31:38
Dave Gerow
So you might get judgment, but you don't get payment.
01:31:39
RICK JAMES
Right, all right.
01:31:42
Dave Gerow
So we were able to win the court case, because you know spending money and whatever it costs and legal fees, a small fortune, didn't get paid. So now back almost to square one, starting it over again.
01:31:55
Dave Gerow
make a settlement. So we obviously make one settlement for you know a fraction of what we were going get. Now we make a second settlement to guarantee we're going get paid. He promised this time.
01:32:06
Dave Gerow
And promised.
01:32:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah Oh, he promised. Okay. We're good.
01:32:10
Dave Gerow
but At that point, this was this was a big turning point for us.
01:32:10
RICK JAMES
Thank you.
01:32:12
Dave Gerow
So this would have been almost a third of my my yearly income at that time. And through that, we owed obviously, we owed our suppliers a lot of money too.
01:32:23
Dave Gerow
So I remember going and and thankfully, we we had a really good relationship with our salt supplier.
01:32:24
The SnowJobs Podcast
Sure.
01:32:28
Dave Gerow
That was probably the biggest debt we had in going to him and basically saying, you know, we need, this isn't going happen quick. We can obviously see this. so Lawsuits don't happen fast.
01:32:39
Dave Gerow
And I think that was maybe part of the plan was to try to wait, you know, wait a smaller company out.
01:32:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep. OK.
01:32:43
Dave Gerow
And so we went to the salt supplier. we were fortunate enough that our salt supplier was able to put this debt basically on the back burner. So it was one of two ways.
01:32:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
okay
01:32:53
Dave Gerow
The conversation was a tough conversation that we were going have sit down. you know, we went for lunch, known the guy for a lot of years, at least. And said, you know, this is basically going to go one of two ways away. It's looking either we're going to shut down.
01:33:07
Dave Gerow
Or and that means this guy wins and walks away or you got to you got to bear with me. We'll pay you. You know, you know me. You know me for a long time. I'm good for my word.
01:33:17
Dave Gerow
You know, we always pay our debts. We'll pay you. But we also need to operate. We also need to be able to buy salt from you. Thankfully, they're a big enough company where they were able to backburn our debt.
01:33:29
Dave Gerow
We chipped away at it. We did get paid the second time around. Again, now way lower number, but we were able to get paid. And obviously it was one of those, you know, get the money, pay off your debts, start from scratch.
01:33:43
Dave Gerow
But that was a huge thing for us at that time.
01:33:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:33:46
Dave Gerow
Because that one account, we were making good momentum.
01:33:46
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:33:49
Dave Gerow
We were picking up some great accounts. This person was unorganized, sucked us into a mess. And because we got into that mess, we ended up jeopardizing some other accounts that we had because we were pulling resources from it.
01:34:02
Dave Gerow
And then at the end of the day, we had to, you know, for those two years, we were operating on pennies. We're now we've got a shop that's in the back, you know, it's a backyard shop.
01:34:14
Dave Gerow
Backyard shops get backyard mechanics. So our equipment is we're fixing what needs to be fixed, not what we want to be fixed. You know, we had guys, I remember coming in, good drivers and looking at the equipment and, you know, like we were talking about earlier, they're not driving it, you know, and and there's no way like good drivers don't want to drive sketchy equipment.
01:34:26
Frank Gerendas
Thank you.
01:34:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah. 100%.
01:34:31
RICK JAMES
Uh-huh.
01:34:34
Dave Gerow
And unfortunately, in a position at that time that we didn't have a choice.
01:34:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
hundred percent
01:34:40
Dave Gerow
You know, we were paying who was yelling the most. And, you know, like I said, we're we're making really good momentum leading up to this point. And this was a not a, you know, one step forward, two steps back. This was 10 steps back.
01:34:52
Dave Gerow
And it took a couple of years for us to recover from that.
01:34:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
cheese
01:34:54
Dave Gerow
And I think that's also something that, you know, goes to our character now that we were able to recover from something like that. That was a big, basically, if our salt supplier said no, then maybe we shut down.
01:35:02
RICK JAMES
Right.
01:35:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:35:07
Dave Gerow
Maybe we tried to work with, maybe
01:35:08
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
01:35:09
Dave Gerow
whatever it might have happened to be, like luckily he was a good guy, you know, he understood our position and kind of what happened and, you you know, they were willing to work with us. So for that, you know, one or two years after that, or one or two seasons, I should say that we had to kind of backburn of the debt, pay it off as we went, and then we were able to pay it off in full and we still deal with them. And, and i you know, I think that's something that that we definitely appreciate and and and shows that, you know, it doesn't take much, know,
01:35:38
Dave Gerow
to for big mistakes to happen, for big consequences to happen. And and just, you know, we all want those huge accounts.
01:35:41
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely.
01:35:44
Dave Gerow
You know, this site, we made we made good money on the on that account for those two years that we had it.
01:35:45
RICK JAMES
Right.
01:35:50
Dave Gerow
And then, you know, I should have walked away when I saw that, you know, things weren't going well right off the bat, but I didn't, you know, and that's sometimes a flaw in my character is like, you I have a hard time saying no a lot of times.
01:35:56
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:36:02
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yep.
01:36:02
Dave Gerow
You know, I want to do the big jobs and, you know, get the big paycheck afterwards too.
01:36:03
RICK JAMES
Yep. yep
01:36:07
Dave Gerow
And, and this was ah huge mistake. And, you know, I was getting married at the time. was stressful, you know, beyond stressful, you know,
01:36:16
The SnowJobs Podcast
That is stressful. Getting married is a, yeah, that's hugely stressful.
01:36:18
Dave Gerow
The marriage, marriage. Yeah.
01:36:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:36:21
Dave Gerow
and yeah And like everything else and that that goes along with it too, just the the general stress and and not being able to buy more equipment and not being able to, you know everything just gets put on a hold when that kind of when you take on that kind of debt and just not being paid.
01:36:23
RICK JAMES
Uh,
01:36:30
The SnowJobs Podcast
yeah
01:36:37
Dave Gerow
So I think if I was to give any type of advice to somebody, just be careful, don't overstep, grow at a manageable level.
Growth Management Advice
01:36:46
Dave Gerow
The opportunities always come. There's lots of work out there.
01:36:50
Dave Gerow
Be very careful who you work for. You work for the wrong guy once and they will burn you. And sometimes the big guys don't care. They'll go out of business and and, you know, they don't give a shit who is falling with them or because of them.
01:36:57
The SnowJobs Podcast
No. Yeah.
01:37:03
Dave Gerow
So, you know, that's... stuff
01:37:05
The SnowJobs Podcast
I would venture to say sometimes that's their plan. This is going to be our last season. We're going to go out of business. We're going to go bankrupt in in March. We're not going to pay anybody, and we're going to open back up in July under a slightly different name ah registered to somebody else, and that's a business model.
01:37:17
Dave Gerow
That's right.
01:37:18
RICK JAMES
Oh
01:37:22
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's so fucking bad.
01:37:22
Dave Gerow
For a lot of people, it is.
01:37:23
RICK JAMES
yeah.
01:37:23
Dave Gerow
Yeah. No, definitely.
01:37:24
RICK JAMES
It's been done. Wow.
01:37:25
The SnowJobs Podcast
Is the is the the company, no names, but is the company that screwed you over still in business?
01:37:30
Dave Gerow
They, you know, he did well. And I don't know if means anything afterward.
01:37:34
The SnowJobs Podcast
I'm sure. Okay.
01:37:35
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:37:35
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:37:36
Dave Gerow
He had some money to play with. it So I heard that he did sell to the so the the big B.
01:37:42
The SnowJobs Podcast
okay All right.
01:37:42
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:37:44
The SnowJobs Podcast
that That sounds about par for their course.
01:37:46
Dave Gerow
Yeah.
01:37:47
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:37:47
Dave Gerow
yeah Yeah.
01:37:49
RICK JAMES
Right on, right on.
01:37:50
Dave Gerow
you know
01:37:52
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, that's all.
01:37:52
RICK JAMES
Right.
01:37:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's great advice though. That's all. I'm sorry that happened to you, man, but that, what a learning experience. Like that's gotta, that's gotta grow you up real quick in business. Like you, you, you learned a lot from that one.
01:38:03
The SnowJobs Podcast
If you survive it, then you're never going to have a problem ever again.
01:38:07
Dave Gerow
No, and you know, and exactly that.
01:38:08
RICK JAMES
right
01:38:09
Dave Gerow
And then once we got back on our feet, we were able to keep the growth going again and to levels that we're at now. And you know we're we're definitely a very strong company financially and everything else that we have going on.
01:38:21
Dave Gerow
So it's it's it's nice to see that you can have really dark days too and and think that, you know, it can't get almost worse than where you are right now. And just give it some time, give it some time, baby step it back out.
01:38:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
Good for you.
01:38:34
Dave Gerow
And before you know it, you know, Good things happen to good people. I'm a strong believer in that. And you work hard, do what you say you're going to do. And, you know, the rest falls into place.
01:38:43
The SnowJobs Podcast
hundred percent 100%. Love it.
01:38:44
RICK JAMES
Right.
01:38:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
Jay, you want to do five and five real quick?
01:38:48
RICK JAMES
Let's do it. All right, Dave or Frank or both you, where you like to see your company, Triple J, go in the next five years? What are you looking forward to?
01:38:57
Frank Gerendas
I'd love to see the company still progress in this exponential path that we're going on. Keeping everything with our employee retention, staying profitable to sites, these relationships growing, our fleet of iron growing.
01:39:11
Frank Gerendas
So I think what it is, is we want to see this momentum going on the healthy organic pace. um I'd love to see that maybe we're self-performing a bit more.
01:39:22
Frank Gerendas
but those relationships are healthy, building core fundamentals of our equipment and being able to do everything. Self-sustain, so sustainability.
01:39:29
Dave Gerow
Thank you.
01:39:31
Frank Gerendas
They touched a lot on the floats and all that stuff, but but basically setting up bigger operations, having bigger salt domes or moving our equipment around better, ah the training.
01:39:43
Frank Gerendas
So just that organic growth to grow would be I think a good assurance. And I think that's what I'm looking for for, business, for retention, for the culture that, you know, we're assured that we have good momentum moving forward.
01:39:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
Awesome.
01:39:59
RICK JAMES
right. Perfect.
01:40:00
The SnowJobs Podcast
What about you, Dave?
01:40:02
Dave Gerow
I actually first wanted to hear what Frank was going to say.
01:40:05
RICK JAMES
All right.
01:40:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
no
01:40:07
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:40:08
Dave Gerow
But exactly exactly that. We've got a lot of plans and a lot of growth. We're not looking to go backwards. We're only looking to go forward. We have a plan in place already for this season.
01:40:20
Dave Gerow
It's looking like it could possibly be quite a bit more than what we have in mind right now. There's new opportunities that are coming. Get to certain levels, too, that there's discussions that happen before tenders.
01:40:32
Dave Gerow
even go out and and you can start to see what's going to be coming out for tender in the next you know year, two years, three years. So you can start to plan as preferred vendor. We're we're working on more preferred vendor status with certain clients.
01:40:44
Dave Gerow
So these are things that we're building on that I think, you know, again, we are a stable company. i think that, you know, with everything that we have coming in the pipeline, that we will see a lot of growth and continue with our growth. And Our clients all seem to be very satisfied with our service. so We don't anticipate any big changes in that sense.
01:41:05
Dave Gerow
So, you know i think we've got a lot of good days ahead of us. We're attracting a lot of strong talent right now as well. We're getting emails. We're advertising for new... um New site supers, area managers.
01:41:18
Dave Gerow
We're getting some top-notch people from some of our competitors that are inquiring with us because they they see that we're excited. They know that we're building something different. We're not just the average company. We build some cool stuff and and like...
01:41:33
Dave Gerow
you know Good example, even in the summertime, we're building roller coasters. We work with Canada's Wonderland. We're doing different things in MLSC, Rogers Centre. So there's lots of different um fun projects that we're working on that we can kind of promote to our people to be a little bit different. We're a year-round opportunity. It's not just winter.
01:41:53
Dave Gerow
So, yeah, we've got a lot of people that are you know kind of knocking on our door now looking for you know to join this team. And i think that and we're going to see with these added levels that are coming in that the company is going to continue to grow.
01:42:06
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome. Good for you guys.
01:42:07
RICK JAMES
Awesome.
01:42:08
The SnowJobs Podcast
That sounds great. um Last five years to get to this point, what's been the best decision you guys have made?
01:42:17
Dave Gerow
i would say it's it's the quality service. It's, it's, it's just basically that simple in a way is doing what we say we're going to do, showing up when we say we're going to show up going above and beyond like our clients, you know, we, we try to work with them as much as possible.
01:42:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
Okay.
01:42:34
Dave Gerow
If they have a request that's out of scope, we're not going to, you know, to a certain extent, obviously we're not going to, you know, make a big deal of it or whatever it might be. we want to work with them. We want them to be able to come to us whenever they need something that, you know,
01:42:49
Dave Gerow
because we also have so many different services in house, we're not just stone removal landscape. We have a full facilities division too. So we always look at the bigger picture. We want to bend over backwards for our clients.
01:43:01
Dave Gerow
And I think by doing that and and offering as many services that we do, we're bringing on a lot um more quality clients, clients that do want to, that have multiple locations, larger portfolios that,
01:43:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:43:17
Dave Gerow
don't want to contract to as many contractors. They want a single source that as much as possible. So these are, I think the things that we've focused on certain clients over the last few years.
01:43:28
Dave Gerow
um And, and again, been in in fortunate position to be able to pick and choose which clients we're working with. And because of that, they've grown and we've grown.
01:43:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
Awesome.
01:43:40
RICK JAMES
Great.
01:43:40
The SnowJobs Podcast
Love it. What about you, Frank? Best decision you think in the last five years to get you guys to this point?
01:43:48
Frank Gerendas
I think building simple systems, following the rules, don't rush anything, taking our time. I think that's builds the fundamental of why we're here.
01:43:54
The SnowJobs Podcast
Love it.
01:43:59
RICK JAMES
great.
01:43:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
Love it. Absolutely love it. Jay, you got anything else before we let these guys go?
01:44:05
RICK JAMES
I don't think so. It's a good one. It's good to hear about Triple J and what they got going on up there. be fun to take a look at it one day.
01:44:09
The SnowJobs Podcast
It's awesome.
01:44:11
RICK JAMES
so
01:44:11
The SnowJobs Podcast
Absolutely. Yep. Hopefully we can get the American photographers into Canada.
01:44:13
RICK JAMES
up
01:44:16
Dave Gerow
support
01:44:16
RICK JAMES
I'll have to join Mr. Smythe up there and go plow. All
01:44:20
Dave Gerow
That's right.
01:44:20
The SnowJobs Podcast
There you go.
01:44:21
Dave Gerow
Well, we'll come pick you guys up anytime.
01:44:21
The SnowJobs Podcast
Arctic Steve.
01:44:22
Dave Gerow
Sounds good.
01:44:23
The SnowJobs Podcast
That's awesome.
01:44:23
RICK JAMES
right. Why don't you just grab one of the planes from one of the bombardiers? You can bring ours down.
01:44:28
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, yeah, when we're when we're doing our test flight in the 5000 series, well ah you know we'll make sure we we stop by and say hello.
01:44:28
RICK JAMES
Yeah. yeah so
01:44:34
RICK JAMES
yes
01:44:35
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:44:35
Dave Gerow
and good
01:44:36
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:44:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
i Listen, it guys, though, it's been awesome having you guys.
01:44:37
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:44:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
I loved hearing about Triple J. I wish you guys all the best in the future. It's been been great talking to and if you don't mind, we're going to have you back on, definitely, because we are talking already about doing another airport episode with a couple of airport guys, because guys enjoyed hearing from ah from Mr. Big Dick Dickerson there, Todd.
01:44:58
The SnowJobs Podcast
ah He...
01:44:59
RICK JAMES
ye
01:44:59
The SnowJobs Podcast
Top dog. he Everybody loved hearing that one. So they were asking for more airport stuff. So since you guys do airports, that'd be perfect. If you're willing to come back on with us.
01:45:08
Dave Gerow
Absolutely. It was great experience. We really appreciate you having us on. It was a lot of fun.
01:45:14
The SnowJobs Podcast
I told you nothing to worry about all fun, all laughs.
01:45:15
Dave Gerow
Nothing to worry about.
01:45:16
RICK JAMES
Yeah, cell phones.
01:45:19
The SnowJobs Podcast
Well, thank you, boys. We really appreciate it. And we're going to let you go, but it's been, it's been long. I appreciate that. Almost two hours. Thank you very much for the time. We know you guys are busy. And yeah, yeah.
01:45:29
RICK JAMES
Hopefully don't get sniped this week.
01:45:32
The SnowJobs Podcast
I don't want to hear.
01:45:32
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah.
01:45:33
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yeah. I don't want to hear you got hit by a hit and run or, you know, any any that stuff.
01:45:34
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:45:37
Dave Gerow
Home invasion. yeah and That's right.
01:45:39
The SnowJobs Podcast
Yes. Yes. Leave your key fobs by the front door, please.
01:45:40
RICK JAMES
the yeah
01:45:43
Dave Gerow
Yeah. yeah
01:45:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
Can't figure it out.
01:45:45
RICK JAMES
so
01:45:45
The SnowJobs Podcast
We left the key fobs and they still didn't take them. They just went right for them.
01:45:48
Dave Gerow
That's right. That's right.
01:45:50
RICK JAMES
Oh yeah.
01:45:51
The SnowJobs Podcast
Oh, man. Canadian snow mafia in the house.
01:45:53
Dave Gerow
That's it.
01:45:53
The SnowJobs Podcast
All right, well, that's it. We appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. All the best, Triple J, this upcoming winter and in the future. And we'll wrap it there. So, guys, that's going to do it for episode 131. I think it's 131. Wow, 131. I think 188 overall, Jay, all totaled.
01:46:07
The SnowJobs Podcast
i think we're at one eighty eight overall ja all total
01:46:12
RICK JAMES
or
01:46:13
The SnowJobs Podcast
188 episodes. Yep. So, but that's it. 131 of the snow jobs podcast main show in the books. As we said, thank you. Big thank you to Dave and Frank for so much time. We know it's valuable and they don't have a lot of it. They're looking forward to winter already. So thank them very much. That is it guys. Everybody be safe out there. If you're traveling to Mankato for storm day this week, have very safe travels.
01:46:36
The SnowJobs Podcast
Everybody else out there have a safe week and keep pushing.