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S4-167: Adirondack Customs/Bison Facility Management Services, Chestertown NY
31 Plays13 minutes ago
The guys welcome Kevin Stonitsch to the show to hear all about Adirondack Customs, and their snow management branch, Bison FMS. They have experienced tremendous growth in their snow business operating in and around the Adirondack region of New York.
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Transcript
Sponsorships and Introductions
00:00:02
Speaker
This No Jobs podcast episode is brought to you by Top Gun Backblades.
00:00:24
Speaker
Get ready to go. She ain't moving slow. She's taking control. Pushing the pedal through the floor. I'm begging for more.
00:00:39
Speaker
Here we go, Snow Jobs Nation. We are back again bringing you episode 167 of the Snow Jobs Podcast main show powered by Top Gun Backblades, the best show in snow. As always, I'm Steve. I'm talking to the juice box guy. You know who's with me. I'm one of the baddest motherfuckers of all time.
00:00:55
Speaker
One of the best singers, one of the best looking motherfuckers you've ever seen. Hold my
Weather and Weekly Activities
00:00:59
Speaker
drink, bitch. jeremy the chuck norris of snow lindstrom i actually can't call you that anymore out of deference to the great chuck norris who is no longer oh yeah he's no longer with us no longer with us so i will retire that name he's uh he's still out there don't worry about he's still out there absolutely is what's up buddy how you doing how was your week hey not too bad yes not a bad week We've got some things down the shop, you know, moving on to next season. Hopefully we get there. We've got a chance of snow. We're recording this on, what, Thursday? Yeah, early this week. We've got a chance of snow on Friday this week. There's no way this works. We've got chance of snow tomorrow, so I'm hoping it looks pretty light if it does come.
00:01:42
Speaker
Ground time's pretty high, so I'm really not too worried about and I'm not even going to care. My truck's going to get detailed tomorrow. That's all I care about. And you've been in the mid-70s the last couple days, right? Yeah, just last two days have been really nice, and then Monday, Tuesday was shit days. Then last two days have been good days, and it turns to shit for the weekend, and then next week warms up a little bit. so Dude, we were downright hot today.
00:02:05
Speaker
That's what I saw. Like, sweaty, hot today. I think it was higher than 70. I think here it was 80. It was hot as hell today, but... a good day to stay inside in the in the cool temperatures and get some paperwork done.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah. I only had a limited amount of time. I had to set up a couple rooms, record multiple episodes tonight. So I had to get the job done. We're ready for this one.
Interview with Kevin Stanish
00:02:32
Speaker
you You ready to do this?
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Today we're heading to my favorite place in the world, all right? The Adirondack Mountain Lake George region of New York. specifically Chestertown, New York. We're going to talk to Kevin Stanish, who is the owner of Adirondack Customs and Bison Facility Maintenance Service. ah They do a lot of sites up there for snow in that region, ah and they're getting bigger every year, taking on more stuff every year. They're evolving every year.
00:03:00
Speaker
So we can't wait to talk to Kevin, hear what he has to say about that region, because that's a unique snow up there. um Definitely is. like that's That's like ah the guy we talked to from Upper Peninsula, where they could literally get They could literally get snow i believe for periods of time. time The guy ah from the Arctic Razorback. Oh, yeah. Yeah. like ah Richard Shields. Richard. yep Yeah.
00:03:22
Speaker
Yeah. or You can literally get snow in that region every day, a dusting to an inch if you if know, if you're not lucky. So but that's what we got today. And before we do that, as always, we're going hear from Team Top Gun. We're going come back, do a quick week in review.
00:03:37
Speaker
Gentlemen, let me tell you about the best kept secret in the snow game, Top Gun Backblades. Our All-American blade is the largest and strongest pickup truck plow on planet Earth. We're talking about a 16 to 20 foot wide blade that makes other snow plows look like toys.
00:03:49
Speaker
This is what peak efficiency feels like. Now, you can do more with less. We're currently offering the Fly High Edition plows with exclusive perks in honor of our late founder Jason Yonkers. Quantities are extremely limited.
00:03:59
Speaker
ask about our new skid steer attachment. Get your order started at topgunblades.com or check us out on Instagram and YouTube at Top Gun Blades. Welcome to Team Top Gun. All right, we're back. So like we said, we can review real quick. As we said last week and the week before that, Storm Chasing Season 2 is out.
Snow Events and Merchandise
00:04:17
Speaker
It is on YouTube. There are episodes up. Go check it out.
00:04:21
Speaker
Rewatch last season. Watch the new ones for Season 2. Keep giving us the likes. Keep subscribing to the YouTube page. Keep subscribing to the podcast and all the socials.
00:04:31
Speaker
you know Just keep doing it, all right? But yeah, they're out. What do you Jay? Got something about Storm Chasing? Oh, I thought you had something to say about storm. No, I was just leaning forward. Oh, okay. he was He looked very like he had to get something in there. so it's really good.
00:04:48
Speaker
It's really good. ah Really good. Stork Snow Alliance has sold out as we announced last week. So all you guys that didn't believe me, tough shit. Now you can't go.
00:04:59
Speaker
Now you got to wait till next year. And I i did see if there was a so a Snow Alliance thread on Facebook in one of the the group chats asking, is that, is it really a good event? Is it worth going to? It is the single probably best one day event to go to.
00:05:18
Speaker
right now there's a couple good ones out there but i would say overall storks is probably right there and it's immediately after snow is over so you have 250 hardcore snow guys that just want to keep the keep the ball rolling keep the train chugging keep talking snow uh so they get one more day to do it and uh It's been great. I highly recommend that when we do announce tickets next year, you actually take it seriously when we tell you it's going to sell out because it's this year sold out earlier than last year did, and next year will sell out even quicker.
00:05:50
Speaker
And there is limited space. yeah not like Yeah, that's the whole problem. He just has limited space. Otherwise, we could get more people. but Yeah, he's he's not being elitist. Yeah, yeah. It's not a...
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, there were a couple of guys on there asking, is it worth going? Yes, it's definitely. if you are If you're into snow, it's definitely worth the trip from wherever you are. Sean, try to scalp his ticket, or is he going?
00:06:16
Speaker
Sean is going. Sean is not scalping any tickets. That'd be pretty funny, though. That would be something he would try. ah wo Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. So we will see ah everybody at Storks next week. We will be on the golf course for the golf outing.
00:06:34
Speaker
So look for us. ah You'll probably be listening to us as you're trying to tee off on the 10th tee. You're going to get heckled a little bit. Yep, you will. Oh, well.
00:06:47
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's going to be good time, though. Hopefully you can take some jokes. Yep, going to be a good time. ah What else is coming up? Simon 2026 is in Cincinnati this year, right? That's going from June twenty third to the 26th.
00:07:01
Speaker
Storm Field Day is in July this year. They moved it up. It's now in July. and End of July. Something July, I guess. so Yep. End of July. Can't remember the dates. it's ah Yeah, I do.
00:07:13
Speaker
Oh, you do? Oh, hit it. Well, i'll just give me a second. 29th and 30th. July 29th and 30th. All right. So when I tell you that tickets are going on sale and they will sell out, take me at my word. Get them early. all right.
00:07:31
Speaker
It's ah that one will sell out too. And that's, that's another great one day event. All right. They're kind of bookended beginning of the season, end the season, but now Patty salmon moved his October, right? Northeast de-icing day.
00:07:43
Speaker
I think he's talking in October. It's what yeah yeah so he, movie excited over sure I believe last year was October, right? Right in the middle of combine. You what? pat I'll be combining.
00:07:55
Speaker
You went last year, didn't you? Yeah, but it wasn't October last year, was it? think it was. Maybe it was. I definitely think it was October last year. I'll make it work. I'll make it work for Patty. I'll make it work.
00:08:05
Speaker
He's going to bring me up to a steakhouse before normal. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, these one-day regional events are getting more and more popular, and they're getting better and better every year. So if you if you are a snow guy and you're in the area where those shows are, I highly recommend attending.
00:08:22
Speaker
All right. We got anything new in the store? We got a shout out. Snowjobnationstore.com. We got our patch hats. And we got our little t-shirt we dropped this week. Oh, our Canada a shirt.
00:08:35
Speaker
A Canada shirt. yes yes and Plus all the other stuff, normal stuff. But yeah, the Canadian shirt, if you haven't seen it yet, let's look at our store.
00:08:45
Speaker
I've talked to three Canadians. They all love that fucking shirt. Yep. I'm bringing them to Storks for a few of them. going wear them proud. so Oh, my God. If you haven't seen them yet, head over to snowjobsnationstore.com and check out the new shirts. It's things that Canada does is better at than the United States. and Number one, snow removal crossed out.
00:09:11
Speaker
Number two, making snow removal products crossed out. Number three, hockey crossed out. Number four, wildfires consuming half the country. Big checkmark. Yeah, you guys got that covered. You got it covered. You got us beat there.
00:09:26
Speaker
damn Somebody was, who was it? Somebody snapped me this week. They were flying an airplane. they was All they could see is like fire. I go, you must be flying over Canada.
00:09:37
Speaker
It's gates of hell. Yeah. ah Right now there's some Canadians out there. like Yeah, that's not going to happen. No, it's definitely not going to happen. We have a microphone. That's right. I wish I had that one.
00:09:51
Speaker
i didn't have that one preloaded tonight. but All right. You good, bud? I'm good. Just ah everybody, if you want to get some apparel before Storks, you better order this weekend. Better order quickly.
00:10:04
Speaker
Monday. Maybe it'll get there. I don't even know if it'll get there. It's probably by the time this drops, it'll be past. We are going to have some of those t-shirts there. You can buy out of the backseat of Steve's car probably. Yes, probably correct.
00:10:22
Speaker
Bootleg shirts. take the cash. I'll take the cash. ah Yeah, it's like a drug deal. It's like a drug deal. Pay Jeremy, but then go eight cars over to get the merchandise. Yeah. the Brown paper bag.
00:10:35
Speaker
Fucking funny. All right. We're good. Let's ah let's hear some ah words from our partners, and we'll come back and we'll get into this with Kevin.
Product Endorsements and Advertisements
00:10:44
Speaker
Hey, guys. Steve here. We're always looking for ways to save on labor and increase safety for our people. Last year I purchased a game-changing snowblower from my company that does just that.
00:10:54
Speaker
It's called the MuskOx. It's patented backdrag feature and design lets us get right up to our HOA garage doors and tight spots, clean them all right down to the pavement without scratching. This beast can also scrape hard pack going forward if you need it to.
00:11:08
Speaker
It's truly a dual threat blower. Give MuskOx a call. Their staff are extremely knowledgeable and have been amazing with us. MuskOx, snowblowers that backdrag. Step into the future of snow removal with Arctic Snow and Ice Products, where innovation has been our driving force since the early 2000s.
00:11:24
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00:11:39
Speaker
Join us in shaping the future of snow removal. Discover more at www.articssnowproducts.com. You know what it takes to keep winter in check. Long nights, cold mornings, crews that never quit. That's who Boss Snowplow is built for. From plows and spreaders to sidewalk and liquid solutions, every Boss product is engineered for snow professionals like you.
00:12:01
Speaker
Tested tough, built smart, proven to deliver when it matters most. We don't just make snow and ice equipment, we design it to dominate every storm. So when the snow starts flying, you're not just ready, you're Boss ready.
00:12:13
Speaker
We're Boss Snowplow, and we do whatever it takes to back you up. Guys, if you've followed the show lately, you've heard us mention the Plowrite snow stakes. Well, now that I've tried them, I have to say I'm a huge fan. Installing traditional snow stakes is time-consuming, expensive, and if you're using fiberglass, just downright dangerous due to the splinters.
00:12:29
Speaker
That's where the Plowrite marking stake system comes in. Their patented installation tool can install up to 450 stakes per hour. The stakes are made of hollow polypropylene, which will not crack, break, or splinter.
00:12:39
Speaker
They have three different size options from 26 to 46 inches. Come in five standard colors, orange, green, blue, red, and hot pink. Best of all, everything is 100% made in the USA. Log on to plow-write.com and order yours today.
00:12:53
Speaker
Be sure to use the promo code SNOWJOBS at checkout to save 10% off your order. Let's go. We're back. All right, gang. So thank you to our partners, as always, for keeping us going here. But, yeah, let's let's bring them in.
Bison Facility Operations and Challenges
00:13:08
Speaker
Let's welcome Kevin Stonish to the Snowjobs. How are we, Kev?
00:13:11
Speaker
We're good tonight. Fair to Midland. How about you? We're not too bad. We're not too bad. I'm in the dungeon here recording, so I'm keeping cool. That's good. Not bad at all. Yep. So you got thunderstorms inbound?
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, we got a few coming through, but it got my AA bot to work, so now I have my notes. Oh, there you go. Yeah, not bad. And there's some lightning. Great. We'll try and get this in then before you lose your Starlink up the upload there. Does that work better in that area? Oh, absolutely. So we yeah we lack fiber where we're at. If I told you Reparius, nobody knows where the frig that is.
00:13:49
Speaker
but Nope, not even me. It's either Starlink or basically dial-up. So yeah, Starlink's been pretty good. Elon knows what he's doing. Gotcha. all right. Well, let's hope so for this one.
00:14:02
Speaker
Let's hope we ah we can keep it together. Jay, you want to take us away so we can get this one in? Yeah, you bet. Hey, Kevin. don't you tell everybody about your business, what you when you guys got started, what you're all about?
00:14:15
Speaker
So I formed Adirondack Customs in 2007 because I came out of college, was a volunteer pastor and nobody was hiring in that wonderful economy collapse. We started off doing residential projects, being in the Adirondacks where it snowed, got asked to plow some driveways and just kept myself busy.
00:14:33
Speaker
Brought on my wife early. because I needed to support her and support my young daughter, and just kept growing it from there. Bison came along as a dream about four or five years ago when our clients kept asking us, hey, can you take on commercial projects?
00:14:48
Speaker
Can you take on commercial snow? And then we saw the need to eventually split into sister companies. So Bison handles the commercial side of meeting the commercial needs, and Adirondack handles the custom home and residential side.
00:15:02
Speaker
Nice. ye And there's not too many companies up that way that like for the bigger sites that can handle that kind of stuff. I mean, that's, that's nice. ah It's a nice niche to be in up there.
00:15:14
Speaker
It is. It has its challenges. That's for sure. oh I'm sure. Pocket of the world that is definitely different. I'd like to eventually get Jeremy to come up one day, see what happens when you get off the flat ground.
00:15:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah yeah. I'll try it. and I'll try anything. Why not? we yes i's been He's been there. I've been there. I've been to the White House. so yes the The White House. The White House.
00:15:38
Speaker
Have you ever seen or what? Yeah, we got some ditches around here. the guys They got canals. They got canals with a pretty steep slope. We don't have canals. We have ditches. ditch but What's a canal?
00:15:55
Speaker
You can fall off the side of the access road to the HOA and die. then come talk. yeah Sign me up. 100% correct. okay Sign me up. I might just go die.
00:16:10
Speaker
oh Send it. We made the drive through Chestertown to go to the Buffalo show. um Who was doing that? I don't remember who was putting that on. Was it like it was some green? come ah Last August, I made the drive with my son from the lake to Buffalo. We went through Chestertown, got off the thruway there are the north way there. And it had us on a road like Kevin was talking about where you're looking over the side of the cliff. It's a long, long way down.
00:16:44
Speaker
And that's one of the good roads, Steve. Yeah, I know. i know. So was the one going to Lake Placid in February there right before that major storm. And that was i asked that pretty treacherous.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, that was pretty treacherous. You were texting me like, am I going to be able to get home or what? Yeah, I know. I needed to know what it was doing. Luckily, we made it. It was ah it held off just long enough for me to get home, get something to eat, and then boom, we were right at it, three inches an hour. Yeah. When you took that road to Buffalo, we used to do some utility sites up that way. Okay. And there was this there was a storm, I guess would be about a dozen years ago now, where we climb up to about 2,500 feet of elevation. We're climbing mountains to get to these things, right? Yeah.
00:17:26
Speaker
They shut the road down for the entire storm. Cops there, you can't pass. 42 inches, and I'm stuck at that mode with just truck plows. I had no loaders, no skids, and I got to deal with 42 inches on the side of a freaking mountain.
00:17:41
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. That's wild. It was spectacular. How'd you do?
00:17:48
Speaker
Spectacular. Sounds like a job for a Razorback. Yeah, right. So what services does Adirondack Customs? I've actually seen a couple of the houses you've They're very nice.
00:18:02
Speaker
You do very nice work. We started small. But we specialize in custom home construction, primarily log and timber frame. We do some custom stick builds for our customers, but it's the proverbial lake house, right?
00:18:15
Speaker
People that want their second, for third, eighth house. We also do some additions, remodels on that end, and then we take care of their other residential needs. Essentially, when you're our client, you're our client for life. We want to make you happy.
00:18:29
Speaker
Nice. on the On the Bison side, it's it's kind of just the same for the commercial side. Whether you're on the industrial size all the way down to small retail, if you're going to call us with a need, we're going to meet that need all four seasons.
00:18:43
Speaker
Sweet. you guys Now, Bison, you guys are starting to cover um a much larger area, right? You were telling me that your drive is down how long? An hour?
00:18:56
Speaker
A little more than that now. So ah wow we're on the snow game, right? We got to be a little bit insane. Yep. Not a little bit. I know Jeremy doesn't doesn't really know my part of the world. I'll send him a map or something. But two years ago, we were in a service area that was about 90 miles end to end.
00:19:17
Speaker
This year, we're in a service area that extends from almost the Canadian border above plattsburg down to albany new york actually a little bit below so we're covering pretty close to 200 miles up and down the north way so you remember where we got pulled over jeremy all four all four trucks so where we got pulled over he's still going almost 90 minutes north of there okay yeah and then all the way south to well past where we got off
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah. That's a, that's a hall. Yeah. It's a hall. Absolutely. In the snow. Well, and yeah. In the snow. We have multiple service areas. So we have one up in Plattsburgh, New York, that's servicing that hub, which extends right now from Champlain and Shazey about 40 minutes end to end.
00:20:07
Speaker
it It kind of depends on what your needs are, right? We do some utility hubs. That's been a niche for us. That's a high sensitivity site, right? When something goes wrong and they got to get out.
00:20:17
Speaker
So if we have a ah location that's big enough to have onsite equipment that never has to leave, we'll take it on outside of a service area a little bit. Sure. um Then in the Adirondacks, right, you look on a satellite map from Artemis and it's a giant black hole.
00:20:31
Speaker
So you got skip 60 miles and then you get to start again on another location hub. Then you can skip another 20 minutes and then there's another one. And you keep leapfrogging your way up and down this corridor.
00:20:43
Speaker
because you don't have the big spread out open city that some of these other people get to work with. It's just kind of geography dictated our expansion. Cool. Very cool. And so what do you guys end up getting um in the Chestertown area? its and the northern end of your your response area there as far as your annual snowfall average. And, and you know, we know you're you're basically getting the same types of storms that we get down here. You can pretty much. To an extent. I mean, you you get probably a half a dozen a year that are you rain for you that are snow for us. Yep. Chestertown is a high 80 inch market.
00:21:19
Speaker
If you get a little further up in the park where we stopped servicing right now, it's getting close to 100 inch average a year. Okay. But you get some of those 42 inch storms. Like this year we had seven that were over 10 inches.
00:21:34
Speaker
So you end up getting walloped pretty good repeatedly on an average year. And you get the freezing rain and you definitely yeah have the elevation, which changes everything. i mean because I know just leaving the North way going on 74 across to ah to Ticonderoga, there's three different microclimates in that 20 miles. you know You go from you go from heavy snow to, you know, to to heavier snow and then you get down into the valley and it's nil.
00:22:02
Speaker
Virtually like nothing. it was I remember one time going up there in the winter, and there had to be a foot and a half of snow, and then it went to about three feet of snow, and then as soon as you started down the hill back into the valley, they maybe had three inches.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah. Like maybe. so yeah You've got the same thing when you come up from Lake George. i mean, we talk about the lake, but the village of Lake George, you climb that hill going up to exit 23 in the space of two miles with – what 300 feet of elevation change you can go from rain to an inch an hour snow yeah just over that little short duration and you got to service people accurately on both sides of that little change yeah that's and that's unique that's definitely unique yeah that's crazy fun though absolutely it's fun
00:22:46
Speaker
So what are your what are your bread and butter? what what What sites are you targeting? Is that communications hubs? What else you like to do? Communication hubs, healthcare centers, industrial warehouse complexes, pretty much anything that requires a high level of repetitive service and is a high sensitivity site, that's our jam.
00:23:05
Speaker
That's what we love. Because we're not bringing you tier two equipment. We're not bringing you 20-year-old stuff. Everything is top of the line. And we're trying to bring the best operators to the game.
00:23:16
Speaker
So if you've got a challenge, bring it. Amen. How is it up there finding operators? It's like way less populated. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:27
Speaker
So, yeah, it's interesting. Um, I fired the world's best operator twice this winter. That's self-proclaimed world. best and had two different legal names, two different appearances, they were both bolt the world's best operator.
00:23:43
Speaker
Um, It's not that bad. it's It's hard, but it's not that bad but for two reasons. We're not taking on a lot of clients that are nickel and diming.
00:23:54
Speaker
So we're getting a premium to bring you a premium. So we're paying a little better. um We're also choosing, we've been doing this now since before Bison was formed, since we started doing commercial snow nine years ago.
00:24:07
Speaker
that we are going to bring in the best possible equipment, which means the most efficiency. So when other guys are doing a shopping plaza with a half a dozen ProTex, we're going to bring in an Arctic and a Metal Plus and do the same work with a pair of machines, which means less operators to accomplish the same work.
00:24:27
Speaker
So it's it could be worse. It's definitely expensive on the equipment side and the the hiring side, but it could be worse. right it's It's amazing the difference and in certain sites up there. like I've seen two pickup trucks trying to plow a, I think it's eight think it's a plus acre.
00:24:50
Speaker
super Walmart up there. um I know the one you're talking about. what do You know that they had and in Ticonderoga, they had a Ford Ranger with a three yard steel caster in the back. Yes, they did. I got a picture in my freaking phone. It's a Exactly. My first truck was a Ranger way back when I was 16 and they'll do anything but three yard steel caster. Come on.
00:25:13
Speaker
ah it was ah it was a while ago now it's been it's been a bunch of years but there was there was one one winter where you guys were getting snow up there and we didn't we weren't getting it it was going to be all rain for us and i said you know what i can get up there and i can get a couple things done so i went up there and the stuff i saw was in some of these places i was like you gotta to be kidding me like this is This is what happens up here, but yeah just you get it done.
00:25:40
Speaker
I've got a picture of my phone. I'll send it to you after the storm the storm's over, Steve. Okay. The freaking guy was driving down Main Street in Glens Falls with a plow that you could see through it end to end.
00:25:51
Speaker
Top and bottom had the center of the mold board left. I couldn't even tell you what it was because all the paint was gone, but a strip of gans just rusted right through top and bottom. And there he was just tooling down Main Street doing his thing.
00:26:04
Speaker
I guess, I mean, I guess it's the same thing everywhere, right? You have different levels of service and different levels of service providers, I guess. I guess it's not that crazy. Yeah, and it's it's not that crazy, but it is.
00:26:17
Speaker
It's laughable. Yes, that's a good word it. Yes, definitely laughable. So these utility sites, you got to do during the storm? Is that like an after event? like clean them They are all high-pressure sites during the storm because the ones, a hopefully it's not blanking out too much. i had a little glitch.
00:26:36
Speaker
The ones that we service are Tier 1 sites for them. So they are staging all the out-of-state people that are coming in during a disaster or they're staging the out-of-region people to make sure that they can deploy and restore power or restore gas so they are open 24 7 there's no shutdown gotcha so that's that's basically racetrack from the first flakes till it's over Oh, yeah, 100%. And they're they're considered zero tolerance. And I know the stigma in the industry, but I'm okay with it because we tailor it to saying we'll never leave and we'll keep servicing until there's no need.
00:27:14
Speaker
Amen. I mean, that's pretty much. Zero tolerance is a myth. True zero tolerance. Yeah. zero hell zero ah Well, what's a better term? I mean, yeah. always better term like We just call it high profile. Low tolerance doesn't sound as good. High High profile. High profile is good. We tend to tell our clients we base it on service cycle.
00:27:33
Speaker
If you want us to have the entire site worked over within 90 minutes, we can do that. If you want the entire site worked over in 45 minutes, we can do that. You got to pay the bill. Yep. what's it If you want to have no snowflakes fall, then we'll build you a roof over your entire facility. The dome is down.
00:27:52
Speaker
yeah You can do that too. Oh, that's great. Jay, you want to hear about his equipment? I do. Let's hear about this mountain stuff. Oh, boy. All right, Kevin. Let's hear about all your – go ahead. Do you got to say your piece? No.
00:28:08
Speaker
Fire away. he do You do your thing. oh I thought you had to say that. Okay. Yeah, Kevin, why don't you tell me about all your equipment that you're running from pushers to trucks to spreaders and sidewalks, whatever you want to tell me. the Nest Leasing wants to know.
00:28:21
Speaker
Yeah. So do you want me make Jeremy upset first or upset last? Yeah. He doesn't get upset. I already know where this shit's going, so don't worry. I don't get upset because there's something better. That's it. That there is, and I'm on the list. Actually, your twin behind you. That's so many yards up there, right?
00:28:41
Speaker
like Not many. Your twin behind me owes me a phantom, by the way. I'm supposed to be on the list. All right. I see how that goes. So on the truck side, we run primarily Rams.
00:28:54
Speaker
We did that just for dealer support. And if a little minor plug on the local end, Cobleskill Ram has been an excellent support, and that's what matters to us. I don't care what badge is on the truck. If I can call you and you bring your driver up two plus hours to me, pick the truck up, take it back, fix it right the first time, and then bring it back to me, I'm sold.
00:29:15
Speaker
I'll buy you. That's awesome. Good for them. Yeah. well So they've been good for us for the light and medium duty stuff. We've been running DD stuff, Fisher and Western on the front of it. We're actually transitioning over a bunch to snow power right now.
00:29:29
Speaker
I do want to try and so try a Razorback. I need to hook up. All right. I want to make sure that I can compare apples to apples, but snow power has been doing a good job for us. It's upped our truck efficiency quite bit. they're phenomenal. Yeah, absolutely. well I actually don't mind being in a truck now having one of those on the front.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yep. so yeah Yeah, Rick makes a great product. Absolutely. Genius. Yeah, on the spreader side, it's all DD. It's a mix of...
00:29:58
Speaker
ah Tornadoes, steel casters, tempests. We got some augers that we experimented with this year. Mostly have been doing chain over time. But that's all DD stuff on the granule. what's ta How'd the augers do?
00:30:12
Speaker
ah The augers did okay. The fisher tempest is kind of the next thing for the steel caster. yeahp so Like the western marauder, that sort of deal. The augers did good. um We actually run a mix this year on the granule of treated and untreated.
00:30:28
Speaker
And once we added a vibrator to it, because we make our operators unload at the end of the storm, we had no issues with the unit functioning or bridging. um We are adding in a strong liquid component. We've been doing it now for two years.
00:30:42
Speaker
We've been running sprayers from Dice Depot. They've been another strong supporter. Nothing that we run is trouble-free, right? Everything breaks. Absolutely. Everything. When, like James, I call him and I'm like, hey, man, I've got this issue. He answers at 11 o'clock at night.
00:30:58
Speaker
I'll get a part the next day. No excuses. And that's good for me. That's all you can ask. Yeah. On the heavy equipment side, we run, we've got about a dozen loaders now at this point. We're running from all the way from a Kubota R530 yard loader up to a Volvo L60H.
00:31:18
Speaker
We've got Cat 914 in-house wearing Nokians pushing a Metal Plus. We've got multiple case 321s running Arctic LDs. Got a case 520 run running in Arctic HD, which will make Jeremy a little happier.
00:31:32
Speaker
um And we're really bringing in a few more pieces, I think, this year to try and wear a Phantom on. Got some yeah case 280s that have been working some arctics for us that have been doing really well.
00:31:44
Speaker
They do. um Got an SDLG in the mix. Picked that up during COVID. ye What do you got, the Sledge, the 74, or you got one of the bigger ones? One of the the 15,000-pound machine.
00:31:57
Speaker
Slow and reliable. We sat slapped a set of snow tires on it. and other than putting brake calipers on it, we've been running it for three years and it just works.
00:32:08
Speaker
Nice. For us, it's been a good training loader. Like when you guys are running the Wolf, right? yeah There's no frills. yeah There's nothing crazy. But for this us, it's slow enough that they can't get in too much trouble.
00:32:20
Speaker
but Well, that's not the wolf. The wolf is fast. Wolf is fast? All right, good. For us, ah it pops out 13 miles an hour, so they can't get too crazy. But it'll push an Arctic 10.5 all day. It'll be great up.
00:32:34
Speaker
And that's all we need from it for $40,000, right? Absolutely. yeah Yeah, Kevin, you put the Wolf next to our – the guys have done it. The Wolf next to the 321 going down ah ah Route 52 and side by side. And the Wolf definitely outpaced the 321 at full throttle. Nice. In high gear. Nice. Yeah, it's it's quick, but yeah, I understand what you're saying. It's like you went in a time machine.
00:32:58
Speaker
You went back to 1992 and brought back a brand new loader. yeah yeah It's no frills. It's older tech, but it works. It works, and we're pushing snow. We're not you know in a quarry all day.
00:33:10
Speaker
Exactly. Kevin, if you, if you've got a phantom, would you get a, like a compact one or would you get a big one? What were you, what would you use it? Good question. I think I'm going to get a bigger one. Cause we're picking up some distribution hubs is our next phase of high intensity sites. And we need to get van wings and rolled in. That's where the five 21 this year.
00:33:29
Speaker
So I'm talking with Steve about potentially a 10 to 20 or 10 to 18 on it with a van wing. Okay. Yep. I have a 10, 18 10, 20 also. so So how'd you like them?
00:33:40
Speaker
Love them. Love them. layer They did great for what we needed them for. they they We paired them up we know with Artix and they did the work. I didn't have any leaks or blown hoses.
00:33:53
Speaker
Surprising. I got three metal pluses, including yours, Steve. Yeah. and Listen, I don't want to claim operator error or nothing, but we had no leaks and no blown hoses on that unit. There you go. so that Listen, that's always a win. that's all yeah And I said that.
00:34:08
Speaker
That was a good plow. That was obviously looked over by somebody. The hoses were properly torqued. They were cut at the proper length to allow for a little extra because we didn't have a single. I couldn't say anything bad about it when we had it.
00:34:23
Speaker
We did not have any leaks with the metal press. I've been on record saying that. That plow worked as it was supposed to the entire time we had it. So no nothing bad to say about it.
00:34:34
Speaker
we friends not I actually forgot you have that now, Kevin. I forgot that's that you have it now. So I don't know if I'm like a glutton for punishment or lucky or what. So I have your former test unit and I have Jordan's first plow max.
00:34:51
Speaker
Oh, really? one very first large-scale Metal Plus. No Yeah, I picked it up last last summer. ah kind of Kind of weird. But we like them because we're using them those on primarily route-based services. Sure. We've got a high level of complexity getting in and out of different areas. like i Don't get me wrong. I love the Arctic scrape. I'm on board with you guys. Yeah. I hate to break the column blocks on these roads.
00:35:15
Speaker
I might have to send one of my loader operators, to Jeremy, and get him to learn how to not break blocks. Yeah. But I cannot get over how I can duck that metal plus into those corners and into those loading docks and pull that stuff out. and that's why I want the Phantom.
00:35:31
Speaker
Because I want the best of both worlds. Yep. Yep. yeah there's that We like to break balls, but there's definitely a place for them. that There is places for them. It's what we do.
00:35:41
Speaker
In my opinion, that's why I got different brands of machines, right? I love Cat. The price is ridiculous at this point. That's why I brought in some of the cases, because you slap a case with an Arctic on a 321, you can get a lot of work done.
00:35:54
Speaker
And with our local prices, I can't stomach twice the price on a 908. I just can't do it. Yep. And I mean, that's why we have VENTRAX on some sites and that's why we have Snow Raiders on others because you got to use the right tool for the job to deliver.
00:36:09
Speaker
Yes, sir. Absolutely. Want to try a 344, John I got a couple for sale. on both sides. Yes, it does. I put them in there. $1,500, Jeremy? $1,500. Oh, thought you said $1,500. I'm like, I'll take both. Bad speed sensors and all. Well, we haven't had any issues with them. Honestly, those two, we when they're brand new, we have ever since then, we haven't had issues with them. So why are selling?
00:36:37
Speaker
I just want bigger ones. Wow. and so goes So, Kevin, you you mentioned broken blocks. You you broke blocks? Yeah. Oh, jeepers. On the LDs or the HDs?
00:36:49
Speaker
ah We have not broken a block on an LD. See? An HD thing. and Oh, we break them. These guys go too hot. They go too hot on the HDs. Too much power. They don't respect the power.
00:37:00
Speaker
So the the HD is sitting on a 521 and actually is from U.S. Equipment Exchange, Dinesse, right? 24 model. The pusher was brand new. Sitting on a utility site, or excuse me, a distribution site for that one.
00:37:15
Speaker
The dude broke five blocks on an 11.5 HD in one event. Get video from that distribution center. Yeah, I'm waiting on it. Get video. I can do it.
00:37:27
Speaker
My guy did better than that. He he broke like nine. That guy had nine broken in like five minutes on one. He hit a fucking solid pile. He was at the water. That's what it is. Yeah, well, it was the classic. He literally broke nine and melted down.
00:37:43
Speaker
Sorry. It got melted down and the freaking guy was trying to push piles with it rather than just ah drive around the building and hook onto the bucket. Yep. Right. not A lot of battering ram. Yeah. Proper tool for the proper job.
00:37:56
Speaker
Yep. That sucks, but it happens. It's always the HDs, though. You don't meet many guys. I don't know that I've met a guy yet that's broken an LD or heard that. It's always a HD. I got first set of blocks still sitting on the shelf. haven't touched them.
00:38:10
Speaker
Exactly. i I have so many sets of blocks thinking I was being proactive that I'm going to keep all these in stock. They're probably dry-rotted for how long they've been in shop. Some might guys say...
00:38:23
Speaker
No, um'm I'm not kidding. Just because they've been there so long and we've never had to change one. it's ah Man, I hope that rubber lasts forever. It'd be nice, wouldn't it? Absolutely. What are you running on sidewalks?
00:38:37
Speaker
So sidewalks, we run a mix. We've got everything from Ventrac 4500 to a 3400, which I wish they still made that 3400 diesel.
Equipment and Environmental Concerns
00:38:47
Speaker
love that freaking thing. That was a good one. Are you still looking for 3400s? Because I just saw a good used one advertised the other day for 12K by me. I would be interested. Blower and broom, 12K, which spreader? 400. Send me the link. hours? hours. yeah I last our latest 3400 that we took in was 17k with blower on it with only 67 documented hours from an old man's house and then i found a broom used for it down in pennsylvania well i love them freaking things you can't stop those tanks no but but you can't get parts as soon as you start breaking it you got to sell it off yep um we run a couple couple traditional snow raiders we haven't gotten into the mags yet our sidewalks are
00:39:34
Speaker
kind of narrow for it. And then on the route based stuff for smaller things, because we still got some lack of route density in smaller areas, we're throwing like nine foot flatbeds on the back of one tons.
00:39:45
Speaker
And then we'll run a short bed salter, couple single stage blowers in front of it. And that usually does the trick. And those are Toros, those little path pros do a good job on the small stuff.
00:39:56
Speaker
Cool. Very cool. That is as far as the equipment. What else do we got? Need a snowcat? I can sell you a snowcat. Oh, yeah. He actually could use one. You could. You're on the old mountain there, so come on. Man, I'm going to buy my wife, though. They have tons of snowmobile trails up there. You can fit three people. There's three seats in it. Three seats? Yeah, you can bring the family. Four kids still have to fight, I'll figure it out. It doesn't come with a drag, though.
00:40:27
Speaker
No? There's no drag. No, I took that off. the the yeah You still have the groomer? No, you have the snowcat. No, we don't have the the a finisher on the back. we don't Yeah, the groomer? We never got that.
00:40:41
Speaker
Oh, okay. I never came with it. That's why it's not as valuable. It's very valuable. Nah. The groomer's expensive. you find You'll find a buyer eventually. there i go Oh, absolutely.
00:40:54
Speaker
I'm going to buy it. I'll put at the farm.
00:40:58
Speaker
You bumped up your state pension like crazy lately, right? Yep. Killing it. Killing it. When you retire, come up and sub in on my brother's department.
00:41:09
Speaker
When I retire, I will be spending most of my time up there. Absolutely. I will be up there hell a lot more. That's for sure. That will probably be my home base until they come through with this exit tax. And then I will have to leave the state before that goes through. Yeah.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's I'm watching that myself. Yeah. Oh, man. So do we cover all the equipment or you got more? Other than that, I mean, we've got our build out for construction. So we've got excavators and dumps and support trucks and all sorts of stuff running around. But on the snow and that's pretty much A to category wise.
00:41:44
Speaker
Very cool, man. Nice fleet. Nice fleet. Yeah, it's a good fleet. So you mentioned you're, for de-icing, you mentioned you're doing everything. You're running a blend of treated, untreated, granular, and you're also doing liquids now.
00:41:55
Speaker
um How many gallons of liquid you going through up there? Do you know offhand what you used last season? So liquids are like EVs, right? The farther out you spread, the harder it is to do. so we're in the middle of a three-year stretch to get the but deployed out. When we're fully outfitted the way we're out now, we'll be burning about 15,000 gallons per application. Okay. Right now we're doing about 4,000 gallons in application because we do not have the tankers.
00:42:22
Speaker
I mean, i bought a freaking tanker trailer this year, but I got to put a low boy to pair with it. So i'm and I'm in the market for that right now, I guess. um But yeah, once we get the tanks deployed, we'll be burning 15,000 per application, probably 40 to 45 per event.
00:42:38
Speaker
Very cool. Do they give you, with the with the salt, since you're you do stuff in the Adirondack Park, which is like its own country up there for guys listening that don't understand, like... It's literally a country within the state that has its own governing body within the state that makes rules and stuff above and beyond the state. ah Do they have any restrictions on you as far as salt usage, stuff like that within the Adirondack Park?
00:43:04
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And it's it's actually worse than what you said. So there's the APA, right? yeah So the Adirondack Park Agency is the largest national forest or national park in the lower 48 by far.
00:43:17
Speaker
That governing body has its own set of rules. Then there's sub bodies within it. You know, the Lake George Park Commission. yep eldea severals The problem is enforcement.
00:43:28
Speaker
So I'm a fisherman. I love the idea of using brine and liquids because I want to make sure that our brook trout, among other things, are preserved. That's just my personal bias. Yes, sir. But beyond that, restrictions wise, yeah, there's a chloride push, but it's on the private sector and the commercial sector, not on municipals yet.
00:43:45
Speaker
There's selective rule enforcement on the municipal side where you'll see one town that's using live edge and using brine as a pre-treat, post-treat. And then the next town over, they're just like, ah, screw it. I don't care. I'm not listening to any of it. yeah So they're using those straight edges on you single wing funnel plows. That's stupid crap.
00:44:05
Speaker
So the short of it is if they actually enforce the laws currently on the books, you could probably cut chloride application by 40%. And it makes financial sense. Like Steve, you know, the town of Stoney Creek outside of Warrensburg. Talk to that guy at the salt summit two years ago in Lake Placid. He said he paid for a brand new tandem with a live edge metal plus on the front of it, fully upfitted just in his salt savings in one year.
00:44:34
Speaker
I believe it. And that was just strict. All he did was switch to live edge. I believe it. Those are expensive. Yeah. I mean, think about that for a minute. All these guys are bellyaching about their budgets and bellyaching about the deterioration of roads. And all he did was just switch to the latest technology.
00:44:51
Speaker
And that's the problem in our industry too. A lot of these guys, you've seen you've seen it. I was seeing guys, like we deployed down to all the way down to South Carolina this year, ruck chasing snow during the storms.
00:45:03
Speaker
They were Jersey during one of the storms, 19 inches of snow, and all they're doing is salting. No cells drop. yeah Oh, absolutely. it's It's like, guys, think a little bit, right?
00:45:14
Speaker
But, yeah, the APA and the Lake George Park Commission do have laws in the books. Yeah. It's anti-chloride, which I'm good with because we can put other things down. They don't enforce it yet.
00:45:26
Speaker
They got to get on that. they will soon enough there's only yeah There's only one on deck region. There's only one you know Lake George, Lake Placid, and they're getting ruined. They're getting ruined by those the the chlorides. and The algae blooms and stuff, that's all salt.
00:45:41
Speaker
That's all the runoff. The brooks are taking it right to the lake. The brooks are forgetting it. They got to be getting hammered. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, Mirror Lake in the middle Lake Placid, right? The miracle on ice. The lake trout population there did not reproduce for over a decade because of the salt.
00:45:57
Speaker
soon Yes, I heard that. As soon as the salt usage were on the lake, within a couple of years, it bounced back. Yes, i heard that when I was up there. They said there were no no spawning trout because the salt had stopped them somehow. And then once they stopped the salt, they came back within five years, I think. They were back. I think that's when Sean moved to New Jersey. That's when Sean left Lake Placid and went to Jersey.
00:46:21
Speaker
ah I love it but yeah it. happened because of the salinity content. A content affected the thermocline. The lake couldn't turn over. So the bottom of the lake was oxygen dead and they couldn't do their normal cycle.
00:46:34
Speaker
And that's due to salt. It's preventable. So why does why are we screwing around about right? If we can do it and better deliver a better product to the customer... I agree. it's we've We've said that on the show multiple times. like Before you come after contractors that need to put down salt for liability reasons, go after the municipalities that are dumping 10,000 pounds per lane mile. you know it's like you're You're looking at some of these guys. they're not even using the spinner. They're chutes now. They just use chutes coming out of the back of the truck, dumping on both sides. It's like, oh, my God. Or even worse, where I've got video, I guess I but better not mention a town or county, but I've got local video of them disconnecting the spinners. The hydros are capped so that they can just shoot dump out the back of the truck.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yes. Yes. That's exactly. um And it's on a dry road after the storm. The guy is freaking driving down, laying just a line of salt down the middle of the lane ye with his body goes disconnected at the rear.
00:47:35
Speaker
Absolutely nuts. Oh, my gosh. What else you got for him, Jay? Are using any kind of ah of software up there? Yeah, we're using a few things. um Are you asking about our fleet tracking or are you trying to get into the bomb of weather tracking?
00:47:53
Speaker
Oh, no, just like yeah snow like no software. Snow software I use them you know for dispatching. We've been using Yeti s snow for about four years.
00:48:04
Speaker
Nice. You like it? I'm liking it a lot, actually. Good. Came on early on before they had the estimating features, before they had the lawn features, before they had a lot of the updates the guys are currently getting to enjoy.
00:48:18
Speaker
It's been really good for us to scale because it's been simple enough for everybody to use. It's been reliable enough that it turns on when it's supposed to, and it meets the needs for our clients. I'm in love with you.
00:48:29
Speaker
Are you using that well you just decided like the yard stuff and stuff like that too at all? Or do you do any of that? We do on the bison side do the landscaping end. So we are using it for that.
00:48:42
Speaker
um The way I look at it on that side is it's not as advanced on its features as some other, but it does cover everything that we need. It keeps our customers aware and keeps us getting paid. Yeah.
00:48:55
Speaker
Can't complain about that. I think we're still searching for a person that hasn't liked Yeti. Well... Yeah, yeah.
Software and Forecasting Issues
00:49:02
Speaker
Everybody everybody seems to love it. Yeah, everybody seems to love They say it's easy to use. And yeah, so that's great. The thing I looked at about it, when they rolled it out basic, right, it barely met the needs we had, but it did it well.
00:49:13
Speaker
And every time they patched it, the patch worked with everything that came before. So that tells you everything you need to know about that software, right? They're making sure their updates actually function before they roll it out.
00:49:25
Speaker
How many times, well, look at RAM right now. I had a freaking 25 that was at the dealer for almost four months because they rolled it out before the software was ready. Yeah. And that's so big, too, because the ram trucks the the Ram trucks I've had in my fleet have been literally zero freaking problems. And now they no they have to change this, that, and the other thing. just I have a dozen Ram trucks that predate 2024, either 2024 or back. They are amazing.
00:49:56
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. Zero problems. It's been ridiculous. And it's not the dealer's fault. No. It's the guys that decided to change something that was working. 100%. hundred percent Yep. A hundred percent. Yeah. That's why I keep saying like, I'd like to go back to Ram, but it's the, the 25s and 26s are problems. That's where the problems are. Like, no, I'd have to go to like 21 or 22.
00:50:18
Speaker
I bought every 2024 that fit my fleet specs, regardless of color from Cobleskill last year until I had random, random out just because I wanted to stay with what worked.
00:50:29
Speaker
Yeah. No, they're they're they're great trucks. We've had zero problems with the Rams. The the GMs, that's where the problem started for us. ah you guys use a contracted weather forecast service.
00:50:43
Speaker
So I saw on the notes I'm not supposed to use names. This you can use names. Who said that? you said That was early. I got to change that then. Call them out.
00:50:54
Speaker
True weather. All right. How'd they do? No freaking bueno, dude. No good? No. They couldn't handle the Adirondack Mountains? Nope.
00:51:05
Speaker
The first storm of the season, November 9th, they called for a coating to an inch in two service areas with a possible top end in one part of two inches. We ended up with seven.
00:51:16
Speaker
I remember that one. that they Yeah, that was that was bad all around. That happened to us, too, down here. it never got better. Never got better. oh that's a problem. And listen, I'm not like personal friends in the upper c crust of the world here, but when I send in an email to you and I don't get a response and then we tell you we're canceling at the end of the year because we're so pissed off and that's the only time you've responded to us saying, hey, what can we do?
00:51:43
Speaker
No. like got my My tracking team and the in the back end must have reached out a dozen times in the first month. Like, help us out here. Let's figure this out. And we were tracking 16 different municipalities with this stuff.
00:51:58
Speaker
So I just went back to old school. I went to Apple weather. I use radar scope, which is a small paid live service, love radar scope. And that's what way we ran this year. Cause we couldn't rely on it.
00:52:09
Speaker
Yep. And not that the Adirondacks are easy to call. Cause they're the mountains have a say at the end of the day, but what I found up there when I was up there,
00:52:20
Speaker
well Weather Underground. Have you ever tried that? Weather Underground was good for Ty. like That's pretty good when calling snow totals and stuff. cause i look at I can see at the house and they've been pretty good. are garbage Not enough for Weather Underground specifically, but Yeah. Remember when you were bellyaching about you being 10 inches off down your way, Steve? Oh, yeah, at least. Yep. We had it taped in Albany that we had a legitimate 26 to 28 from when you went from East Greenbush to Colony.
00:52:52
Speaker
Yep. And they called it 11. Yeah, I don't i know. i don't i know. i don't know. We had four storms down there that were over double digits. And the storm, the season total down there was 49 inches at the time.
00:53:07
Speaker
Like after 11 events, how do you get there? Like, where does it add up for you? I asked Nick and Rob back from Weather Pros that question. I said, how?
00:53:18
Speaker
Because we were halfway through the season. I said, you guys have been 100% balls on accurate every time you've told us snow is coming. but you've been 100% off with the totals. Like, it's not even close. Like, you're calling two to four, we're getting 10. You're calling one to three, we're getting eight. Like, where is the disconnect? And it was going for, you're talking 15 events straight where they called for half of what we got or more, you know? And I said, what is the problem? He's like, and I said, can you just say this winter,
00:53:51
Speaker
Why don't you just say, look, every storm we've called has outperformed. Why don't we just start saying if if we are seeing four, we're going to say six. You know, we're going to up at them ourselves. They said we can't do it.
00:54:04
Speaker
So we can't do it. We can't just go with our gut on it. We have to go with what the interpretation from the computer models are saying. That's what they said. I got screwed on the third event of the year.
00:54:16
Speaker
They were calling, this was True Weather's prediction, and it I understand the totals thing, right? That's one thing to get pissed off about. They're calling for a three to eight inch storm, which is too wide of a scenario. That's pretty wide. Yeah, I'll give you that.
00:54:31
Speaker
that's And we ended up with 17 inches. And we're not talking Adirondacks. We're talking Malta, Clifton Park. right We're talking Flatland, dude. Yeah, that's kind of... It's really easy to predict.
00:54:44
Speaker
Oops. Yeah, I got this little sticker that they got me in the office, right? ah I put in a legit 43-hour shift because everybody that I could could get to get a day off the day before...
00:54:57
Speaker
I could have asked for more, but it's three to eight inches, supposed to be 10 hours, right? Bring in and shift, bring in a few backups for cleanup, no big deal. And she kept hammering for almost 24 hours. ah Yeah, so you get to see two sunrises, two sunsets backto- back to back.
00:55:15
Speaker
And that's just the way it goes. But you can't tell me that the up here at least... Paid weather service, garbage. And we were doing a trial on WeatherWorks at the same time, which their price was horrendous. You really don't like money if you're going with them.
00:55:30
Speaker
No, well, actually, we we, just for snots and giggles, we pulled a paid, we pulled a quote from AccuWeather for their paid service.
00:55:41
Speaker
Oh, it's worse? $30,000. How much? a meteorologist live with you? yeah Do they also cook meals? I could i could feel the shaft at that point.
00:55:54
Speaker
Oh, my God. that's that's the yeah That's that storm we keep talking about, the old reach around. Yeah. That's one of those that's the reach around, shoulder, everything. and all on
00:56:12
Speaker
I wonder if Mark snores his lab coat. All I know is when my guys are coming to me and like, screw the weather report, screw the true weather update, just tell me what you think.
00:56:27
Speaker
yeah That's bad. Yeah. Right? if i'm the guy I mean, yeah, I'm a CSP, right? I know i know my stuff, but... If I'm better than what you're paying for, that's that's not bueno.
00:56:38
Speaker
Yeah. so we're we're I don't know where to go from here, but we are not going back to true weather. You guys snow jobs, weather. We're only $29,000. You
00:56:52
Speaker
yeah off of fries with that or what? Oh, my God. For $30,000, they better be parked in your fucking driveway for the whole season. like Come on. Hopefully that works for you, too. Yeah, that was 17 zip codes.
00:57:06
Speaker
That's insane. Stupid. yeah For what? I don't get it. Maybe there's a lot more it goes into it than I'm thinking. I don't know. seems oh I tried that when Rob and Nick were talking about on show that show earlier last fall.
00:57:24
Speaker
I downloaded an AI app from Nick saying that there's an AI app there. i think That thing is pretty fucking not bad this year for me. Good. There we go. I think within five years AI weather will take over anyway.
00:57:38
Speaker
Yeah. I've not been playing with weather on AI, but I'm playing with AI and I've been asking it what it thinks of the weather report. It's pretty funny sometimes.
00:57:48
Speaker
Oh, man. How many guys are you running during a storm, Kevin, with all your different areas?
Bison's Operational Scale and Stories
00:57:54
Speaker
Well, if we're talking about a full rollout event, right? yeahp And that's ah a service area when it comes down to it sometimes. Yeah.
00:58:02
Speaker
Realistically, we're running about 40 full-time per shift. Okay. And then we'll bring in augmented help depending on the intensity of it. You get an inch an hour, you're bumping up from there.
00:58:13
Speaker
Okay. Very cool. What else you got, Jay? yeah Well, what else? I don't know. Is that English? I don't know if we should go there yet not. I'm interested in these stories he keeps talking about. You know what? It's our show. Fucking jump around. Let's get to the stories first. Well, he was talking all these great stories. I'm kind of interested in all these mountain man stories. How much time do you have, man? Have you seen Bigfoot? Up there in the Adirondacks. My son's convinced he's up there.
00:58:52
Speaker
I have a customer that's convinced he's seen Bigfoot. Okay. I'll let my son know. My customer, Rob, gets more and more convinced the further the day goes along and the lower the level the bottle gets.
00:59:04
Speaker
ah Oh, God. ah No, i have I have not seen Bigfoot. I have seen some awful scary stuff in the backside of Crown Point, but not Bigfoot.
00:59:16
Speaker
Really? Yeah. Yeah. so like Like what? a... ah well there's yeah there's a there're there now
00:59:26
Speaker
That's another redneck getting too hammered on a weekend thing right there. that's You say there's a lake monster in Lake Champlain named Champ. Yeah. it it Never mind that it looks exactly like some rednecks throwing together shirts and wiles and other crap. Yep. So let's hear these stories.
00:59:48
Speaker
You got to stick on snow stories, right? Well, you can go one and one. Who knows? We'll see where it goes. Let's go. Yeah. So three years ago, right around this time, it was April 11th. We got a storm. We got, um I guess, like 11 inches. It wasn't too bad. was heavy and wet.
01:00:06
Speaker
So it started bringing trees down and stuff. And in the space of two hours, I got three phone calls of trucks getting hit by trees falling on the road. So we had one guy that had a pine drop in front of him, drop drove over with the front tires of the dually and shredded three out of six.
01:00:22
Speaker
And a second guy that caught one across the A-pillars of the windshield and caved it in on him. For him and his son, that was fairly scary. And what? What, did you mute something? I said, oh, yeah.
01:00:33
Speaker
Oh. That's very scary. The third guy. The third guy, you got to understand Rico. Rico's like the proverbial little kid that you just mess around with, right? And he's excitable. So he's jerking around and he's always going different directions.
01:00:47
Speaker
And he caught one on the A-pillar, the passenger side, and got so scared that he ended up on the wrong road. So like, Rico, how how'd you end up on the wrong road? Like, how'd you not remember making a 90 degree turn and driving up a mountain? He's like, I don't i don't know.
01:01:00
Speaker
I don't know. Like, I don't know where I am. like Like, where did you hit the tree? And he's telling me, I'm like, you turned on the Priory Road. Like, dude, you're up in the middle and wrong side of the mountain. Turn around. It's like, I don't know where i am. I don't know what I'm going doing.
01:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, it can change pretty quick. Three trucks in two hours was was not that much fun. Wow. but Were they all right when the A-post got crashed in? Yeah, yeah. So that that one, they were okay. They little glass. Luckily, hit low enough on the A-pillars that the glass went into their chest rather than into their eyes when the windshield shattered.
01:01:32
Speaker
So it actually pushed the – we actually sold that truck back to Cobleskill it got repaired. i' Sorry to the guy that got it, I guess. I didn't know. Yeah, I had car facts. It pushed the A-pillars back far enough that it was um into the steering wheel.
01:01:49
Speaker
But it didn't actually, it pulled the roof down a little bit, but it didn't actually shove it back into them. Wow. But um the sucky part for them is when they got out of that truck, that was the first one that went down. They got in, one of them got into the dump truck that ended up shredding the tires as soon as it left.
01:02:06
Speaker
It made it no more than six miles down the road and ran right over that thing in the middle of the freaking road. Because the count is the time to go home. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Well, I'll say this. Like, i guys asian shit yeah.
01:02:19
Speaker
My guys are a little rough looking sometimes, but they get their stuff done. They dropped, they drove that truck because the county hadn't plowed the road. Two and a half miles down to the nearest dealership, dropped it off. We picked it up seven hours later with new tires and went back to work. And those guys got into my truck and kept working while it was in the shop.
01:02:39
Speaker
wow That's good. then yeah Hazard pay, I bet. Oh, go. No. No, no hazard pay. They get benefits like plowing snow around palm trees, like when we went to South Carolina this year. and there Oh, yeah. There you go.
01:02:56
Speaker
Yes, we didn't go down for Fern. We went down for what was it, Gianna right after that? Oh, have that number yeah. Yeah. And it was next week. So we we went down to Somerville, South Carolina, down by the border of Georgia.
01:03:09
Speaker
And in six days, we hit over 300 sites. We had five trucks down there, 10 guys. And we ranged from the bottom end of South Carolina up to like Myrtle Beach, over to Rowanup, Greenville, all over the freaking place. I put...
01:03:27
Speaker
3,300 miles on my truck and in six days, moving snow around palm trees down there. That's cool. Hey, that's ah that's a good story. Yeah, it's not something everybody can say they've done.
01:03:37
Speaker
i love it, actually. favorite thing that I do is when I get to go out of state and move snow. Nice. sames Yeah, but you get to go to cooler places like working in the airport.
01:03:51
Speaker
That was pretty cool, yeah. have i I would pay for that opportunity. Todd, if you're listening, because I know you've got the main line going on. I will pay my own way. I'll take you up on that if you're going to pay him. yeah yeah talker You'll be at Storks. That's true, yeah, because um I owe him a phone call anyway.
01:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, then we went to – this year we went down and backed up Rob at RPM down in Jersey. Oh, wow. His area by and and you know Philly over to Atlantic City down to Wilmington for their Storm of the Century, which keep seems to keep on coming up.
01:04:31
Speaker
So we went down with them for a few days, brought some skids and arctics, some trucks down there. Got some loader stock, one of Rob's guys. Sorry, Rob.
01:04:42
Speaker
Had a 521 out in the middle of the old Atlantic City dog track. They were opening up one of the parking lots to stage the utility workers to come in and restore power. So they had like 200 line trucks supposed to come in.
01:04:56
Speaker
Dudes plowing on old seashells with a 521 and like a 18 foot pusher. And he found a sinkhole. and what we got to it seashells yeah basically it was crumbled seashells is what they broke like clamshells and stuff and they get crushed down and they're almost like pea gravel at that point yeah but it doesn't compact yeah right so that this dude's driving a 521 pushing 18 feet into the corner when there's like 14 acres of wide open he could stay in but he he drove He drove in the corner and the front end dropped out on the driver's side. And I'm looking from one end to the other. It's almost a half mile down by the time of where I was in another parking lot. And I see the back end of the 521 come off the ground and then rotate sideways.
01:05:43
Speaker
And I said to Rob, I'm like, we better get down there. So we we drove down. I'm bombing through the parking lot in my Ram. And I hit another sinkhole. I still don't know how i didn't break that front end. I was doing like 30 miles an hour.
01:05:58
Speaker
Kudos, kudos to snow power. That plow hit that ground.
01:06:05
Speaker
Auguring was minor. I'm still picking seashells out of it. We we got we got down there. um If he kept the the pusher on the ground, it wouldn't roll over. And we ended up pulling in one of Rob's other machines and winching it out for him.
01:06:20
Speaker
He had buried that thing to the top of the axle housing on the driver's side. with that 521. If you're going to do it, do it right. I've done that. I've done that. in what I got video of that. You got video of that? I've got a few pictures. got video that.
01:06:39
Speaker
The guy was a little bit embarrassed, so I didn't feel that great about taking the full video, but I did snap a few pictures when he wasn't looking. And now he's trying to buck that nice's famous. I mean, there's the other stuff. Like up in the park where we are, there's very limited cell service, so you'll find people that have done something stupid, and they have no way to get themselves out.
01:07:00
Speaker
So we had a, Steve will know it again, between Blue Mountain Lake and Indian Lake, there's like 11 miles where there's nothing. There's not a street light, there's not a house to speak of, there's nothing.
01:07:13
Speaker
No cell service for at least 20 miles. And they were working on a ah small bridge in the middle of winter. so they had traffic signals on either side. Guy was going northbound, lost control, slid into the traffic signal trailer and speared his Nissan Altima onto the trailer tongue.
01:07:32
Speaker
So he's sitting there, he's got a snow bunny next to him, right? They're totally out of their element. I'm driving back. I got my beard, but out a couple more inches. And my buddy's sitting next to me and he makes me look like freaking Ken doll, right? So you got these guys rolling up next to you, right? And they got these prim and proper people dressed to the nines and like, how are you doing?
01:07:56
Speaker
And I swear the woman kept staring at me like I was going to jump in the car with them, right? Yep. so Like it's the most backwoods horror movie you've ever seen come to life. Oh, exactly. and and um Yeah, you're picking up the vibe.
01:08:11
Speaker
So I'm talking with the guy. I'm like, yeah, what's your plan? Right. He goes, well, a cop will come by. Like, dude, there ain't no freaking cops. There's two cops in the entire county. They come by once a shift, dude. like Like, you got any coats or anything? No. Yeah.
01:08:26
Speaker
it's ah it's like seven degrees out. So I offered to pop them in the cabin, my regular cab F three 50. So then there'd be four people in three seats. Right. And the woman's like, na no, no.
01:08:37
Speaker
ah It'll keep you warm. Yeah. The car is not running. They got the tongue buried so far in. You can't see the Jack or nothing. Like it's feet into the car.
01:08:49
Speaker
Jesus. So I, we popped the hood cause it went straight through the grill. And lo and behold, I kid you not, it went right beside the accessory drive, right next to the rad. It blew the AC condenser out, and it was lodged in the firewall right in front of her.
01:09:06
Speaker
Wow. But it didn't break the accessory drive. So I'm looking at and I'm like, well, it's not my car, right? Same reason why I like going out of town. If I'm going to plow somebody else's lot, I don't have to worry about curbs. I don't have to worry about nothing, right?
01:09:20
Speaker
So I'm like, man, I'll pull it off for you. and he's He's all gung-ho. He's like, yeah, this is great. The woman's like, are you sure you know what you're doing? Yeah, done it a bunch of times. Why not? Trailer on a traffic control.
01:09:33
Speaker
We ironed it off, started the freaking car. They were about four miles from Indian Lake, from civilization. I'm like, why don't you guys get in front of us, drive back to Indian Lake, get a mechanic, check it out. He's like, no, I'm going to go to our destination. Are you sure you're good with that?
01:09:51
Speaker
Yeah. he That frigger, last I saw him, drove 70 miles. He was going past Old Forge. Oh, my gosh. Through the middle of nowhere. like You pass through town, you get cell service for a half a mile, then it's gone.
01:10:05
Speaker
And he was prepared to do that. if i had just Some redneck had just yanked his car off the traffic signal. He was like, yeah, send it, dude. Let's go. Jersey tags.
01:10:17
Speaker
Jersey tags on wall. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Was it a Subaru? No, it was a Nissan Osmo. It was brand new at the time. No snow tires, of course. That's why he ended up where he was.
01:10:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's the that's a long drive of nothing. Because nothing works up there. Your GPS doesn't work. you know Waze doesn't work. Cell service, nil.
01:10:39
Speaker
No Wi-Fi. There's nothing for hours sometimes, depending on what drive you're taking, where you're going. Up until, what, two, three years ago, Steve, didn't they still have the call boxes activated on the Northway just to make sure you had something? So yeah you could two miles in the freezing cold to a call box to make a phone call because you wouldn't get nothing.
01:11:00
Speaker
you had no You had no cellular service from exit 20, right above Bolton. You would lose it, and you wouldn't you wouldn't connect back up until you got off at 28 to go to Ty and Paradox there. yeah in ah what's the What's the other lake there? I'm brain farting here. Eagle Lake.
01:11:21
Speaker
No, right off of exit 28, the one that's right there. Scroon, yeah. Scroon, you'd pick up service from Scroon. But yeah, for that whole stretch, though, that's got to be 25 miles of nothing.
01:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, and then if you went north of another exit, you lost it again. yeah You lost that until you almost made it to Plattsburgh. So that's like 60-something miles that you got nothing. You got these people screwing around driving with no snow time. I mean, going up to Gore, I pulled people out of the ditch where you couldn't even see the freaking car.
01:11:52
Speaker
There was one woman, I kid you not, I was in the wrong lane. like i I don't care when I'm driving in middle snowstorm. I straddle both lanes. I drive wherever the frig I want to. Sure. Nobody else is on the road. yep I'm in the wrong lane, and the only reason why I saw her Mercedes in the ditch. She had gone off the road over somebody's driveway and then went into a four-and-a-half-foot ditch. Then you got the snow mound next to it, white on white, right? White Mercedes. Yep.
01:12:17
Speaker
White snow pile. She can't even open the doors. And there she is down in the bottom of the ditch just sitting there. So I pulled over and I got her to i got it open her moonroof. And I'm like, you all right?
01:12:28
Speaker
She goes, yeah. can Can you call
Business Growth and Personal Stories
01:12:30
Speaker
me a tow? I think I need a tow. You think? Yeah. like, well, yeah. She goes, well, wait a minute. Can you can you pull me out? No. not Not happening. Not for you today.
01:12:43
Speaker
oh my God. That's funny. You know let's Let's hit some commercials real quick. We'll let Kevin get a drink and we'll be right back with him. Gentlemen, let me tell you about the best kept secret in the snow game, Top Gun Backblades.
01:12:56
Speaker
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01:13:10
Speaker
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01:13:24
Speaker
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01:13:37
Speaker
Experience innovation at www.razorbackplow.com. All right, guys, we're back. We're back. So, Jay, what do you want to do? You want to do five and five?
01:13:50
Speaker
You got to unmute. We were just talking about the talk about that. I got me. It's like we're drunk at tonight. Can you imagine if we drank during these?
01:14:02
Speaker
Oh, man. You're not drinking? Negative, Kay. oh Oh. Hey, Kevin, where do you really like to see your company going within the next five years? what are you shooting for?
01:14:13
Speaker
Oh, man. So we're, for Adirondack, we're on a 33% year over year growth cycle. So we're looking at, you doubling in three and growing again, we're going to be expanding up into the Lake Placid market.
01:14:25
Speaker
um On Bison's end, we're looking at building route density. because We're doing everything in-house. There's no rental equipment. There's no subcontractors.
01:14:36
Speaker
So we're really looking on the same growth cycle. 33% a year, it's been working good for us and keeping everything the way we're doing it. In-house, direct service, as direct as possible to clients the whole way.
01:14:48
Speaker
Hey man, what's been the best decision you've made in the last five years to get you to this point? Firing my wife. I, you know, I would have called that actually. don't um i couldn't do that. i couldn't do, i couldn't work with my wife. Oh my God. Uh, I actually did up until, until last year. It actually, um I did fire her, but that's, I fired her because I was a jerk, but not, not because of her.
01:15:16
Speaker
Uh,
01:15:19
Speaker
ah The best decision that I've made is determining that I was the problem, that if I wanted to get where I wanted to go, that I had to change. So that was actually one of the things that were like we didn't fire her, we retired her.
01:15:33
Speaker
But in order to do things, I had to set myself on change. And that was primarily me deciding my mindset was ready to do things different. Good for you.
01:15:44
Speaker
That's the hardest thing to do. you Good for you. Love it. He fired his wife so he could get that meteorologist. Yeah, send it to send her to meteorology school. and Listen, this is not a public conversation, right? I can tell you guys things here. Yeah, no, nobody's going to hear this. It's right between us. I and my wife would be since day one. I brought her in with the idea of just running basic books and then she's trying to run financials for a multi-million dollar organization, right? I mean...
01:16:16
Speaker
expectations why would you you know why would she get stressed very she she ah we got ja guys we got time for one more what do you got i don't know looks so i don't Kevin's been he's been great telling some good stories and I got to get up there and p flow with him I guess it sounds like doesn't it oh absolutely we're a mess we could use somebody to straighten us out Chester Town's not far. I will make it messier. I'm not the guy for that. Chester Town's not far from Ty. When I go out of town, I want to go have fun and plow, like you just said. so i I think like realistically, one of the reasons why I love the industry, one of the reasons why I listen to you guys, why I can make the connections, is because the industry is changing to be collaborative, to help support each other,
01:17:10
Speaker
to really get on doing things directly it's one of the things that i love like we we do work for nationals we do do direct service we work for people in between right we work for facility managers that represent multiple spaces but what i love about this industry is that we're building each other up the core group that's doing that through snow alliance which i absolutely love and i do have my tickets i will see you there at a boy yeah you better bring more bodies than i do because i'm going to take you down
01:17:41
Speaker
um we travel heavy yeah we i've got i got eight people coming right we're we're investing in our team and be that wait you see him before you make that call um not really our guys are not fighters no mine aren't either we're gonna eat you You can be this at golf. None of us play golf well. and We're not even going to try.
01:18:12
Speaker
That's funny. yeah but No. I love how collaborative it is, man. I love that we can talk to each other. we can like When I told Jeremy, I'm like, why do you not like Metal Plus? And I got a really honest answer about it.
01:18:25
Speaker
ah That's what I love is that people aren't holding back and they'll give you their opinion and why. And you don't have to agree, but you can still respect each other. You can still learn from each other and you can still get better.
01:18:36
Speaker
Absolutely. hundred percent. I love that. And it's funny. it It wasn't always like this. It was not always collaborative. It was very secretive. You know, as little as 10 years ago, it was still very secretive. Like, oh yeah. Can't let our, can't let our big secret out about how much we get for that. go five years ago Yeah, that's true. Even five. I mean, five years ago I was working on it locally. Like I was talking to the local guys and I was, you know, trying to just say, dude, what are you doing? Like,
01:19:06
Speaker
If I can get these prices, so can you. Like, you just got to you got to bring up your game. You get you can't just take crumbs. Like, let's let's do this together. You know, this is how much you should be trying to get per acre.
01:19:17
Speaker
And, you know, it's work. So i mean we were starting locally with a bunch of contractors. But, yeah, like 10 years ago, big fucking secret. No, you couldn't get a straight answer out of anybody of how how you do things, how you talk to, you know, how do you go about even talking to the manager to get that property? Nobody would tell you nothing.
01:19:36
Speaker
I never understood it, honestly. We're nine years in, right? For for doing actual full-time commercial snow and ice, we're nine years in. And we've been – mean, I've got people like John Crandall from J.C. Grounds.
01:19:51
Speaker
He's been amazing as a mentor. We're talking to guys like Dave Westcott, RPM, Mike McCarron down at Imageworks down at BC, right? All these different players. um Actually, if you don't mind me plugging something for a minute, that's one of the things that bothered me about a Snow Alliance forum question last year.
01:20:09
Speaker
um One of the guys got asked, like, what do you not like about Syma? Right. And, and some of the answers were a little convoluted. This is, this is my two cents. It's what you make out of it. Right. I'm sure if you go to any organization, any event, if you want to be secretive, if you want to play underhanded, if you want to do the good old boy kickback system, you can get that done. Oh yeah. It's still there. Simon has been amazing to me. This industry has been amazing to me and I'm happy that now I'm starting to give back a little bit here and there.
01:20:39
Speaker
Um, know The same guy that I approached Martin Toronto from Sima about getting a mentor in this industry has now asked me to to take on a guy that's newer and I'm happy to do it. Like if somebody's listening now, even in my, even in my backyard,
01:20:56
Speaker
And wants to know what I know. I'm happy to share. I'm an open book. Because at the end of the day, you got to be willing to do it and you got to make it happen. yeah That's the only two things that separate the people that are actually in the arena doing this and the people that talk about it.
01:21:13
Speaker
And there's more than enough work for everybody. So if somebody wants to come up, they want to check out our stuff. They want to learn everything they can from it. They want to talk about pricing matrices. They want to talk about how to meet customer expectations, any of that stuff, open book.
01:21:29
Speaker
And that's the only we we're going to get better as an industry. That is 100% right. And this winter we just had will definitely help because that will totally reset the market.
Industry Challenges and Community Support
01:21:40
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Just like you guys have been talking, we've been being get approached by customers saying, how do we take you guys on next year? We were not happy with what we got. yeah And that's the reality of it.
01:21:51
Speaker
When it comes down to we're not done with winter. I mean, look at my market. For Frank's sake, it's in... ah Last season, 24-25, we didn't have a weekend without precipitation from November to June.
01:22:05
Speaker
hu If you want to talk about having to be reliable and having to know your stuff, you tell your guys that, oh, yeah, hey, we're going to work every weekend for six months, and then we got snow during the week, and then we're still going to build some houses too while we're at it.
01:22:20
Speaker
If you want to talk about people that are dedicated, got some awesome people up here. It's all about the team. It is. I've told everybody that like when the guys came up to the house, I told them like, I love that region because everybody up there is different than, you know, when you get south, when you get towards the city, it's just different. Like you go up there, you can, you can leave your door unlocked. You can, you know, you don't have to worry your neighbor. If somebody pulls into your driveway, you're not home. Your neighbors are on it, you know, calling you. Are you expecting somebody? you know, somebody's in your driveway. Like, it's everybody still is kind of old school. They look out for each other. They help. that They see you working.
01:23:01
Speaker
More times than not, they see us doing something at the house. I got two neighbors that within 20 minutes are are bringing a tractor over across the street to help or, or you know, whatever they got there. It's just a different it's a different place. It's like kind of in its own time warp where it's still 50 years ago up there, and I kind i love that. i love I love it about up there. So that's why I'm sure you have good people.
01:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, I do. I mean, we, I got a young kid that that started working for me that lives right in town of Lake George. 21 hours in, he tells me, I'm going to work you into the ground. I'm going to be standing when you're not right. 27 hours in, he's spinning like three PO when he lost his head in his fricking star Wars.
01:23:42
Speaker
Well, let's take a nap in the truck for two hours. He's right back at it, right? You got a guy that I kid you not, we worked basically four days straight. You worked, I worked 43 and went home for six, came back in, work again, do it all over again.
01:23:57
Speaker
When you've got that kind of old school mentality, right? and it's just built into them, it makes the work really enjoyable. Yeah. Right. People that fit in on our end, they love what they do and they know why they're doing it. i mean, we're providing safety to an entire community.
01:24:14
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. You don't do the outlet village up there in the Queensbury, Glens Falls, Lake Georgia area, right? I am not responsible for the conditions of that establishment. Okay. Good enough. I didn't think you were. I am happy to make that a nice, safe area when I get asked.
01:24:35
Speaker
Well, that was that was my morning this morning. two phone calls saying, ah how much would it cost for you to take over our site? um And I'd have to ask them, well, let me let me ask you what let me tell you what you paid this year.
01:24:52
Speaker
And I told them, and I always give them like and a five to $8,000, you know, range. And they're like, wow, yeah, you're right. I'm like, you've got exactly what you paid for this season. Like that, that is that amount of dollars worth of work.
01:25:06
Speaker
You know, you, you've got to up your price. If you want a different company in there, nobody's going to touch that scope of work and that level of service for what you're willing, what you were paying. If you're willing to pay more, you can get better.
01:25:18
Speaker
But yeah, you got what you paid for. Like, you should not be disappointed in that. You can be upset with not spending more money to get it done right. But, you know, those guys did not do a bad job for that money that, you know, they're sending me pictures. i'm like, you got what you paid for in that you you need. They're like, well, how much should it cost? like to get it done right. You're you're probably I don't want to blow your mind here, but you're you're looking at double what you paid.
01:25:44
Speaker
Like it's not an easy site. It's a lot of iron. It's a lot of handwork. Like you're, you're way behind. You're, you're talking about 19 mid eighties, early nineties pricing on a site in 2026. You know, that's,
01:25:56
Speaker
you know that's You got to come up, Steve. I mean, what's your market inch wise down your way, Steve? We are. We average 41, I think, for the last 10, historically 40. And then this year we're 76.
01:26:11
Speaker
So, yeah. So 76, our expectations on our average, we'd say medium tolerance contract, we'd be performing about 100 services a season. wow Yeah, because we're going to be there basically every inch. Sometimes you can't account for that. Then you've got the dustings that don't quite get there. Then you're de-icing pre and post-treat.
01:26:32
Speaker
So if you think you've got to bring somebody with an $80,000 pickup on a good day, And it's got a station if it's a bigger site putting on, mean, the Ness is nice to us, right? So the the SVs aren't that bad, but you put an Arctic on it, you're in for 65, 70K, depending on the years and hours. You put a 321 there, you're there for 100 grand.
01:26:53
Speaker
And then you got to insure it. I mean, god awful New York State on how bad the liability policy is. That's a whole nother episode. Right. But when it comes down to it, like the way I play it with people and to take this plug, if you're a new guy and this helps you out, ask them how much they're paying the mechanic per hour.
01:27:09
Speaker
Ask them how much they're paying a lawyer, how much they're paying a doctor. And they're providing a professional service to fix a problem. Right. And if you're going to expect a guy to show up every single time and make sure it happens on 24-7, you are going to pay a premium for that.
01:27:26
Speaker
If you're not willing to then you can deal with the repercussions of being a cheapskate. Amen. It's just math, man. Yep. Yep. That's what I told them.
01:27:36
Speaker
If they all would just realize how you just put that, but they don't. they don't they Everybody hates snow removal and think it's an afterthought, you know? so Well, it's an afterthought until they need it, right?
01:27:48
Speaker
Exactly. we Yeah. That was nice about going down south. We got down into the Carolinas and stuff. We had people giving us free lunches that we weren't even plowing for, coming by and thanking us and shaking our hands for opening up the roads for that weren't even our contracts, right? yeah we were We had people in North Carolina where we're we're pushing the road to get to our hotel, and it happened to benefit somebody else by opening up four miles so we could get to a place to sleep, and they're all acting like we just won a war for them or something, you know?
01:28:18
Speaker
Up here, it's little different. we We don't tend to get that recognition up here. no No, definitely not. No, we tend to get yelled at in the middle of the night.
01:28:30
Speaker
yeah Anything else for him, Jay, before we let him go? probably We could talk forever. Absolutely. We'll have to have him back on. Yeah, absolutely. sure Anything for us, Kev, before we let you go?
01:28:42
Speaker
i think you guys should keep doing what you're doing, but I think you should keep doing it more as much as you can. We're trying. The thing that you're doing for this industry is you're you're presenting it in a real way where it's not ultra polished.
01:28:55
Speaker
So I was on the, well, I'm on the Simon CSP task force. I don't know if I'm supposed to be saying that or not. Cheryl might yell at me. We're revising the credentialing and there's a, there's an arm of the snow industry where there's like the, the white collar,
01:29:09
Speaker
executive end right but then there's also the blue collar end and just like you're talking about that we don't get appreciated it's a lot of times it's that blue collar end yeah it's the guys that know how to do it the guys that are executing it but they're not getting a voice well enough. That's my background, pure blue collar.
01:29:28
Speaker
But by doing this show and bringing on real people that are making something of themselves, that are putting in the effort, taking the risk, putting all their money on the table, so to speak, and their livelihood, you're giving a voice to those people and really appreciate it.
01:29:42
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah, no, that's exactly what we set out to do. We just, ah here you know, we wanted wanted to be able to let guys come on and and talk about their companies. They built them, they're proud of them, and they don't get enough recognition for what we go through to do that job. So it's exactly what we set out to do. So it's I'm glad to hear that's what we're doing.
01:30:02
Speaker
Yeah. Good thing. Thanks a lot. Appreciate All right. Well, thanks, Kev. We appreciate the time, man. That was good. And ah yeah, we'll see you in a couple days at Storks.
01:30:14
Speaker
Absolutely. Tenth hole, you said, right? So I can join the heckling crowd because I suck at the hole. Yeah, I think that's where Spencer said the tent is that we're going to be in. so Are you going to Spencer there too?
01:30:25
Speaker
the Yeah, the we're going to be with the Arctic gang. Lucas, yeah. yeah That's going to be a freaking riot. That's going to awesome. It'll be a good time. always we always have a good time, matter where we go. We'll see when get kicked off. Well, yeah. It's not if, it's when. i mean, I will. steve ah Steve will be in control, and I'll just be a jackass.
01:30:43
Speaker
She'll be doing that, Jeremy. Jeremy, what are you doing? Oh, I say oh um you can do anything. don't Just don't get political. I'm not going to get political. We'll have to talk off camera. i'm I'm running the risk of a prank for Syma that might get me ejected. I'm not sure if it's worth it or not.
01:31:02
Speaker
Oh, I love that already. all right All right. When we end the recording, let's have a quick conversation because I do need some but assistance. 10-4. Okay.
01:31:13
Speaker
All right. Well, then we'll wrap it there, guys. so That'll do it for episode 167 of the Snowjaws Podcast main show. Again, thanks to Kevin for coming on. Thanks to his crew for doing it up there. We appreciate it.
01:31:26
Speaker
And ah everybody else, be safe out there. Have a great week. If you're heading to Storks, drive safely or fly safely. And as for the rest of you, we'll see you next Monday. All right, keep pushing.