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S2-83: Tri-County Commercial Service, Mahopac NY
907 Plays2 months ago
The guys sit down with Rick Faulkner to hear about his company, Tri-County Commercial Service, and talk about how they handle snow in their all shopping plaza portfolio
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:40
snowjobspodcast
All right, here we go. Snow jobs nation episode 82 of the snow jobs podcast powered by top gun backblades is off and running as always starting us off a little rev theory. I'm Steve. You know, who's with me. You all love them. You all know them. You all fear them. The snow bully, Rick James of snow, snowy one, Kenobi, Mr. Jeremy Lindstrom.
00:01:13
snowjobspodcast
Not everybody fears you, but there are a lot of people that fear you. but Amen.
00:01:16
RICK JAMES
yeah yeah They either love me or they hate me. And and either way, I don't care.
00:01:21
snowjobspodcast
What's up, baby? How are you?
00:01:23
RICK JAMES
Just ah pretty good. Some other, another week in the God's country, I
00:01:24
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
Travel Plans and Local Highlights
00:01:28
RICK JAMES
guess.
00:01:28
RICK JAMES
So.
00:01:28
snowjobspodcast
We're traveling this week. We're traveling.
00:01:31
RICK JAMES
Yeah, going to Mankato, big city of Mankato, Minnesota.
00:01:34
snowjobspodcast
Massive metropolis, bro. Massive.
00:01:38
RICK JAMES
The home of Jordan Smith.
00:01:40
snowjobspodcast
That's right. Jordan's mid storm. Actually storms not really in Mankato, right? Aren't they in somewhere else?
00:01:46
RICK JAMES
No, they're in Mankato.
00:01:47
snowjobspodcast
I thought they're in like some, some Lake or something Madison Lake.
00:01:51
RICK JAMES
I it's right on the edge of Mankato.
00:01:53
snowjobspodcast
Oh, all right.
00:01:53
RICK JAMES
so
00:01:54
snowjobspodcast
I don't know. I don't know. Minnesota. No mountains though. Right? No, no mountains.
00:01:59
RICK JAMES
Uh, no, no
Weather, Work Updates, and Challenges
00:02:01
RICK JAMES
mountains.
00:02:01
snowjobspodcast
All right. Good.
00:02:01
RICK JAMES
We're going to Minnesota, and the land of 10,000 lakes or whatever their motto is.
00:02:05
snowjobspodcast
And no mountains.
00:02:06
RICK JAMES
Oh, there's no mountains. There might be hills.
00:02:09
snowjobspodcast
Uh, There you go. A couple, couple bunny Hills. All right.
00:02:13
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:02:14
snowjobspodcast
So everything good.
00:02:15
RICK JAMES
Yep. Good, good.
00:02:17
snowjobspodcast
Good times spraying.
00:02:19
RICK JAMES
Spring gods juice, da seasons winding down a couple of months yet and we'll be done.
00:02:20
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:02:24
RICK JAMES
So.
00:02:25
snowjobspodcast
What was that giant oval you were spraying the other day you were talking about and they put the grain on the ground.
00:02:29
RICK JAMES
Oh, as a green man, in South Dakota. um was ah Yeah. When they, when the bins get full, they got some big overflow area where they, they'll pop just corn or I guess that was a corn pile, but they'll, they'll put corn and beans outside if they have to.
00:02:44
RICK JAMES
But yeah, that was all.
00:02:44
snowjobspodcast
That was a big area. They had that much overflow.
00:02:48
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Big crops, big crops here.
00:02:49
snowjobspodcast
All right.
00:02:50
RICK JAMES
We got us. We got to feed the world.
00:02:55
RICK JAMES
Got to feed the world. I like that elevator.
00:02:56
snowjobspodcast
you
00:02:57
RICK JAMES
The guys that he's. It's like 10,000 bushel or more they can hold, so.
00:03:01
snowjobspodcast
Really?
00:03:01
RICK JAMES
Or I meant 10 million bushel, not 10,000, 10 million.
00:03:03
snowjobspodcast
ten million I was going to say 10
Podcast Agenda and Guest Introduction
00:03:05
snowjobspodcast
,000. I'm not that impressed. 10 million. That's a bit different story.
00:03:08
RICK JAMES
Yeah, 10 million, 10 million, yeah.
00:03:09
snowjobspodcast
Sweet. Oh, it looked like a huge area, man.
00:03:11
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:03:13
snowjobspodcast
Dumping all that corn on the ground. They got to fight the deer for it.
00:03:15
RICK JAMES
Yeah, it's fun. No, they have a little barrier around it, so.
00:03:18
snowjobspodcast
No.
00:03:20
snowjobspodcast
All right. That don't stop deer, man. Deer are amazing. They get through everything.
00:03:24
RICK JAMES
Yeah, well, they get shot, they get shot around here, so.
00:03:25
snowjobspodcast
All right. they yeah
00:03:30
snowjobspodcast
but They're protected like nine months out of the year here. You can't do nothing to them.
00:03:36
RICK JAMES
Yeah, I think we're doing a podcast.
00:03:38
snowjobspodcast
All right. Are we good? What are we doing today, buddy?
00:03:43
snowjobspodcast
I think we are. We're staying in New York today, right? We're staying actually real close to home for me. We're going to talk to Rick Faulkner of Tri-County Commercial Service. They are based out of Mayapack, which is about 25 minutes south of me down the Taconic Parkway. ah Hated Mayapack in high school. That was always the one team I hated them.
00:04:03
RICK JAMES
The beach.
00:04:04
snowjobspodcast
They were all, they no, they always paid the rafts. so It was like ridiculous.
00:04:07
RICK JAMES
oh god
00:04:08
snowjobspodcast
You went down there, you couldn't win a ball game in Mayapak, even if you had it in the book, it was, they stole it from you all the time.
00:04:12
RICK JAMES
ah
00:04:14
snowjobspodcast
But yeah, no, Mayapak's a nice place. They got a nice lake there actually, small, but it's a very nice lake. so we're here to talk to rick and uh you know interestingly enough though being so close in distance rick and i have never actually formally met in person but we talk snow all the time via text and phone and rick's a snow contractor that gets it all right tri-county does serious quality snow work they do it right um they're very detail oriented he sends me pictures all the time and stuff you know you you can tell you know j when you're looking at a site that somebody's doing you can tell if they get it or if they don't get it you know
00:04:33
RICK JAMES
Oh god. Huh.
00:04:49
RICK JAMES
little bit yeah little bit
00:04:50
snowjobspodcast
Little bit. it's It's pretty easy to spot.
00:04:54
RICK JAMES
Maybe he hasn't met you maybe guys are met cuz that's by design.
00:04:54
snowjobspodcast
you know
00:04:57
RICK JAMES
He doesn't want to meet you Oh My god
00:04:58
snowjobspodcast
It's possible. Big competition. yeah Small tiny outfit up here. ah um yeah but We're going to have some fun today with Rick too because he runs both Metal Plus and Arctic on his machines. Hopefully we can get his opinions. and you know I'm hoping he doesn't turn into the presidential press secretary like Matt Moeller did.
00:05:20
snowjobspodcast
and We can get them to him to state some actual fact, but ah yeah, it should be fun.
00:05:20
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:05:25
snowjobspodcast
Looking forward to it. Rick's a great guy and ah you know he's ah he definitely knows what he's doing with snow. So we're looking forward to hearing all about how Tri-County does it.
Community and Past Episodes Recap
00:05:33
snowjobspodcast
But before we do that, as always, we gotta hear from Top Gun.
00:05:37
snowjobspodcast
We gotta do our week of review, all right? So we'll be right back in 30.
00:06:11
snowjobspodcast
Jeremy coughed. That's great.
00:06:14
RICK JAMES
I had it on mute, I must have sat back down and pushed on mute.
00:06:16
snowjobspodcast
All good. All good. It happens. So, guys, what did we do last week? We can review. Last week, we had Jeremy Harris of J and&H in Minnesota, right? We had a blast talking to Jeremy. That was a lot of fun. You know, his he's got a great snow operation. I like that he knows what he likes. He knows where his comfort level is. he stays in He stays in it. He doesn't move. Like, we asked him, I think, the five and five, like, where are you going to be in five years? And he's probably exactly where I am.
00:06:41
snowjobspodcast
So I think that's, I think that's great. You know, I feel the same way. So it's great to hear guys saying that, you know, you don't always have to hear the, uh, Oh, we're going to triple in size in five years. We're going to do, you know, I like the guys that are honest about, Hey, you know, I'd like to stay where the hell we are.
00:06:58
snowjobspodcast
So what do you want to, what do you want to do in five years, Jeremy?
00:06:59
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:07:02
RICK JAMES
be dead
00:07:07
snowjobspodcast
Oh my God, dude.
00:07:08
RICK JAMES
know
00:07:09
snowjobspodcast
Kill me.
00:07:10
RICK JAMES
ah
00:07:11
snowjobspodcast
Uh, but Jeremy also, uh, we talked to him about his involvement in the MSP 2.0 Facebook group. All right. For those of you that don't know, that is a group of a large group of snow professionals in Minnesota.
00:07:23
snowjobspodcast
It's more of a community than a group. They, they help each other. Um, they share information. Uh, Um, you know, it's basically like, like Craigslist almost sometimes too, right? Cause they can put out like, Hey, I need a, I need a guy to make a salt run through where you have a salter down or we need snow hauling.
00:07:39
snowjobspodcast
Who's out doing it? So that's pretty awesome. And it's, it's pretty professional too in there.
00:07:41
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:07:43
snowjobspodcast
It's not like, you know, in the normal social media chat groups that sometimes get a little violent or off the rails.
00:07:51
RICK JAMES
Yeah, there's a few oddballs in there, but yeah, we always, he always got those.
00:07:53
snowjobspodcast
Yeah. They seem to moderate it pretty good and keep it professional, so it's pretty awesome that they yeah they have that community like that to help them out in Minnesota. So thanks to Jeremy for coming on and telling us about the business and the group.
00:08:06
snowjobspodcast
um Wish
Upcoming Events and Community Participation
00:08:07
snowjobspodcast
you the best, brother, for this come upcoming winter. What else did we do last week, brother? We had the boys from Vue. Vue Robotics was on, Chris and Pat.
00:08:15
RICK JAMES
Be robotics. Yeah.
00:08:17
snowjobspodcast
Those guys are great.
00:08:19
RICK JAMES
They were fun. They were fun.
00:08:20
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, I love those guys.
00:08:20
RICK JAMES
We get this. Well, this is going to air after we see them, but we're going to see them too. Storm day.
00:08:25
snowjobspodcast
Yep, they will be at storm. They will be at storm.
00:08:27
RICK JAMES
Storm day.
00:08:29
snowjobspodcast
Storm day. Love storm day. I love it.
00:08:30
RICK JAMES
Storm day.
00:08:31
snowjobspodcast
That's going to stick, man. That's going to stick.
00:08:32
RICK JAMES
Storm day.
00:08:33
snowjobspodcast
Storm day. We'll see Steve, spth the spy.
00:08:36
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:39
snowjobspodcast
The only guy to get banned from a factory tour being a potential spy.
00:08:40
RICK JAMES
He's. Oh, I have to keep an eye on that guy. I don't want him close to my stuff.
00:08:53
snowjobspodcast
That's comical. Oh my god.
00:08:54
RICK JAMES
The other 12 people at the event got to go.
00:08:57
snowjobspodcast
yeah Yeah, all 12 of the others got to go through the factory door, but not Steve Spife. Oh man. ah So, but we did have Chris and Pat on. They took us through the whole view weather monitoring camera system that they have. um If you haven't checked that out yet, check it out. you know Check out the episode, give it a listen, then go check out the system. If you guys have a need in that space, it's a great camera. It's nice and small. They have a great user portal.
00:09:25
snowjobspodcast
And the price point is is pretty pretty damn good when you compare it with other options out there, right?
00:09:29
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah. I was, do we even ask the press point?
00:09:34
snowjobspodcast
I don't think we covered the price point. i thought I don't think we asked them what the price was.
00:09:36
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:38
snowjobspodcast
I think that was on us. We screwed that one up.
00:09:39
RICK JAMES
Yeah. We screwed that one up, but well, and also we talked to him at storm base.
00:09:40
snowjobspodcast
We should have asked them. We apologize, guys. we We'll announce it. Yeah.
00:09:47
RICK JAMES
We will. We talked about storm days and I'll put up there for everybody. So they got it.
00:09:51
snowjobspodcast
Yeah. We'll get it. I know they're cheaper than the other options out there.
00:09:53
RICK JAMES
So I want.
00:09:55
snowjobspodcast
Put it that way. That much I know for a fact.
00:09:57
RICK JAMES
Cheaper and better. Yeah.
00:09:59
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, theirre their portal is awesome. I love their portal.
00:10:01
RICK JAMES
It is really good, yeah.
00:10:02
snowjobspodcast
It's really sick.
00:10:02
RICK JAMES
I want to get my hands on one.
00:10:05
snowjobspodcast
Yeah. So give it a listen, gang. See if what they're saying could help you in your snow business, all right? If if so, then great.
Fundraising Success and Community Contributions
00:10:12
snowjobspodcast
And we're happy to help those guys out. They're good dudes. Chris is a veteran, so yeah we're ah we're happy to help those guys out and help them succeed.
00:10:20
snowjobspodcast
What else do we got, brother? Upcoming events. We said it a couple times before. We got S and&S's. We can't even call it, you know, Storm Day. It's S&S's Field Day, I guess, in Taylor, Pennsylvania.
00:10:31
snowjobspodcast
That's on Thursday, September 19th, which is the Scranton area. ah So if you're around that area, they put on a great event last year. They want to do it even better this year. So come on out, see the guys from Storm.
00:10:42
snowjobspodcast
See all the Northeastern guys that are there. ah We had a great time last year. Jeremy's going to be there this year.
00:10:48
RICK JAMES
I mean, I guess that's the plan.
00:10:49
snowjobspodcast
Yeah. All right. Well, I'm hoping, I'm hoping, I'm hoping we could get them.
00:10:53
RICK JAMES
I'm going to, I'm going to storm guys. Let's say who knows, but who knows what they're going to do to me.
00:10:55
snowjobspodcast
Flying private.
00:10:58
RICK JAMES
They'll put that a black hood over my head or something.
00:11:00
snowjobspodcast
Hot air balloon.
00:11:01
RICK JAMES
I don't know. Christian, I'll probably take a shot at me.
00:11:03
snowjobspodcast
Dude, they, trying to find a flight for you from Fargo to Scranton was like an act of God. It was like 12 or 13 hours travel time with like three, ah three layovers or four layovers.
00:11:18
snowjobspodcast
It was like six hours or seven hours in an airport. Like this is not going to work. And it was still like 1600 bucks. Like, yeah, this is not going to work.
00:11:25
RICK JAMES
Yeah. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.
00:11:29
snowjobspodcast
No, no, you're not going to do that.
00:11:30
RICK JAMES
I'll be in the airport that long. I'm going to make the news.
00:11:36
snowjobspodcast
ah I would not let you do that, man. I wouldn't let you do that to yourself. No frigging way. But yeah, you think you're going to the plan is to hit your ride with storm and come on out there.
00:11:46
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:11:46
snowjobspodcast
But that that is a great day. Me and Maddie Young attended that last year with Matt's brother. And ah we met a lot of great guys there. A lot of networking opportunity there. Some vendors, ah new new vendors.
00:11:58
snowjobspodcast
Right.
00:11:59
RICK JAMES
Yeah, I guess that's what you say.
00:12:02
snowjobspodcast
Snow power, baby.
00:12:02
RICK JAMES
I don't know. Oh, snow oh yeah. Snowball really? Yeah. They, they're a dealer now.
00:12:05
snowjobspodcast
S&S S ah&S S s and&S is now a snow power dealer So we will I believe they will have all three of the snow power front blades out there the f12 f14 and the V So come on out and check them out and now like always we'll keep you guys posted on that as it gets closer There's a flyer out there with a ah What do they call those QR codes that you can scan?
00:12:06
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:12:17
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:12:27
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:12:27
snowjobspodcast
I'm showing my showing my age here QR code QR code Oh
00:12:29
RICK JAMES
You are code. Yep. I'm a big fan of those snow powers. No, I'm a really big fan of them.
Rick Faulkner's Journey and Business Insights
00:12:37
RICK JAMES
I like them.
00:12:37
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, you do.
00:12:38
RICK JAMES
Yeah. I really do.
00:12:39
snowjobspodcast
That's good. Good.
00:12:40
RICK JAMES
I'd like, I liked them from the first time I seen them. Now, now they got to be.
00:12:43
snowjobspodcast
You didn't have one on the 1500 that you have, do you?
00:12:46
RICK JAMES
No, I don't.
00:12:48
snowjobspodcast
What did they put it on? Because you had one out there, Glacier, right?
00:12:51
RICK JAMES
We got two of them here.
00:12:51
snowjobspodcast
You got to.
00:12:52
RICK JAMES
Yeah, we got, yeah, we got a 12 and a 14.
00:12:54
snowjobspodcast
What trucks are they on?
00:12:55
RICK JAMES
Uh, the 14s on the five 15 and the twelves on, uh, just a three quarter ton Chevy.
00:13:01
snowjobspodcast
OK, cool. All right, sounds good.
00:13:02
RICK JAMES
So yeah, maybe they'll make a Rick James edition or something one day.
00:13:07
snowjobspodcast
ah that that would sell fixed black snow jobs nation edition that would look sick Oh super super but Rick are you listening oh man but
00:13:11
RICK JAMES
Yeah, that would be good. Zuber.
00:13:19
RICK JAMES
Come on, Rick. I'll correct.
00:13:22
snowjobspodcast
But yeah, check check out their flyer. it's I've seen it on Facebook. You could probably get it on our socials, too. um We've posted it once. So check it out. Scan the QR code. Sign up for the day in Pennsylvania. Again, Thursday, September 19th. We'll see you there. Both of us will see you there. ah Good news. Benefits and fundraisers, good news. Luke and Fazer Marketing.
00:13:44
snowjobspodcast
with their black tie gala and fundraising efforts were able to break their $30,000 donation to the boys and girls club of Detroit lakes, Minnesota this year. All right.
00:13:54
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:13:55
snowjobspodcast
They, Jeremy was there to help them do it.
00:13:56
RICK JAMES
The auction me off. I mean ah got them over the top.
00:13:58
snowjobspodcast
They auctioned Jeremy off. He put it over the top. He was the extra 10 grand. He got a date.
00:14:03
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:14:04
snowjobspodcast
A date with Jeremy Lindstrom went for 10 grand.
00:14:06
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:14:09
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:09
snowjobspodcast
ah So this year, do you, you were there, Jay. Do you want to, you want to tell them how much they donated?
00:14:14
RICK JAMES
I was $40,000 to the boys and girls club of Detroit lakes. So it was a, it was a good, good night. Good fundraiser. And it was a fun time. Luke was having fun and then his whole, his dad was the entertainment.
00:14:26
RICK JAMES
He's a singer and stuff. So that's it has some drinks and Tyler gear and mean me and Tyler hung out from gear and outdoor out of this Rogers.
00:14:27
snowjobspodcast
Really?
00:14:35
RICK JAMES
And yeah, it was a fun night. Cool people there. And, you know, went by fast.
00:14:40
snowjobspodcast
Awesome.
00:14:40
RICK JAMES
So we went, I think, uh, went out with, uh, Another couple from, uh, Iowa. What's this? Oh, I'm going to get the zip code around, but I think it's, it's like six for one or something.
00:14:51
RICK JAMES
He's out of Iowa and went on him and his wife afterwards.
00:14:52
snowjobspodcast
Okay.
00:14:55
RICK JAMES
Me and Tyler to absorb, doesn't have pizza. I'm just hung out and talk shop. It was a fun time.
00:14:59
snowjobspodcast
Cool. Sounds like a good night, man. You didn't get to go down the ski slope, the big mountain.
00:15:04
RICK JAMES
I tried.
00:15:07
RICK JAMES
I tried.
00:15:08
snowjobspodcast
oh But that's awesome. Good for Luke, good for Phaser. I know that means a lot to them to do that. And congratulations, 40 grand. That's that's no no little feat there. That's pretty awesome for them. So thank you to all the snow guys out there who either attended the gala or made a donation to them. ah you know Every little bit counted, all right?
00:15:28
RICK JAMES
I was right.
00:15:28
snowjobspodcast
ah
00:15:29
RICK JAMES
dude It was six six four one excavation on Iowa.
00:15:31
snowjobspodcast
Nice buddy, nailed it.
00:15:33
RICK JAMES
Yeah, look at that.
00:15:36
snowjobspodcast
Nailed it. Atta boy. Uh, should we talk about Aaron? Should we give him a shout out? His little thing?
00:15:43
RICK JAMES
Oh, yeah, probably because those guys need help. What did they get beat by last year?
00:15:46
snowjobspodcast
that like I'm getting to it.
00:15:46
RICK JAMES
A hundred and what?
00:15:48
snowjobspodcast
I got it in there brother. ah Our friend Aaron Schrodt, right?
00:15:51
RICK JAMES
Supposedly he's.
00:15:53
snowjobspodcast
From, uh, from the ground up in Minnesota. He's doing a fundraiser.
00:15:56
RICK JAMES
Yeah, he he runs it.
00:15:57
snowjobspodcast
The what? He runs it.
00:15:59
RICK JAMES
He runs the show, yeah.
00:16:00
snowjobspodcast
Yeah. So he's doing a fundraiser for the Northfield High School Raiders football program in Minnesota.
00:16:01
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:16:05
snowjobspodcast
He's a coach there. All right. And just to give you some background, I happened to, he was telling us all to tune in for this big game of his. We could see the live stream. So I tuned into a live stream of one of their games last year.
00:16:17
snowjobspodcast
And according to the TV screen, they were down 110 to 14 in the first quarter. So obviously they could really use the money. All right. Every dollar goes to improving the defense.
00:16:24
RICK JAMES
Yes.
00:16:28
snowjobspodcast
Oh, man.
00:16:28
RICK JAMES
Did he say that anybody donates that Mitchell's going to match?
00:16:34
snowjobspodcast
did not hear that
00:16:38
RICK JAMES
ah
00:16:39
snowjobspodcast
I did not hear that. I cannot confirm that, but yeah, no, there was a technical glitch though on the live stream, which added a hundred points to their opponent's score.
00:16:40
RICK JAMES
oh
00:16:47
snowjobspodcast
So we were breaking his chops about being down by a hundred points in the first quarter, but they're selling these ah business cards for $20 guys, which gets you benefits from local business, but it also has benefits from national companies as well as I understand it.
00:17:00
snowjobspodcast
Or you could just simply get on there and make a donation if you're so inclined.
00:17:00
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:17:03
snowjobspodcast
All right. So, you know, it's for the kids or in this case, young adults.
00:17:07
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:17:08
snowjobspodcast
ah But if you do want to make a a donation, go to raise-365.com and type in Northfield football and you know help them improve their defense. All right.
00:17:18
RICK JAMES
And if you want to make sure you let Mitchell know so.
00:17:22
snowjobspodcast
Let Mitchell know. ah You got anything else, Jay?
00:17:26
RICK JAMES
I think I got enough trouble.
00:17:28
snowjobspodcast
All right. Never, never brother. There's always more we can get into, but I think that's it. So we want to get to Rick here. So let's hear from our partners and we're going to be right back and get this going with Rick be back in what a minute 30.
00:19:09
snowjobspodcast
All right, gang, we're back. So let's just get this going. We're going to welcome in Rick Faulkner of Tri-County Commercial Service to the show. Rick, how are you, bud? Welcome to the Snow Jobs.
00:19:19
Rick
What's going on? How are you?
00:19:20
snowjobspodcast
Good.
00:19:20
RICK JAMES
hey rick
00:19:21
snowjobspodcast
Doing well.
00:19:22
Rick
Happy to be here.
00:19:23
RICK JAMES
to
00:19:24
snowjobspodcast
How's everything going down there?
00:19:26
Rick
It's going. we're ah We're in our summer season, so we're going a thousand miles an hour and you know we're starting to prep up for snow. It's late August, so we're starting to pull some equipment out and start doing our are getting ready.
00:19:41
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:19:41
Rick
So we got to finish finish up all our summer work and prep at the same time.
00:19:41
RICK JAMES
ye
00:19:42
snowjobspodcast
Hey.
00:19:44
RICK JAMES
Hey,
00:19:45
Rick
So it's it's fun.
00:19:47
RICK JAMES
Rick. hi
00:19:47
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:19:47
snowjobspodcast
Yeah. This is an interesting time of year trying to get, get everything ready and still wrapping up summer stuff. It's definitely a challenge. Uh, did you go to may you've lived in may impact your whole life or do you were transplant?
00:19:58
Rick
I have. Yes.
00:19:59
snowjobspodcast
You have, did you play football down there?
00:20:00
Rick
Nope. Nope. I've been here. I did not. I did not.
00:20:03
snowjobspodcast
All right. Good. All right.
00:20:04
Rick
So I had no responsibility for the payoffs.
00:20:04
snowjobspodcast
We can talk then.
00:20:07
RICK JAMES
yeah ah
00:20:08
snowjobspodcast
ah but
00:20:08
Rick
I don't know.
00:20:09
Rick
I don't know. They were always pretty good.
00:20:11
snowjobspodcast
They were, they were definitely, they always had a good team, but they always seem to have that little extra edge down there when you were playing there.
00:20:17
RICK JAMES
Are you saying they cheated?
00:20:18
snowjobspodcast
You could never quite pull it out. What's that Jay?
00:20:21
RICK JAMES
are you saying they cheated
00:20:23
snowjobspodcast
I could never call anybody a cheater without proof, but it seemed very fishy all the time. Like we had a, we had a touchdown called back twice my senior year on a player that wasn't even, didn't even exist.
00:20:31
RICK JAMES
Are you saying they cheated?
00:20:36
snowjobspodcast
So, you know, yeah.
00:20:37
RICK JAMES
They're not bitter.
00:20:38
snowjobspodcast
So funny stuff happens.
00:20:39
Rick
Okay.
00:20:39
snowjobspodcast
ah Dude, this is Friday Night Lights, bro. You remember that kind of stuff.
00:20:43
RICK JAMES
Oh, I'm well aware I remember.
00:20:43
Rick
I can't confirm or deny anything.
00:20:46
snowjobspodcast
Exactly. Oh, Jeremy, you want to take us away, buddy?
00:20:49
RICK JAMES
Yeah, let's do it. Hey, Rick, let's tell everybody about Tri-County Commercial Services and when you got started and what you guys are all about.
00:20:57
Rick
So we are a we are a commercial management and maintenance company. We focus on shopping centers. That's all we do with shopping center work. No residential, no HOAs, no condos, nothing like that, purely shopping centers. That is our niche and that's the way it's always been. And I don't really see that changing. That's what we do.
00:21:21
snowjobspodcast
Nice. how How long have you been doing it?
00:21:25
Rick
um So basically my entire life. So basically how it all started. It all started with my father. he got in 71.
00:21:35
Rick
He was 15 years old. His father came home. He said he didn't feel good. He sat in a chair and had a massive heart attack.
00:21:43
snowjobspodcast
Oh, geez.
00:21:43
Rick
and other My father became the man of the house of four other siblings. and Really quick, he had to learn how to take care of the family. so his His father had a CJ-5 with, I think, of probably i probably a a Myers on it or something like that. And he he went to all of his teachers and said, listen, can I buy your driveways? Can I mow your lawns? And he started with his teachers at Yorktown High School. And that's how we kind of started his thing. And um in his early 20s, he started doing commercial work and got into shopping centers. And that, you know, he was in shopping centers ever since then.
00:22:25
Rick
Then, uh, I was born in 82.
00:22:25
snowjobspodcast
Awesome.
00:22:29
Rick
So I started, I mean, by the time I was four or five years old, I would go in and plow. That's what, as early as I can remember, I would get out of bed and I would hop in the truck.
00:22:35
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:22:39
Rick
And when we got to the site, I would hop out, I would go shovel. Um, when I was young, I would do all the shoveling and then hop back in and, you know, we'd finish in plowing or, you know, his friends would plow with him.
00:22:51
Rick
I'd go hop in their truck, go sit with them right around. Um, and then when I was probably 10, probably like 12 ish, um, you know, I was becoming a better operator.
00:23:03
Rick
I was able to really operate. Like when I was, you know, 10, 11, you know, I w I would run back goes around and I'd run the loaders around the yard. I'd play with the machines, but I couldn't really, really operate where I could go in an environment.
00:23:11
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:23:14
Rick
So when I was probably 12, somewhere right around there, I ran a, um, international five 30 or dresser, five 30 loader. that the cab in the front rear steel did articulate.
00:23:23
snowjobspodcast
Okay. Yep.
00:23:26
Rick
It was a 1983 yard machine.
00:23:27
RICK JAMES
Mmhmm.
00:23:29
Rick
And I ran that with a 16 foot ProTech. And so I would run a loader from until I got my driver's license. And then when I turned 16, I really wanted a Jeep. So all I wanted was a Wrangler.
00:23:41
Rick
So he goes, listen, we'll get you a Wrangler, but you've got to go plow all the the little stuff, the stuff that no one else wants to do with like a full size pickup.
00:23:48
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:23:49
Rick
So I was like, fine. So I, uh, We found an 89 Wrangler that I redid and I put a, it was automatic, which was very hard to find. And then I put a seven foot Western on it. And I plowed with that and and I would take my plow truck to school. And if it snowed, everyone kind of knew I was kind of out. And if we were scraping off in the morning, I was a little late. um It's just, you know, it was a a little perk. So I would, I'd constantly be out.
00:24:19
Rick
um And also all through high school, I would fly on a pickup. And then I went to a college up in Connecticut. I went to University of Hartford. I got my degree in mechanical engineering.
00:24:32
Rick
I came home and had these ideas that I was going to go work in the auto industry. And then I realized that I can't sit behind a desk and do AutoCAD. So I just, it just, it it wasn't for me.
00:24:41
RICK JAMES
No.
00:24:42
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:24:43
Rick
Tried it wasn't for me. You know, even in during college, if it was going to snow, I'd come home.
00:24:47
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:24:48
Rick
It was only an hour and a half away. If we were going to have a storm, I'd be in the car driving back. i was I remember being up at school one time and I couldn't, some reason I couldn't come back and we had a big storm and I was up at school and it was snowing and the good the the grounds department was out plowing and everything.
00:25:05
Rick
And I was so antsy being in my room, like not being out. I was like thinking, I was like, can I call them and maybe see if they need an extra hand?
00:25:09
snowjobspodcast
but
00:25:12
Rick
Like, they'll go hop in a truck, you know, maybe I'll, it's just, I've just been doing it forever.
00:25:14
snowjobspodcast
Yup.
00:25:17
RICK JAMES
It's in your blood.
00:25:21
Rick
um So then when I came back and I decided I was going to stay with the company, um you know I pretty much had to work my way up. When I came back, I was more of an operator, worked into ah a form and role.
00:25:33
Rick
you know When I was in high school, I was a laborer and in the trench and you know i I was not in machines. I could run them, but that wasn't my job.
00:25:41
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:25:41
Rick
I wasn't full-time. There were full-time operators. I was in the trench. So then in my early 20s, I started operating more and then mid to late 20s, I began running ah running a crew and I was, you know, the job foreman on our crew.
00:25:56
Rick
And then I would say my early 30s, I really started getting into the business side more. um You know, just learning about how you run a business and how, you know, the business side of it, I was I was great in the field.
00:26:07
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:26:11
Rick
And, you know, I knew nothing on the business side, know absolutely nothing. So I had to learn that. So, you know, I would try to, you know, do what I was doing in the field and then come back at
Family Challenges and Company Stability
00:26:20
Rick
four o'clock and then, you know, go over some of the business stuff and what are we doing tomorrow?
00:26:24
Rick
And, um, you know, and I just, yeah Oh yeah, it's,
00:26:26
snowjobspodcast
And that's lot harder that's a lot harder than learning the ah the actual trade skill. the The business side is a lot harder.
00:26:35
Rick
Yeah, you know, it's the the things you don't think about and you got to learn about insurance and liability and all these stuff, you know, I'm used to sitting in an excavator and you know, I just do my thing.
00:26:39
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:26:44
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:26:45
Rick
And then when you get into the into the office, it's a it's a whole other world. And, you know, I think some of the guys think, oh, it's easier in the office. And it's it's just not it's a different I'd much rather go sit sit in an excavator all day than sit behind the desk and figure out some of this stuff.
00:26:52
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:26:59
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:27:00
Rick
But um it is what it is. So um
00:27:03
RICK JAMES
So You guys building these two are just maintaining them the like everything, huh?
00:27:09
Rick
we We do everything. We, I mean, we we will cut the grass or we'll put a building up for you.
00:27:12
RICK JAMES
Okay Nice
00:27:16
Rick
Everything in between. We do build outs. We do, you know, if a new tenant is leaving, coming in, we'll build a store for them. Or if they're going to put an addition on, site work.
00:27:27
Rick
We we literally, we do everything. um
00:27:32
snowjobspodcast
You just did that new floor for what was it, Harbor Freight?
00:27:32
Rick
and
00:27:35
Rick
Yeah, Harbor Freight was moving in. So we had to take out, there was a another tenant in there. The floor was shot. We had to take out a 24,000 square foot floor inside. We had to cut a hole in the side of the building, put a lentil in. We were driving loaders inside so we could bring all the material out. We had to chop the floor out, take it out, dig it down. There was there was no sub base or no gravel, nothing. So we had to dig out all the dirt. We processed all of the broken concrete on site.
00:28:02
Rick
We crushed it all. We brought it all back in.
00:28:04
RICK JAMES
Wow.
00:28:05
Rick
We reused all the product. And then we poured the floor in one day. It was 375 yards. It was one long day.
00:28:16
snowjobspodcast
Wow, that's awesome.
00:28:17
Rick
but um So like I said, we just we do a little bit of everything.
00:28:18
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, it looked beautiful when it was done.
00:28:22
Rick
you know We have a bucket truck. We have a hydro back. We have you know a landscape crew. We do base you know smaller masonry, smaller blacktop. um All utilities water gas sewer Just just a little bit of everything we're almost like a private highway department and obviously snow But that's where it Yep Yep,
00:28:44
snowjobspodcast
Cool. That's awesome.
00:28:46
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:28:47
snowjobspodcast
Very cool. So you guys do everything, everything. Like ah you you really do do everything.
00:28:51
RICK JAMES
ever
00:28:54
snowjobspodcast
That's awesome.
00:28:56
Rick
but that's where it started and then And then we started we started growing the business.
Tri-County's Operations and Strategies
00:29:02
Rick
you know My father was always very cautious to grow. He wanted to grow on incremental levels, small, keep it small, grow up gradually.
00:29:10
Rick
So right around like 2013, 14, we kind of were starting to grow. I was getting older, I was getting more, like he could rely on me more for doing, you know running things, running people.
00:29:20
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:29:22
Rick
And so we kind of started growing and then 2015 hit and our world kind of changed. My father was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer in 2015. And that just put the brakes on everything.
00:29:38
Rick
completely unexpected out of nowhere.
00:29:38
snowjobspodcast
Oh.
00:29:41
Rick
You know, we were in a great spot. We were growing. We were it was it was going good. And then that happened. And just we had to just kind of put the brakes on everything. You know, doctors couldn't say what was going to happen.
00:29:53
Rick
Well, you know, is this going to be a year?
00:29:54
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:29:55
Rick
Is it going to be two years or three years? And they all kind of were thinking in a year or two. And he wound up going seven. So we
00:30:03
RICK JAMES
Oh, good.
00:30:04
RICK JAMES
for
00:30:04
Rick
We kind of really stayed at a, you know, we were afraid to do anything.
00:30:08
Rick
We just kind of stayed as it and is, don't grow.
00:30:08
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:30:10
Rick
Let's just kind of just keep this going as it is.
00:30:12
snowjobspodcast
Status quo.
00:30:14
Rick
Yeah. So I really had to take on a lot more for the first two years. He was, he was in good shape. And then just as it progressed, it was, you know, chemo radiation, chemo radiation, and it just really took its toll and he could, you know, he couldn't do as much.
00:30:21
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:30:27
Rick
So I really had to step up and, you know, run all the business stuff and then take him to doctor's appointments and, you know, do all the stuff, you know, ah as as a son and make sure he had what he needed.
00:30:37
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:30:39
Rick
So that was that. And then in 2020, I started Tri-County. I just wanted everything kind of be separate. I had worked for him.
00:30:50
Rick
I started a separate business. When his health really started going down, I just wanted everything separate. So I started my own thing.
00:30:56
snowjobspodcast
Gotcha.
00:30:56
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
00:30:57
Rick
I bought a little mini excavator. I had i picked up one new client and we We kind of did both, but then I was starting to buy machines from him. Every penny I made would try a county, I would buy stuff and just try to grow that.
00:31:13
Rick
And then, um you know, luckily we had a really good group of customers and we just, you know, we just kept things going. And then, yeah, then in August of 2022, almost two years ago, he passed away.
00:31:21
snowjobspodcast
Transfer them over. Yep.
00:31:28
Rick
So then it just, uh, it took me a little bit of time to get through that. We were, you know, we were best friends. It was, it just, that's the way it was.
00:31:35
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:31:38
Rick
And we always kind of had a vision of where we wanted the business to be, where we want, you know, like, when we were starting to grow, we're like, Oh, you know, I'd love to have, you know, 10 loaders or this that and I'd love to, you know, like,
00:31:47
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:31:49
Rick
we had a ah vision. And afterwards, I was like, All right, everything is settled down. The last seven years has been terrible, but now it's time to go. You know, I kind of was Yeah, like I was kind of in my ripe age when we were going through all that.
00:31:59
snowjobspodcast
Game on.
00:32:05
Rick
And I had, ah you know, I had big ideas or things I wanted to do. And I just really couldn't do it because my focus was other places. And then
00:32:12
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:32:13
Rick
After that and things settled down, I was like, all right, now it's time to go. Let's go. Let's do what we talked about. Let's, let's get a go at this. Let's, uh, you know, and again, I didn't want to grow a lot, but I took a couple more chances and it paid off and we, um, you know, we're growing in size, not a ton.
00:32:32
Rick
Um, we've got, we're, we're not a big company. We're not also really small. We've got, um, 12 guys that work during the day.
00:32:36
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
00:32:40
Rick
And then I have four guys that work at night. They do the parking lot sweeping. So they go out seven days a week doing sweeping.
00:32:44
snowjobspodcast
Mm hmm.
00:32:45
RICK JAMES
Oh, nice.
00:32:47
Rick
Um, yeah, when I say we do everything, we will, I mean everything.
00:32:51
RICK JAMES
oh
00:32:51
Rick
Um, So that's where that's where we're at now. we've got to We're incredibly busy.
00:32:56
snowjobspodcast
Nice.
00:32:59
Rick
So we're we're we're moving along in the right direction.
00:33:03
RICK JAMES
That's great.
00:33:03
snowjobspodcast
Awesome.
00:33:04
snowjobspodcast
You said you guys do you're all shopping centers. That's all you're doing in shopping plazas, right?
00:33:08
Rick
Yep, that's it.
00:33:10
snowjobspodcast
How how many plazas are you in? Do you know like a number or is it?
00:33:13
Rick
um' For snow or for...
00:33:15
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, for now, for now.
00:33:17
Rick
So for snow, we do 14 centers, 14 shopping centers, and they range from, you know, four to 15 acres, you know, in that range, we've got
00:33:21
snowjobspodcast
Okay.
00:33:27
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:33:30
Rick
four or five big centers, you know, between 10 and 15 acres.
00:33:32
snowjobspodcast
Yup.
00:33:32
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:33:34
Rick
And then some are, you know, the five, six, seven, you know, the other ones are in there. And we do we have a couple of private owners, we have institutional. So we have a mix ah of clients.
00:33:45
Rick
um And then as far as not snow, there's probably another 10 centers that I go to. and do work at them but they're a little bit too far out of my range that I want to be at for snow so um we pretty much do a lot of the other things there like if there's something big any excavating work I'll go there and do that you know I'm not going to go there and cut the grass or something like that but you know ah a site work project or something bigger you know we'll travel a little farther out of our snow range for the other work
00:33:57
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:34:09
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, yep.
00:34:17
RICK JAMES
Great.
00:34:17
snowjobspodcast
Do you do you swell up guy wise in the winter? We're still same 12 guys.
00:34:22
Rick
No, i keep the same we keep the same crew. we don't we um or for the when we When we plow, yeah, we take on extra guys.
00:34:29
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:34:29
Rick
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:34:30
RICK JAMES
Yeah, yeah.
00:34:30
snowjobspodcast
Gotcha.
00:34:31
Rick
I keep all my my guys and then I bring in some operators to run some of the machines, guys that are laid off in the winter or something like that, they'll come in.
00:34:32
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:34:40
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:34:42
Rick
um we really don't We've got maybe four or five subcontractors, that's it.
00:34:45
snowjobspodcast
Cool.
00:34:47
Rick
We really don't have many subs. That was one of the things we wanted to do. We wanted to self-perform more, have less sub, to have our own equipment. And we just have, you know, operators come in and most of the guys, like the operators that that work in the winter when it snows, they've been with me for, you know, 10, some 15 years.
00:35:01
RICK JAMES
Nice.
00:35:08
Rick
um They just, it's the same group of guys.
00:35:08
snowjobspodcast
Nice.
00:35:10
Rick
And ah I'm so lucky that I've, you know, almost the same group every year. and everyone goes everyone goes to the same place they run the same machine they do the same part of the parking lot it's plug and play it's just there's no i don't change anything you know when we go to a site when we have a big site i split it up you know and if we got three loaders there i split it into three sections you know listen you this is your section and this is going to be your section for the next 15 years
00:35:15
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, that's the key.
00:35:17
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:35:25
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:35:25
RICK JAMES
Oh, it makes everything so easy. It makes everything so much easier.
00:35:28
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:35:41
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:35:42
Rick
You don't go over there that, you know, he's doing that. And just, we all work together and, and everyone knows what they have to
Equipment and Snow Removal Logistics
00:35:50
Rick
do. They know how it's got to look. They, they know the machine they're getting in.
00:35:54
Rick
It's the same machine every time. um And it's just, I try to simplify it. Don't, you know, I don't complicate it.
00:36:01
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, that's how that's how you build efficiency.
00:36:02
RICK JAMES
Yeah, that's.
00:36:05
snowjobspodcast
Efficiency is money and that's efficient. That's exactly, that's the same way, uh, the same way we are as well. And it works. I mean, you the guys get so fast, you know, when when they're used to doing the same thing every time, they get so fast and so efficient.
00:36:20
snowjobspodcast
As long as they don't take it for granted that they've done it a million times and then they hit something.
00:36:21
Rick
Yeah, they, you
00:36:25
snowjobspodcast
That's the only dangers they get complacent sometimes when they're tired, but yeah, it's it's great.
00:36:27
Rick
know, I hear you, but luckily they're great. I mean, I, like I said, I have, I have a fantastic crew and they, they, they.
00:36:32
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:36:33
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:36:37
Rick
Again, they know how everything's got to look and they take pride. the other I love it the day after a big storm, they're coming to me and going, oh, I drove by so-and-so and the lot was horrible.
00:36:47
Rick
you know it's you know Nothing like ours.
00:36:48
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:36:49
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:36:50
Rick
you know they They take pride in it and that's hard to find.
00:36:52
snowjobspodcast
Absolutely.
00:36:53
RICK JAMES
ye
00:36:53
Rick
and That's the culture that we've tried to you know, ah and and to keep that culture, you know, I'll talk to the guys we're plowing, I'll be like, hey, how clean is that lot? I said, it's perfect, right? You know, and and I'm like, well, my lot is perfect.
00:37:05
Rick
Now we're down to Blacktop. Are you down to Blacktop? And I just, it's just kind of, that's our culture.
00:37:08
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:37:08
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:37:09
Rick
And we all, we all want to have the best lot. We don't want to hear, oh, when the salt guy was going out, he had to use a little extra salt over by so and so because it wasn't as clean as, you know, no one wants to hear that.
00:37:19
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:37:21
Rick
So.
00:37:22
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:37:23
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:37:24
snowjobspodcast
What else you got, Jay?
00:37:24
RICK JAMES
hundred I mean, that he he really took us through his company. It sounds like a great company.
00:37:29
snowjobspodcast
He did.
00:37:30
RICK JAMES
So yeah.
00:37:30
snowjobspodcast
He did. No, it's ah it's very good. You want to tell Jeremy about what kind of storms we get here in the Hudson Valley?
00:37:35
RICK JAMES
Oh, are they the concrete?
00:37:38
Rick
We, we get the the mix. Yeah, we get a, you know, in in December, some, you know, December, early January, we'll get the wet, heavy, just slop slush, you know, and then January, if we get that cold spell, we'll get dry snow that turns the hard pack and everyone drives over it.
00:37:56
snowjobspodcast
Uh-huh.
00:37:57
Rick
And it's just, you know, we get that powdery snow. And then that's usually mid January to mid February, late February, and then in March, you know, we go back to the soup and slop and, you know, we kind of get a mix of it all.
00:38:11
RICK JAMES
Yeah. What do you, do you have to, you have like zero tolerance?
00:38:12
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:38:16
RICK JAMES
Are they zero tolerance? So you got to wait or you wait till they close or what what do you guys usually do?
00:38:19
Rick
yeah we We run zero tolerance. the The contracts, most of the contracts, they say an inch, but we run zero tolerance. I'm not, we, you know, just from my own, you know, as soon as we can start scraping, we do.
00:38:27
RICK JAMES
oh
00:38:32
Rick
You know, we pre-treat the night before the morning.
00:38:32
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, it's New York.
00:38:32
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:38:35
Rick
Yeah, it's too risky to not.
00:38:37
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:38:37
Rick
It's, you know, we pre, like, yeah, it's bad.
00:38:38
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:38:40
snowjobspodcast
People go down for a job here. Like like as a career, they go down regularly.
00:38:45
RICK JAMES
I think that's everywhere now.
00:38:46
Rick
Yeah.
00:38:47
RICK JAMES
That's everywhere.
00:38:48
snowjobspodcast
I don't know. Somebody was telling me the other day in New York, they had a lawsuit by somebody that had 14 other pending slip wall lawsuits.
00:38:49
Rick
So.
00:38:54
Rick
Oh, totally.
00:38:55
RICK JAMES
Yeah, I heard that. Who said that?
00:38:57
snowjobspodcast
I don't remember.
00:38:57
Rick
There's like cereal.
00:38:58
RICK JAMES
Oh, who's.
00:38:59
snowjobspodcast
Like, come on. It's ridiculous.
00:39:01
Rick
Yep, that's a common thing.
00:39:02
snowjobspodcast
It's so bad. They make a career out of it. It's so bad that we can't do anything to people like that, you know, like basically arrest them for fraud.
00:39:06
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:39:10
snowjobspodcast
but Oh man, yeah.
00:39:12
RICK JAMES
Oh, yeah.
00:39:12
snowjobspodcast
So, you know what, all it's also interesting to know, Rick, like we talk all the time ah around here, especially when we have the weather guys on, like there is such a shutoff. Like we're only separated by 20, 25 minutes, north, north, south there from Mayapak to Fishkill.
00:39:26
snowjobspodcast
But like on our storms, when those nor'easters come through, the the cutoff, the gradients of of amounts are so severe. Like they're, therere the the storms are crazy, right?
00:39:37
snowjobspodcast
As far as totals from area to area, 20 minutes could be the difference of 6 to 12 inches Yes, yep Yeah,
00:39:44
Rick
Yeah, absolutely. It seems to be either like Route 84 is the cut off or sometimes like it's the Hudson River, you know, west of the Hudson gets this and, you know, all the river towns, it's usually a little bit warmer, they'll get a little less. But ah yeah, we, we haven't even, I mean, we have areas where so two of our properties are five miles away, and we'll have eight inches and they'll have five.
00:40:05
Rick
You know, it's just, you know, 10 minutes down the road and we see a difference or, you know, they're in a little bit of a valley, it's a little warmer, you know, it's a little colder over there.
00:40:06
snowjobspodcast
yep
00:40:14
Rick
We, even from one side of the town to another, our furthest north site in Mayapack, compared to our furthest south, it could be an inch, usually, um it'll start sticking up there quicker.
00:40:25
Rick
Like, we usually have to start up there, you know, maybe a half an hour earlier, we'll start scraping.
00:40:26
snowjobspodcast
Mm hmm.
00:40:31
Rick
It's, ah yeah, it's pretty crazy.
00:40:34
RICK JAMES
ah but How big how big is maya pack maya pack maya pack?
00:40:34
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, it gets nuts.
00:40:37
snowjobspodcast
Mm hmm.
00:40:37
Rick
It's small.
00:40:37
snowjobspodcast
Mayapak.
00:40:38
Rick
Yeah, maybe back it's small. It's, I don't know, about 10 minutes to drive.
00:40:39
snowjobspodcast
Small. It's a nice town. It's a very nice town.
00:40:42
Rick
Yeah.
00:40:43
RICK JAMES
Yeah
00:40:43
Rick
You know, the I just heard Jake Paul just bought the house on the island.
00:40:49
snowjobspodcast
Really?
00:40:50
Rick
His helicopter was, flat yeah, ah Petra Island, the Frank Lloyd Wright house. So when I was driving to my office, he his helicopter was coming in to land and take off from the island.
00:40:54
snowjobspodcast
I did not know that.
00:41:01
snowjobspodcast
Wow. I did not hear that.
00:41:02
Rick
So yeah, that's our that's our our our big thing, apparently.
00:41:03
snowjobspodcast
That's pretty funny.
00:41:06
snowjobspodcast
Nice.
00:41:07
Rick
but Yeah, it's a small it's a you know, it's a small town hasn't really changed much I Don't even know maybe maybe 30,000 people It's not yeah 20 30,000 You know, it was a it was a
00:41:12
RICK JAMES
What's a, what's a small town? let's What's, what's, sorry, what's a small town?
00:41:15
snowjobspodcast
How many guys, how many people?
00:41:16
RICK JAMES
Probably this, probably the same as Fargo name, huh? There is it.
00:41:19
snowjobspodcast
No, no, no. Our towns here are much smaller than Fargo.
00:41:23
RICK JAMES
Oh.
00:41:23
snowjobspodcast
Fargo's at least the city. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:27
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:41:27
snowjobspodcast
20, 20,000 here to 30,000 there.
00:41:30
RICK JAMES
That's a, that's a pretty big metropolis in North Dakota.
00:41:37
Rick
It was a summer town. you know we had It was all bungalows around the lake.
00:41:40
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:41:41
Rick
you know People came up from the city to go to the lake. That's its claim to fame.
00:41:46
snowjobspodcast
Yep. Yeah, it's a nice place though. they It's a very nice little town. It really is. um
00:41:51
Rick
and our And our football team is fantastic, I've heard.
00:41:54
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:41:54
RICK JAMES
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:55
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:41:55
Rick
Great football team.
00:41:55
snowjobspodcast
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:56
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:41:56
snowjobspodcast
Not anymore.
00:41:58
RICK JAMES
ah
00:41:58
snowjobspodcast
Yeah. No, they had a lot of good years. Uh, it's, it's, it's funny though. I really, it's a nice town. I drive through it all the time. It's, it's pretty, uh, they, they got a lot of nice older.
00:42:08
snowjobspodcast
What, what is that route six that all the nice, uh, shopping little mom and pop plazas are that they're all nice brick, you know, old school Victorian style shopping plazas.
00:42:13
Rick
Yeah, yep. Yeah, Route 6
00:42:19
snowjobspodcast
They they're cool. It looks nice.
00:42:22
Rick
runs through the middle of the town and and you know the the centers are all along there.
00:42:24
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:42:25
Rick
And then we dip into Sommers, we do Peak Skill. We have five centers in Katona, Bedford, Mount Kisco. We kind of have like one little hub down there and then one hub up here.
00:42:32
snowjobspodcast
Cool.
00:42:36
snowjobspodcast
Gotcha. Awesome.
00:42:38
Rick
So kind of one crew service is this area and then the other crew kind of services.
00:42:39
snowjobspodcast
Jeremy.
00:42:41
snowjobspodcast
Yep. North and South crew.
00:42:44
Rick
Yeah, but the Katona crew is small. The centers are really close together. We can actually rode one loader from the other one. It's 500 feet down the road.
00:42:52
snowjobspodcast
Cool.
00:42:53
Rick
They're right next to each other. so Yeah.
00:42:55
snowjobspodcast
Well, speaking of loaders, that's what Jeremy wants to hear about. You want to take him into the Jeremy Linz from equipment segment?
00:43:00
RICK JAMES
Yeah, let's go. All right.
00:43:02
snowjobspodcast
Let's go.
00:43:03
RICK JAMES
Hi, Rick. Tell me all the equipment you got. Salters, sidewalk machines, loaders. I don't need to hear about shelf shovels, but.
00:43:09
Rick
from low yeah for ah For loaders, we
00:43:11
RICK JAMES
o
00:43:15
Rick
We run, uh, what do we have? Eight area, I think eight cat or sorry, six cat nine Oh eight Ms. Um, which we, we love those, those, uh, when those kind of came out, I was really hesitant.
00:43:28
Rick
Um, because they just seem too small, not enough weight.
00:43:30
RICK JAMES
Really?
00:43:32
Rick
Um, but also to like. you know The technology has changed so much when you know we were running rubber edge pushers and we had those January storms where it just glazed over and you had hard pack and you had no traction.
00:43:45
Rick
Those 908s really did not perform well with a rubber edge pusher and those conditions.
00:43:46
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:43:52
Rick
A couple of times I had to go to other sites where there was a customer of mine far away. and they were running 908s and they couldn't push. They had no traction. they you know I'm sure they weren't running snow tires, but it was just different.
00:44:03
Rick
They they did not scrape clean.
00:44:05
RICK JAMES
Oh,
00:44:06
Rick
And now with the evolution with, you know, running Arctic's and everything, they scrape so much better, you get traction. And it amazes me what those machines can do with the new modern pushers honor.
00:44:15
RICK JAMES
yeah.
00:44:16
Rick
And they're, they're a little weapon. I mean, they get in, they get in everywhere. Um, you know, so we kind of, we, so we have the six nine oh eights, and then we have, um, a cat nine 18 M.
00:44:30
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:44:30
Rick
as our kind of midsize two yard machine. And then we have two Komatsu 250s, a Komatsu 270, a Kawasaki 65 ZV. I think that's it on the loaders.
00:44:44
Rick
That's kind of our three yard machines and the Komatsu's that worked really well for us.
00:44:44
RICK JAMES
Mhm.
00:44:49
Rick
The high stat on them is awesome plowing wise. And everyone asked me how come I don't have any 928s or 930s.
00:44:53
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:44:57
Rick
because all our other equipment is CAD. All are the 908s, all our excavators, we have 3017, a 304, a a 315, a 321. So how come you don't have you know three yard?
00:45:09
Rick
And the answer is this that they're too high. And every every time I talk to like at the Simon show and I'll talk to the guy at CAD, I'm like, why do they make the three yard loaders so high that you can't move them on a tag trailer?
00:45:22
Rick
They're like 10 foot 11.
00:45:23
snowjobspodcast
ah
00:45:23
RICK JAMES
Oh, oh yeah.
00:45:24
Rick
And every other brand is like 10, six, 10, seven, Deere, Komatsu, the Cowie.
00:45:25
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:45:30
Rick
I can move them on my tag trailer. And I can't move a 926 or a 928 on a tag without having to air down the tire. And I just don't want to get involved with all that.
00:45:41
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:45:41
Rick
um So if anyone from CAD is listening, you need to make your wheel loaders three inches shorter so that they can be moved on ah on a 20-tongue tag because
00:45:41
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:45:51
snowjobspodcast
We'll see what we can do.
00:45:53
Rick
You know, we don't, we don't road them and, and it just, if I can't move it, it's, you know, why?
00:45:54
RICK JAMES
ah
00:46:00
Rick
I don't know. It's, it's kind of a downside. If I can't move it, if we've got to go somewhere in an emergency basis with a three-yard loader and I can't move it, it's, it doesn't really work for us.
00:46:10
Rick
So we, uh, I bought a Komatsu 250 six, seven years ago, and I loved it.
00:46:10
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:46:10
RICK JAMES
Come on, it's really nice.
00:46:16
Rick
I absolutely loved the high stat on it.
00:46:16
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:46:18
Rick
Um, and then we bought another 270. We bought a 250 and they've really. they they've been good. um And the Kawasaki I bought the Kawasaki we bought two years ago and I absolutely love that machine.
00:46:26
RICK JAMES
matches are great.
00:46:32
Rick
It's like a 2004 2005. It is to me it's built like an older loader feels like heavier steel like it just pushes it's got a um it's got a five nine Cummins in it.
00:46:45
Rick
It just it's been a great machine. I really like running it. I've been very happy
00:46:50
snowjobspodcast
Nice.
00:46:52
Rick
And it was cute.
00:46:52
RICK JAMES
Do you have do you have any snow tires?
00:46:55
Rick
So we run snow tires on on some of the 908s.
00:46:56
RICK JAMES
Sorry.
00:46:59
Rick
We don't have snow tires on the 3-yard loaders. I actually just bought a kit to site them. We were thinking about trying to site some of the tires ourselves. um so but Typically, the 3-yard machines, again, with like the Artix on them, they just they scrape good.
00:47:15
Rick
We really don't have a ton of traction issues. you know We air the tires down a little bit on them.
00:47:22
RICK JAMES
ye
00:47:22
Rick
um
00:47:23
snowjobspodcast
And our pavement doesn't freeze much anymore either.
00:47:27
Rick
Yeah, the past few winners hasn't been bad Yeah, I know they're great the first thing the first thing we do when we got him We'd get rid of the the Dunlops they came on.
00:47:27
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:47:27
snowjobspodcast
That helps. Yeah, that helps.
00:47:31
RICK JAMES
So you could tell the big difference on snow tires on your 908. So, okay. I mean, yeah.
00:47:41
Rick
them They were kind of useless in the snow.
00:47:41
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:42
Rick
So we were on the Nokians
00:47:43
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:47:43
RICK JAMES
yeah Yep.
00:47:45
Rick
A couple of them had the Nokians, and then there's a couple of little alliance tires that we've got that worked well, just because at the time, there was a problem getting them or something.
00:47:50
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:47:53
Rick
And the guy's like, oh, we have these these alliances if you want to try them. And they they work good. And then a couple of them, we have Michelin Bibeloads on them. and
00:48:03
RICK JAMES
um Yeah.
00:48:03
Rick
they're they They were good in the snow, but one of the reasons we got one of those is because they're like a hard surface radial, and we do all all our work is on Blacktop. So in the summer months, when we got to use those machines, you know I don't want to run the Nokia, and so you know we'll we'll take one of the 908s that has the you know the Michelin's on it, and we'll run those.
00:48:12
snowjobspodcast
the
00:48:12
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:48:17
snowjobspodcast
yeah
00:48:22
RICK JAMES
right.
00:48:23
Rick
um So that's pretty much the loader fleet. We used to have a couple of baccos. We had some cat 430, uh, it's, and those just, uh, they were fantastic machines.
00:48:34
Rick
We bought them brand new in 2004. I can't say a bad thing. I'm best baccos I ever ran, but wait, once you've run a loader, you don't want to run a back on the stop.
00:48:44
RICK JAMES
Backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo
00:48:45
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:48:46
Rick
Yeah.
00:48:46
snowjobspodcast
yeah
00:48:46
Rick
I mean, it wasn't. you know, you have to be a good operator, you got to be able to run split breaks, you know, you got to worry about, you know, you got to worry about backing up with the ho.
00:48:50
snowjobspodcast
ah
00:48:54
RICK JAMES
suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo
00:48:58
Rick
It just, you know what, again, once you run a loader, nobody wants to run the backup.
00:49:03
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:49:03
Rick
So we, we sold the one of them, yeah, we sold one of them like three years ago, and then we sold the other one last year, and we bought two more 908s.
00:49:04
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:49:04
RICK JAMES
suck, backo suck, backo suck, backo suck,
00:49:12
Rick
to replace the back goes. We kind of had the back goes because, you know, kind of a dual machine, but the more excavators we got, we just, they just wound up sitting and we, so we got rid of those and we've got a couple more nine oh eights.
00:49:21
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:49:22
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:49:24
Rick
Um, this year, um, we have a cat, uh, two 72 skid steer. Um, what else do we have? Uh, sidewalk machines. We've got a two, uh, John Deere 10 25 hours.
00:49:37
Rick
And each one of them has plow blower, broom, We use the broom 95% of the time. I don't even think we put the snowball on it.
00:49:44
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:49:47
Rick
What else do we have? We have a John Deere. It's a 1565, the front mount mower, rear steer.
00:49:54
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:49:54
RICK JAMES
1585, or is it 65?
00:49:54
Rick
We call it the 1565, diesel, heat cab, closed cab.
00:49:57
RICK JAMES
Oh, it's 60.
00:49:59
Rick
Yeah, they had like a 1445. That was the smaller one. and This one's a 1565. But the guys they call it the turtle.
00:50:05
RICK JAMES
We have 1585s, so yeah.
00:50:08
Rick
I think that's probably the newer one.
00:50:10
RICK JAMES
Okay, yeah, probably, yeah.
00:50:11
Rick
Yeah, this one's old. It's probably it's probably 15 years old. I bought a use this guy.
00:50:14
RICK JAMES
Oh, gotcha.
00:50:15
Rick
Let's see how this thing works. And it works great. The guys love it. They call it the turtle, just the shape of it.
00:50:18
RICK JAMES
yeah and ter
00:50:20
Rick
And yeah, you're taking the turtle.
00:50:22
snowjobspodcast
ah ah
00:50:23
Rick
that's a So So what else we have a.
00:50:26
snowjobspodcast
Nice.
00:50:27
Rick
um ah I guess I'm one of the few guys that likes the Aryan's mammoth that we do have. and I know Steve will be a hard time about it, but we bought it three years ago and we have
00:50:33
snowjobspodcast
Yes, you are.
00:50:33
RICK JAMES
well
00:50:37
snowjobspodcast
How did it do though? To be fair, how did it do?
00:50:41
Rick
We have not had one issue with it.
00:50:43
snowjobspodcast
All right, good.
00:50:44
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:50:44
Rick
The guy that runs it, he loves it.
00:50:46
Rick
He he blasts around that thing. He cleans curb lines. He cleans garbage corrals. He backblades with it. He sweeps with it. um We've knocked on wood. I'm sure that I said this, but we've not had one issue with it.
00:50:55
RICK JAMES
but know another One other one.
00:50:58
snowjobspodcast
That's good. Hey, listen, you gotta to be fair.
00:50:58
Rick
And I like the design of it.
00:51:02
Rick
I like that it had ah you know a drive shaft. It had no belts. It just had a PTO with a drive shaft. i thought And like I said, Knockout Wood, it's it's been good for us and the guys like it.
00:51:14
RICK JAMES
Robert would say you his No Yep, ye yep, yep
00:51:15
snowjobspodcast
Good. Yeah, i can get it I can get you another one cheap if you want it.
00:51:17
Rick
And that's really the thing.
00:51:21
Rick
Maybe, but.
00:51:23
snowjobspodcast
No, that's a good thing though. that I'm glad to hear you didn't have any problems with it. You know, that you got to be fair with this stuff.
00:51:28
Rick
you know
00:51:29
snowjobspodcast
You know, some guys have had problems. Some guys haven't. So it's good that you haven't. I'm glad to hear somebody because I think is that the first guy, Jake, that we've heard that has no issues? Good. So. All right. We found our guy.
00:51:41
snowjobspodcast
Sweet.
00:51:42
Rick
I must have got a good one.
00:51:44
RICK JAMES
He's, yeah.
00:51:44
snowjobspodcast
The switch continues.
00:51:44
Rick
I got one that was made on a Tuesday.
00:51:46
RICK JAMES
His one's on a Tuesday.
00:51:46
snowjobspodcast
There you go.
00:51:47
RICK JAMES
I didn't say his one on Tuesday.
00:51:48
Rick
Yeah. Tuesday at 10 a.m., yeah.
00:51:50
RICK JAMES
Everybody's feeling good. Yeah.
00:51:52
snowjobspodcast
That's great. That's awesome. Good for you, brother. So what else do you got?
00:51:56
Rick
And then we have a bunch of single stage, a bunch of single stage blowers the guys keep on their trucks. For Sanders, we run, Sanders and Plows, we run Fisher, everything. The the trucks all have,
00:52:09
Rick
XV2s, eight and a half or nine and a half. We run all Ford F350s and F600s. We've got seven F350s with eight and a half XV2s. We have two F600 hooklift trucks. They're identical twin trucks. F600 Stellar hooklifts and those get nine and a half XV2s. But we we really don't plow with the F600s much.
00:52:38
Rick
um
00:52:39
snowjobspodcast
Gotcha.
00:52:39
Rick
You know, we we keep a flatbed and a sander on those. One of them's got a four and a half steel caster, and the other one has a four, the new Tempest. We got that last year.
00:52:49
snowjobspodcast
Okay.
00:52:49
RICK JAMES
Hmm.
00:52:50
Rick
And and those those trucks will stay loaded, sit in a heated garage, and ready to go when we're ready to salt. If something breaks down, we can go throw the plow on it and use it, but I try not to expose those trucks to more than they need to.
00:53:05
Rick
you know We use them a lot, um or and and if they don't need a plow, then that's fine.
00:53:06
snowjobspodcast
Gotcha.
00:53:10
Rick
Let them sit in the heated garage.
00:53:11
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:53:12
Rick
It's bad enough. We have to salt with them.
00:53:12
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:53:14
snowjobspodcast
Oh
00:53:14
Rick
um you know what We fluid film them like crazy. and we you know What I love with the hooklift is when we're done, we take the sander off, we drop the body, and we can clean the truck.
00:53:17
snowjobspodcast
yeah.
00:53:25
RICK JAMES
Watch it.
00:53:25
Rick
yeah We have a heated pressure
00:53:25
snowjobspodcast
Everything.
00:53:25
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:53:26
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:53:26
Rick
was you know we can wash everything. We have heated pressure washers set up. We have an electric washer pressure, an electric pressure washer set up that it' it's hooked up all the time. The guys come in, it's easy, hit on, and they can just wash the truck off.
00:53:39
Rick
So the hooklifts that work really well.
00:53:40
snowjobspodcast
Who did them for you, Rick? Who did the Stellars for you?
00:53:44
Rick
um Donovan did one of them up in New Hampshire.
00:53:48
snowjobspodcast
Okay. Yep.
00:53:49
Rick
Donovan truck, here they do Donovan bodies and everything.
00:53:50
snowjobspodcast
Okay.
00:53:51
Rick
They did the first one we got, and then the second one Jim Reed's did down in peak scale.
00:53:51
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:53:56
snowjobspodcast
Okay, cool.
00:53:58
snowjobspodcast
Very cool.
00:53:58
Rick
they did the second F600.
00:54:00
Rick
I bought the cabin chassis and then we brought them there to have the hooks on and they've been we bought one of them and we've got a few bodies and
00:54:05
snowjobspodcast
Awesome.
00:54:10
Rick
it the truck would go out every single day. And then the guys would be fighting in the morning who got to take the whole clip. Well, we need it. No, no, no, we need it. And I just and i just said, you know what?
00:54:16
snowjobspodcast
ah
00:54:18
Rick
I said, it's it's time. Let's just, let's build another one. So we bought a 23. The first one's a 22. Then we we ordered a 23 F600, six, seven. And they've just been outstanding.
00:54:29
Rick
We use them for everything. And just, you know, we used to run like Chevy 3500 HDs with Sanders on them.
00:54:32
snowjobspodcast
That's great.
00:54:38
Rick
And they would just from November 1st to April 15th, they were a salt truck. That's it.
00:54:43
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:54:43
Rick
And they just sat and that's all they could do was salt. And, you know, if they sat a little too long, the brakes, you know, would start. It just, it worked then, but now having the hook lift, I never go back.
00:54:54
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
00:54:58
Rick
You know, we're done. We dropped the sander off. The sanders mounted on a flatbed. We back up in 30 seconds. the The flatbed is off with the sander on it and we're hooking up a dump body, a chip box, another flatbed, whatever weve we've got to do.
00:55:09
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:55:11
Rick
So those have been, those have really worked well for us.
00:55:13
RICK JAMES
Nice.
00:55:14
Rick
And and I'm trying to think what else we have.
00:55:14
snowjobspodcast
Cool.
00:55:19
snowjobspodcast
We got, what are you doing?
00:55:20
RICK JAMES
Whoa.
00:55:21
snowjobspodcast
Pusher wise. Let's hear about the pushers.
00:55:24
Rick
Pushers, we have a we have a mix of metal plus and arctic.
00:55:25
snowjobspodcast
to
00:55:28
Rick
We have more arctic.
00:55:29
snowjobspodcast
Interesting.
00:55:30
Rick
um The only metal plus is we have two 830-13s. We have one of them on a 908 and one of them on the CAT 272.
00:55:42
Rick
And then we have a 12 foot live box, 12 or 14, I forget, on the 918. And the 918 was kind of a weird size machine where
00:55:49
snowjobspodcast
so Okay.
00:55:54
Rick
I would, you know, you could put like a 13 LD or a 15 and a half LD, but I was worried it was going to get bent up with having a little bigger machine. You know, that machine's like 20,000 pounds and it kind of puts you right out of what they recommend.
00:56:02
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:56:07
Rick
But I was a little nervous going with like a 14 HD because I'm like, if we got a really big heavy snow. I don't know how well it's going to push. You know, it doesn't have so tires on it.
00:56:18
Rick
And we we had just gotten the machine. I've never had one that size. So I was nervous to do a 14 HD. It probably would have been fine, but I want to make sure, you know, I want to make sure.
00:56:25
RICK JAMES
That's right.
00:56:29
RICK JAMES
That's a, we run on our on nine eight or sorry, our our nine 18, we, we run a 14 HDR ticker.
00:56:32
Rick
and Yeah. 14.
00:56:36
RICK JAMES
We also have a 12 if it got heavy so we can switch back and forth, but yeah, we, that's a, we run no issues at all. I think care. Is it nice?
00:56:43
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, it handles that dusting the two inches.
00:56:43
Rick
Yeah. So I would try one.
00:56:43
RICK JAMES
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:47
Rick
You know, I was just worried, you know, if we, if we get one of those concrete snows, you know, I don't want anything to be beating the crap out of it, you know, trying to push that weight.
00:56:47
snowjobspodcast
yeah
00:56:48
RICK JAMES
Sure does.
00:56:53
snowjobspodcast
See?
00:56:56
RICK JAMES
I think we, I think that one.
00:56:58
Rick
So that's why I wound up getting getting a live box.
00:56:59
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:57:01
RICK JAMES
One night I think the guys, the guys put the 19 footer on her.
00:57:02
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:57:04
snowjobspodcast
Oh, really?
00:57:05
RICK JAMES
I think the HD. Oh yeah.
00:57:06
snowjobspodcast
On the 918?
00:57:07
RICK JAMES
That's 17 or 19. I saw a picture when they dropped in the parking lot and put it on it. Yeah.
00:57:11
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, it's a different ballgame, talcum powder.
00:57:12
RICK JAMES
no Yeah.
00:57:12
Rick
If it was like powdery snow, no problem.
00:57:15
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, exactly.
00:57:16
Rick
Yeah, I'd have no worry about that.
00:57:16
snowjobspodcast
Pushing one inch or two inches of talcum.
00:57:16
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:57:18
RICK JAMES
yeah
00:57:19
Rick
But we, you know, when we've we've had the storms where it turns to sleep, and you'll be you'll you'll be going down and you watch the Arctic roll it off the plate, and it's just pure sleep.
00:57:19
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, it's tough.
00:57:23
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
00:57:23
snowjobspodcast
Oh, yeah.
00:57:28
Rick
And that is just, it's just so heavy.
00:57:29
snowjobspodcast
Pellets.
00:57:31
Rick
It's so yeah, exactly.
00:57:31
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:57:32
Rick
It's just pellets.
00:57:33
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:57:33
Rick
Why? And it's just it's so heavy. and And so that's why I went with that. And then all the other machines have Arctic's on them. We have most of them are 14 foot HDs and some of them we could do 17s, but the 14 we just found that it worked really well for us getting in because again, it's all shopping centers.
00:57:41
snowjobspodcast
Nice Sure.
00:57:53
Rick
And if it's during the day, there's cars everywhere and we can get in and out of parking spaces better with the 14.
00:57:57
RICK JAMES
Yep.
00:58:00
Rick
It's less in my business mind is the risk of, you know, hitting stuff and.
00:58:05
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
00:58:05
Rick
you know you're backing up and you've got a 17 foot blade compared to a 14, you clip something with a wing. It's just, it's a little more maneuverable and um productivity wise, I just, I don't really worry about it. we I basically, I probably put too much equipment on a site, but that's just you know me, I look at and say, you know how many machines do I need to put on this site? I want to be able to have it plowed curve to curve in two and a half hours and I want 30 minutes to be able to salt in and let this all work.
00:58:38
Rick
So I have a three hour window. if i want to If we want to start scraping at four, I want to be done by seven. So let's have enough of the equipment onsite to get that done in that window before the stores open up.
00:58:45
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
00:58:49
Rick
and um
00:58:50
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:58:51
Rick
And I don't care if we get an inch or a foot. It doesn't matter. i I want enough equipment on there that if we get a foot, it's still done in three hours. If we get two inches, maybe it's done in two hours.
00:58:59
RICK JAMES
Right.
00:58:59
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
00:59:01
Rick
But I'm not going to risk not having equipment on site for when that big storm comes. And yeah, it's few and far between.
00:59:08
RICK JAMES
Gotta be ready.
00:59:08
Rick
But it doesn't matter. I need to be prepared. You got to be ready.
00:59:12
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
00:59:12
Rick
And no one wants to hear, oh, you got nine inches. you know My lot wasn't clear. It doesn't matter. you know And everyone always calls me before we get a big storm. Oh, are you ready? Are you ready?
00:59:22
Rick
I said, yeah. I said, I don't care whether we get an inch or a foot. Everyone goes, we do the same thing, just takes us a little bit more time. Nothing changes.
00:59:30
snowjobspodcast
Yep, absolutely.
00:59:31
RICK JAMES
ye
00:59:31
Rick
We don't we don't add operators. It's the same guy, same crew, same machines. Again, an inch or a foot, it doesn't matter. And you know that's just kind of the way I do it. Some guys are like, oh, you got too many machines on site.
00:59:43
Rick
Why do you got so many machines?
00:59:44
snowjobspodcast
Nope.
00:59:45
Rick
Well, ah what stuff happened stuff happens you know
00:59:45
RICK JAMES
Nope, no such thing.
00:59:48
snowjobspodcast
No such thing. That's the way to do it.
00:59:49
RICK JAMES
No such thing.
00:59:49
Rick
You don't know, you know stuff happens, the machine goes down, something gelled up, you know some you know yeah something blew a hydraulic line. If something happens, I don't want it to upset anything.
Equipment Strategies and Post-Storm Management
01:00:02
Rick
I just wanna be like, all right, you know what, it's gonna take us another 30 minutes. Or hey, you know let's shift the machine. you know Luckily, three of my bigger centers are all within 12 minutes of each other.
01:00:14
Rick
If a loader goes down and we've got a shift, we can.
01:00:15
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:00:17
Rick
you know We can move and, Um, you know, that was another thing with the 14s, you know, we could road a 14 down the road at 17 probably, but a 14 is a little, a little easier if you had to run it down the road, but, um, you know, that's just kind of what we do.
01:00:30
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
01:00:32
Rick
And, and like I said, I want to be done in a certain amount of time. I don't want to kill my guys. We don't, we don't say out all night. We, you know, the centers close at nine, 10 o'clock they're closing.
01:00:41
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:00:45
Rick
So. There's no reason for us to apply 24 hours a day. We just don't need to do it. So we'll stay until 10 o'clock at night or something when the store's closed.
01:00:51
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:00:55
Rick
And i'll let I'll let everyone go home and listen, we'll be back in at four. So that, you know, most of the guys know we we're back in at four, it means we're pushing at four. So they're showing up at 330, 345, get their machine started, warmed up, you know, and they went and got four or five hours of sleep or whatever.
01:01:10
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:01:12
Rick
is You know, it's better than nothing. And we're scraping by four, we're done by six.
01:01:15
RICK JAMES
Mm
01:01:18
Rick
So we're salting by six 30 by seven o'clock, we've got blacktop. And that's just, you know, there's just the way we do it. And it seems where I've worked. I mean, I know some guys, they want to stay out all night.
01:01:29
Rick
And to me, that's when you start getting accidents. That's when. guys start burning out because, you know, the thing is when it, because we do everything, when it stops snowing, when the storm is over, we don't go home.
01:01:41
RICK JAMES
hmm.
01:01:41
Rick
We got to work the rest of the day because we've got to handle all the calls like, you know, hey, you know, ah the roof is leaking because the sun came out after we got that slushy wet snow.
01:01:51
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
01:01:51
Rick
We've got a roof leak and we have water pouring in or we've got, you know, something went on or something, whether it was from the weather or just the day to day operations of a shopping center.
01:01:58
RICK JAMES
her
01:02:02
Rick
We don't go, you know, we have to stay in our crew.
01:02:02
snowjobspodcast
Gotcha.
01:02:05
Rick
We have to either do what we were working on the previous day board snowed or we got to go handle emergencies. So, you know, we'll finish up and we'll come back. We'll rinse the trucks off.
01:02:17
Rick
And, you know, if it's eight o'clock at this point, basically then, you know, we'll rinse the trucks off and we're basically waiting for the phone to ring to see what's, you know, what happened that day or, you know, what's the next urgency we got to go fix.
01:02:22
RICK JAMES
Mm hm . What is
01:02:27
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:02:28
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
Tools Comparison and Precision Work
01:02:30
snowjobspodcast
So what scrapes better?
01:02:31
RICK JAMES
ah we No, not really.
01:02:32
snowjobspodcast
What scrapes better? The Arctic or the plus?
01:02:35
Rick
Oh, that is a loaded question. um i think i think I think they both scrape good.
01:02:39
RICK JAMES
No.
01:02:41
Rick
I think the Arctic have more range of motion. um They'll go over speed bumps better.
01:02:46
snowjobspodcast
Mm-hmm.
01:02:47
Rick
they you know They articulate more up and down. They definitely have more range. um The Metal Plus with the Live Edge, it seems to scrape good on a hard pack, but sort of is the Arctic.
01:02:52
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
01:02:57
Rick
I mean, so the way that I do it, I try to have them work together.
01:02:58
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:02:58
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:03:02
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:03:02
Rick
um
01:03:02
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
01:03:03
RICK JAMES
Yeah, exactly. like
01:03:03
Rick
I have the, uh, I have the, the 80 30 thirteens on either, like I said, one of them's on a site on the skits or the other one's on a nine Oh eight.
01:03:11
Rick
And I basically, they kind of compliment the Arctic. So I'll have, and again, I, you know, I know my operators to this point, I know who's the meticulous super attention to detail guy.
01:03:22
Rick
And he's the one that runs that machine with the metal class. And I say, your job is to go do all the detail trim work. You go run the curb lines, you pull the docs out. You pull, you know, you get everything out of the corners.
01:03:35
Rick
You back drag everything. You run around because with with the metal plus, you just, you can get in everywhere. You can back drag with it.
01:03:41
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
01:03:42
Rick
Great.
01:03:42
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:03:42
Rick
And then, you know, you get it out and then the Arctic's will come by and they'll bulk the big stuff off with like the three yard loaders.
01:03:48
snowjobspodcast
Can you get into the cab with it?
01:03:52
Rick
Oh maybe yeah.
01:03:53
RICK JAMES
Oh, yeah you know what, what?
01:03:53
Rick
So funny story. Funny story. So. So ah second the second plus we got the 80, 30, 13 we got for the skid steer.
01:04:04
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
01:04:05
Rick
And I dealt with um storm equipment on that one with um Christian.
Customer Service Experience and Solutions
01:04:11
Rick
I had a problem with one of my other metal pluses.
01:04:11
snowjobspodcast
Yep, our buddy.
01:04:12
RICK JAMES
Oh boy. Oh god.
01:04:14
Rick
so
01:04:15
RICK JAMES
What did he do wrong?
01:04:16
Rick
My, the first metal, the first metal plus that I got, I had an issue with it and a wiring issue. It was, we used it like once. And I think I put something on one of the metal plus forums and they responded in five minutes.
01:04:26
RICK JAMES
Shh.
01:04:28
Rick
Here's my phone. Never call me. I did not buy the platform.
01:04:30
snowjobspodcast
Storm did.
01:04:31
Rick
Yeah.
01:04:31
RICK JAMES
Storm?
01:04:32
Rick
This was like, like eight o'clock night storm.
01:04:32
snowjobspodcast
Storm did.
01:04:34
Rick
Yeah. It was Christian, I think, but you know, put a phone number and it was a call.
01:04:35
RICK JAMES
Nope.
01:04:35
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:04:37
RICK JAMES
Oh.
01:04:39
Rick
I said, listen, I called him, I said, you know, it's 830 at night. I said, I, you know, I can call you during normal business, it's like, no, we're in the truck, you know, we're, we're driving somewhere, what's going on? I kind of told him my issue.
01:04:49
Rick
And he knew right away, it was the wiring going to one of the solenoids. And he's like, we make a whole kit because they fail. So I wound up getting the the kit from him, he shipped it out to me like next day.
01:05:01
Rick
And it was just, it was it a great experience, which is kind of what, you know, they're famous for the customer service and
01:05:05
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:05:07
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:05:08
Rick
So it got time to buy another one and I'm like, you know what, I'm getting one from them. Um, so I went over to actually SNS equipment and PA and I picked it up there and I got it back.
01:05:14
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:05:20
Rick
I was all excited and I forget when it was, but it was maybe like early November or something. It wasn't quite snowing yet. I'm like, let's get this thing on. I want to try it out. See how the controls work on the skid steer.
01:05:31
Rick
Um, cause everything's in the joystick. Whereas the nine awaits, we had it. You know, we had to run it differently. We actually went out putting buttons in that joystick, but I wanted to try it.
01:05:39
snowjobspodcast
Nope.
01:05:40
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:05:40
Rick
You know, I got a new toy. I had to try it. So we'll bring it back.
01:05:42
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
01:05:42
snowjobspodcast
Oh, yeah.
01:05:43
Rick
I pull it. I hop in the skid steer. I pull it off the trailer. We hook the hydraulic lines up, hook everything up. I mess around with it. I'm like, it works great. I put it down on the ground. I go to get out. I open the skid steer door and bam, it slams into the block.
01:05:55
Rick
And I'm like, huh, I can't.
01:05:55
RICK JAMES
No.
01:05:56
snowjobspodcast
oh
01:05:57
Rick
can't get out of the machine. So I'm like, I must have not like put the blade down or something like that.
01:05:59
RICK JAMES
That's a safe issue.
01:06:03
Rick
So I, I mess around with it. I try to curl it in, curl it out, you know, every configuration possible. I'm like, I can't open the door. So I think I was literally sitting in the cab and I call Christian.
01:06:14
Rick
I was like, Hey, quick question. I said, I'm pretty sure we've got this thing on, right? I don't think there's really any other way, but I can't get out of the machine and you can just tell his heart dropped over the phone.
01:06:21
RICK JAMES
yeah
01:06:25
Rick
And he's like, uh, Uh, let me call you back in a minute.
01:06:28
RICK JAMES
Uh, phone a friend.
01:06:29
snowjobspodcast
I'll call you back.
01:06:31
RICK JAMES
I got a photo friend.
01:06:31
Rick
So he, so he's like, so he calls me back and he's like, I talked to a couple of people and he goes, I think they make a kid or something like that.
01:06:42
Rick
And he's like, he was like mortified.
01:06:43
snowjobspodcast
Oh, I broke his balls.
01:06:44
Rick
I, I, he was so nice. I felt so bad for the guy. I was completely fine.
01:06:48
RICK JAMES
Oh, don't feel bad.
01:06:49
Rick
it's not like
01:06:49
snowjobspodcast
No, I broke his balls for you.
01:06:49
RICK JAMES
Don't feel, don't feel bad for him.
01:06:50
Rick
yeah
01:06:51
RICK JAMES
No, no, no.
01:06:52
snowjobspodcast
personallyfully Oh, that was great.
01:06:54
Rick
So, on yeah, you know, and it's like five of my guys are standing around and some of them, you know, they, they didn't want the metal plus they've been, you know, their team Arctic and they're like laughing and they're like, you know, great player, you got here boss, you know, you can't even get out of the thing.
01:07:07
snowjobspodcast
Gotta use the escape patch.
01:07:08
RICK JAMES
ah
01:07:08
Rick
So, um yeah, so we wound up uncoupling it went out, then I got out, and then we're looking at the bracket and we wound up, we wound up moving a part of the bracket so that it mounted, I think
01:07:21
RICK JAMES
Oh, the hitch.
01:07:22
Rick
ah higher yeah on the hitch on the hitch so that we can lower the loader arms down a little bit more but when we did that some of the bolts didn't line up most of them did but not all of them so I was a little bit nervous about running it yeah but you know you know when you spend 20 some odd thousand dollars you know you you don't want square bolts so um
01:07:22
RICK JAMES
hit yeah Yep. Yep.
01:07:34
RICK JAMES
Yeah, spare bolts.
01:07:37
RICK JAMES
ah
01:07:41
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:07:42
snowjobspodcast
Aww yeah!
01:07:42
RICK JAMES
No, no, you like it to work.
01:07:43
Rick
um yes So he called me back and he's like, I spoke to the guys at menoplast and yeah, they actually, they have a kit that lowers, you know, it changes the the brackets on the hitch.
01:07:54
Rick
It's a, his whole kit. He's like, they're going to overnight it to you. So, you know, we got the kid.
01:07:58
RICK JAMES
Just another $20,000.
01:08:00
Rick
Yeah. So.
01:08:01
snowjobspodcast
ah hu
01:08:03
Rick
We got the kit the next day and you know it had some another couple pieces of bracket and some spacers and put it back together and then and then it was fine. but ah But yes, that is our... And again, I was shocked. you know It's a Cat 272. It's not like this is... you know a you know We didn't order this machine from China on eBay.
01:08:23
Rick
You know, this is a pretty standard. I can't imagine it's different than a 262 or something like that. I'm like, how has this not ever come up? And he's like, some of them, it just seems to maybe the different tire packages.
01:08:36
Rick
I don't know. Some of them, they seem to be okay, but I don't know.
01:08:39
RICK JAMES
sounds like a Sounds like a salesman.
01:08:40
Rick
Mine.
01:08:44
snowjobspodcast
he did right though right yeah
01:08:44
Rick
You know, I've never seen this before.
01:08:44
RICK JAMES
Ah, it's This this is this a lot usually happens to us. Ah, we've never had that happen before.
01:08:50
snowjobspodcast
Never, never happened.
01:08:50
RICK JAMES
no That's never happened before.
01:08:50
Rick
You've never seen that.
01:08:52
RICK JAMES
Everything we buy, everything everything we get here.
01:08:52
Rick
We've never put a bit of plus on a cat's kiss here.
01:08:55
RICK JAMES
now No, no.
01:08:55
snowjobspodcast
No, nobody's ever had a metal plus on a two 72.
01:08:59
RICK JAMES
This has never happened. I'm like, wow.
01:09:02
Rick
So.
01:09:02
snowjobspodcast
ah
01:09:02
RICK JAMES
The only times we've heard that here, it's ridiculous.
01:09:03
Rick
But uh.
01:09:05
snowjobspodcast
What they took care of you though.
01:09:06
Rick
But.
01:09:06
snowjobspodcast
Storm did right.
01:09:07
Rick
Yeah, 100%. Absolutely. I mean, without a doubt, best customer service you know you can get.
01:09:09
snowjobspodcast
Good.
01:09:13
Rick
And the guy that runs that skid steer, he he's a guy that doesn't like change. And I was telling him I was going to do it and you know get this blade for him.
01:09:18
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:09:21
Rick
me He's like, no, no, I don't think so. I just want to stick with what I have. And I'm like, listen, just try. If you don't like it, I'll give you your old blade back, and we'll put it on one of the 908s. And he ran it for like an hour, and he's just he's like, oh, I love it.
01:09:35
Rick
He's like, ah'm I'm not giving this up. Because he goes around, he does all the detail work, and and he's pulling out parking spaces and handicaps.
01:09:37
RICK JAMES
Cool.
01:09:37
snowjobspodcast
Nice.
01:09:44
Rick
So he's ah he's great at it.
01:09:48
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, no, there's there's a space for him.
01:09:48
RICK JAMES
have you Have you seen this? Have you seen the storm vision they have now for those? Have you seen that at all?
01:09:53
Rick
No.
01:09:55
RICK JAMES
That's pretty cool. He'd probably like to get that for your guys.
01:09:59
Rick
What is that?
01:09:59
RICK JAMES
Talk to, talk to, talk to, it's storm made, it's called, wire makes the cloud wireless ah and it can, yeah, yeah.
01:10:00
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, it makes the plot wireless. to
01:10:04
Rick
OK. Oh, yes. You know what? I think I did.
01:10:07
RICK JAMES
I mean, you can talk to Steve Smythe about, i don't I don't know if Christian knows much, but.
01:10:10
Rick
It runs off Bluetooth or something like that, I think, right?
01:10:12
snowjobspodcast
ah nice shot.
01:10:13
RICK JAMES
Yeah, yeah.
01:10:13
snowjobspodcast
Nice shot, Jeremy.
01:10:16
RICK JAMES
I got to, I love giving Christian crap, so.
01:10:17
snowjobspodcast
ah We're going to have fun in Minnesota.
01:10:21
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:10:22
snowjobspodcast
but but Oh man.
01:10:22
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:10:23
Rick
but But really, back to the debate of the two of them. Like I said, I use the Metal Plus to to work with the Arctic.
01:10:28
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
01:10:30
Rick
like Having both of them on the site is perfect for me.
01:10:33
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
01:10:33
Rick
you know just um you know As far as the live box, you know it really doesn't do anything special. I think it's built really well. There's not a lot to break on it.
01:10:42
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
01:10:42
Rick
Um, but does it scrape as good as the Arctic? Probably not. It doesn't have that range of motion. Like I can tell when I go over a speed bump, when I go over with an Arctic, it goes up and over it and cleans it perfectly.
01:10:52
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:10:53
Rick
The metal plus just doesn't have the range of motion.
01:10:54
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:10:54
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:10:57
Rick
Um, but you know, the benefit of that is, I guess you don't have to worry about the blocks. Let, I mean, we really, we really don't have many issues with blocks at all.
01:11:02
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:11:05
Rick
I think of the, the 10, 10 or 12 artists we have, I think we've gone through
01:11:05
snowjobspodcast
Neither do we.
01:11:11
Rick
three or four blocks, and those blocks, I think we're on a used blade that we got, and the blocks were probably 10 years old, and we probably should have changed them before, but you know we we really don't have a lot of issues with them.
01:11:23
RICK JAMES
Nice. I mean, they they all have their plays. I mean, metal plays, arctic.
01:11:25
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
01:11:26
RICK JAMES
I mean, they they all they all work together.
01:11:28
snowjobspodcast
There's always a place for a wing plow.
01:11:28
RICK JAMES
So. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah.
01:11:32
snowjobspodcast
um what ah How did the shoes on the live box do for you? We keep hearing the shoes might wear a little easy. Do they wear?
01:11:39
Rick
um I'd have to check them. i we only We only ran it the one season. i think we've had it yeah I think last year was the first year we had it.
01:11:44
snowjobspodcast
Okay.
01:11:45
Rick
So we don't have a lot of time on it. So I can't really give you an accurate, ah you know you know i'm not too sure on that.
01:11:50
snowjobspodcast
Gotcha. Very cool. What do you what do you guys do as far as ah as far as the icing?
01:11:52
Rick
But we haven't gone to liquids.
01:11:56
snowjobspodcast
Are you doing any liquids at all or not? No, just granular.
01:12:01
Rick
Everything everything is granular. um you know It piques my interest.
De-Icing Methods and Client Relationships
01:12:07
Rick
um but I think it's changing, the technology is getting better, and I need to kind of keep up with that.
01:12:14
Rick
But as far as the granular goes, most of our temperatures, it doesn't get that cold here.
01:12:19
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:12:19
Rick
Where salt doesn't work, you know, salt works well.
01:12:22
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:12:23
Rick
I mean, we'll run magic salt or treated salt. And it it just for our area, there's not a huge motivation for me to change and switch my entire system.
01:12:28
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:12:33
Rick
Like I said, we're clockwork.
01:12:33
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm. It's working.
01:12:34
Rick
We keep You know, we we keep a bin, we have, you know, our yard is set up where we have like two bins. We have treated salt and straight salt. And then we have an excavator that sits up on a pile. um I have a CAT 315 that sits up on top of the bin and the sanders pull in and we have the bins and the sander pulls in and the excavator can grab whatever product they want. It spins 90 degrees and it loads the sander.
01:13:01
Rick
and loading with an excavator.
01:13:01
snowjobspodcast
Gotcha.
01:13:01
RICK JAMES
of I love her.
01:13:02
Rick
I hate doing it because I hate loading with the excavator because it you know you get in with salty feet, but we really try to keep it clean. But loading with an excavator is the best way to load salt hands down.
01:13:13
RICK JAMES
Oh, that sounds awesome.
01:13:14
Rick
It is so fast, you sit up high, you can see exactly where it's going inside the hopper.
01:13:17
RICK JAMES
Yep.
01:13:20
Rick
You don't have to climb up on the truck to do anything. You literally, you you spin around, you grab a bucket. We use a like a 48 inch, like a ditch cleaning bucket, a smooth edge bucket. Grab a, it holds, it holds about a yard.
01:13:30
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:13:32
Rick
It's like 0.98 tons, 0.98 yard bucket. So so we literally grab a bucket turn 90 degrees put it right in the truck And then we have the bin set up so you know what if it's 30 degrees out I'm not gonna use magic solids are treated I'm just gonna use you know the regular rock salt so we keep that in one bin and the treated in the other and and it's fast I mean we load a sint you know you load a sander and and
01:13:48
RICK JAMES
Mm
01:13:48
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
01:13:56
Rick
you know, three buckets and the truck's gone.
01:13:57
RICK JAMES
hmm.
01:13:58
Rick
It pulls in, pulls out and it's just quick and, you know, you're not digging into the pile. You're not trying to fight to see over the bucket. If you're loading, like I tried loading with a skid steer one time and I hate it.
01:14:10
Rick
And even like the 908s, like it's, I don't, it's not, the excavator is so nice to load with.
01:14:17
RICK JAMES
yeah that would be nice
01:14:19
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
01:14:20
Rick
So that's that's the setup we have, you know, for salt. And I just, I haven't, like I said, I haven't had a lot of motivation to change it.
01:14:24
snowjobspodcast
Very cool.
01:14:27
Rick
It's worked well for us.
01:14:28
snowjobspodcast
I agree.
01:14:29
Rick
um You know, the coldest temperatures we get. I mean, every once in a while, we'll get to 8, 9, 10 degrees, but usually we don't have a lot of precipitation when it's that cold.
01:14:36
snowjobspodcast
Yep. Never going below zero.
01:14:40
snowjobspodcast
Nope. We don't.
01:14:40
Rick
And the magic salt was still working.
01:14:42
Rick
So I haven't seen the need to so really...
01:14:42
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:14:46
Rick
And again, I'm not saying that that's not the future. It could be if we were in a climate where it was regularly 8, 9 degrees out and we had a treat, 100% I'd be at liquids. But for our area,
01:14:56
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, I'd already been doing it.
01:14:58
Rick
Yeah. And it's just that the time period where it is that cold, it's like three or four weeks, you know, it's just, it's, so I just, I, have yeah.
01:15:03
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:15:03
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:15:05
snowjobspodcast
And with magic, you have to use so much less of it. Like that's the thing. Like with magic, it's like everybody says, oh, you're, you just, you know, you're, you're putting so much salt into the environment magic. We use so little salt and it burns it right down.
01:15:18
snowjobspodcast
Like it's, it's just, you know, we can get away with, we're not using a lot of salt at all.
01:15:20
Rick
Yeah.
01:15:23
snowjobspodcast
We do a lot of pavement with very minimal magic.
01:15:23
Rick
Yeah, exactly. And then once.
01:15:26
Rick
Exactly. Then once we switched to all electric sanders, they really just you can dial them down. you We just use so much less material.
01:15:34
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:15:35
Rick
you know we used um We ran Tarko Highlander Juniors forever for 25 years. They're up in Saratoga. um that you know They were great sanders, they were gas, but you know you always you had all the issues with a gas sander.
01:15:51
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
01:15:51
Rick
The fuel sitting in them in the summer months, you know the clutches, all that stuff.
01:15:52
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
01:15:56
Rick
And, but again, back then the trucks weren't as good as they are today. You know, they didn't have dual alternators with twin battery set up with a 400 amp alternator. So, you know, they, they didn't carry the weight like they did.
01:16:06
snowjobspodcast
Mm hmm.
01:16:09
Rick
You know, we all had, we had all dual wheel trucks to solve it. We never solved it with a single wheel truck because, you know, in the, in the mid nineties, those trucks, they just didn't carry the weight that the newer trucks do.
01:16:19
RICK JAMES
Great.
01:16:19
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, yep.
01:16:20
Rick
So we wound up getting, we've got four or five, uh, one and a half or 1.8 polycasters we put in the F three fifties now and they carry the weight fantastic and they just they don't use a lot of salt you can dial them down you can you know, you just have a lot more control on them and You know, they've they've been a huge um thing for us switching everything over Yes, yeah, we yeah, we have a
01:16:41
snowjobspodcast
Amen. Well, she got Jay. Oh, he's in the middle of a coughing fit.
01:16:48
RICK JAMES
Are you using any weather service?
01:16:50
snowjobspodcast
Oh.
01:16:53
Rick
We have a you know a paid weather service that we use. Decent. you know like any We use WeatherWorks.
01:16:58
RICK JAMES
Who's that?
01:17:01
RICK JAMES
Weather works, yep.
01:17:02
snowjobspodcast
Okay.
01:17:03
Rick
So we you know there's they're good for the majority stuff. i wouldn't I wouldn't do it without a paid weather service. I'll tell you that. We get a lot of good information. um you know They're always wrong sometimes.
01:17:15
Rick
That's just the nature of it. But again, I I don't care, again, I don't care whether we get three inches or we get six inches. If they're off, so what?
01:17:23
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
01:17:24
Rick
It it doesn't, it's not like, oh, we were, you know, they said, were yeah, tell me when it's gonna start.
01:17:26
snowjobspodcast
Just tell me something's coming.
01:17:30
snowjobspodcast
Yes.
01:17:30
Rick
Tell me when it's gonna start so I can get 35, 40 guys where they need to be.
01:17:30
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:17:34
snowjobspodcast
Exactly. like Yep.
01:17:35
Rick
You know, where I can get everyone in place. I get all my guys there early before, you know, if it's gonna start snowing, they're there 30 minutes before I say, listen, start up the machines, get everything running, go run it around, go get a cup of coffee.
01:17:48
Rick
And you know you're on the clock, you know you wait. Sit and wait and and you know we're ready.
01:17:52
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:17:53
Rick
I don't want it to be that you know guys are trying to get to job sites when you know you get those storms where all of a sudden it hits and the roads just deteriorate in five seconds and you know everyone is out getting you know milk and bread and they get into an accident and you know guys are stuck.
01:18:07
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:18:08
Rick
They're on site before it starts.
01:18:11
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
01:18:11
RICK JAMES
Nice.
01:18:12
Rick
So be prepared.
01:18:13
snowjobspodcast
Do you guys have a lot of competition in your area for snow?
01:18:16
Rick
in Besides you, um we, I don't know.
01:18:19
snowjobspodcast
No, you're not competition. We don't leave Fishkill.
01:18:23
Rick
um no did not Not really, I mean. I'm not trying to sound arrogant. we're We're you know, we're definitely one of the bigger the bigger snow removal um You know, there's some other guys doing some smaller stuff, but I mean no one At our size in our area you go down to Lower West.
01:18:31
snowjobspodcast
No, no, I hear you. I say the same thing.
01:18:43
Rick
Yeah, there's big, you know, I'm sure there's big companies but we don't we don't we don't service that area we stay in our you know, 15 mile radius and You know, we've been doing
01:18:45
snowjobspodcast
Sure.
01:18:49
RICK JAMES
Uh-huh. You know your niche.
01:18:53
snowjobspodcast
Keep it tight.
01:18:54
Rick
You know and these customers i've been doing these centers for twenty plus a years i mean the newest center that we have we picked up two years ago every other center i mean i i remember doing it as a kid i mean i just.
01:18:59
snowjobspodcast
That's awesome.
01:19:09
Rick
You know, we just, we don't do a lot of change. It's the same, the same centers every year. There's one of the centers my father did in in the eight, in the late seventies and eighties with an Oshkosh, with a big snowblower and an FWD.
01:19:23
Rick
And you know, we're still plowing that place. So, I mean, that's, you know, from the eighties to now, you know, 40 years.
01:19:27
snowjobspodcast
That's great.
01:19:32
snowjobspodcast
That's great.
01:19:32
Rick
Um, you know, it's gone through the, the place has gone through different owners. It's gone through different management company, different property managers, but we just, we've stayed, you know, we, we, we do what we say we're going to do.
01:19:44
Rick
And you know, it's, they don't have any headaches, you know, they, they want everything. They don't want phone calls and they don't get them. They don't get slip and falls.
01:19:52
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
01:19:53
Rick
They don't get phone calls. So everyone's happy.
01:19:54
snowjobspodcast
Amen. That's all you got to do. That's it.
01:19:57
Rick
Just, just do me your job.
01:19:58
snowjobspodcast
Show up when you're supposed to show up, do what you say you're going to do like Randy Strayed said and do a great job. Take away their worry that you're always going to be there and you're always going to do a phenomenal job.
01:20:05
Rick
yeah ever
01:20:08
snowjobspodcast
You will never lose that property.
01:20:10
Rick
yeah and the The center that I picked up two years ago was 14 acres of blacktop with a lot of sidewalks. We bought three more loaders for it at 1025 and one of the property managers was down there. and they um they couldn't get into their center and they drove 500 feet up to my center and we were 100% Blacktop. And they wound up getting my phone number somehow and called me and they said, I don't understand what you do versus my sole contractor does. You know you guys, I get a different weather, you're a quarter mile down the road and your your center was Blacktop and mine still had inches of snow on it and you could barely drive around in it.
01:20:51
Rick
And, um you know, and they wanted a ah number. And this was this was even this was probably five years ago. And at that point, you know, again, I just we weren't really taking anything.
01:21:01
Rick
Everything was going on.
01:21:02
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:21:02
Rick
My father, I said, listen, I said, we can't you know, I just you know, thank you for the opportunity. But I'm not really taking on anymore snow work right now. And then once we kind of geared up, I wound up doing some more work for that company.
01:21:14
Rick
I talked to the private, understood, hey, do you still want? you're like Absolutely. And they're like, just give us a number. We want you to do it. Tell us what it's going to cost. And and that's it. And do it.
01:21:24
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:21:24
Rick
So then you know we started there, and they they've been thrilled, and tenants have come up to us. and They're like, this is the best snow removal we've had at any time.
01:21:37
snowjobspodcast
Oh, isn't it great rolling it rolling into a site after a jackass?
01:21:38
Rick
it's It's good once in a while.
01:21:42
snowjobspodcast
Like, isn't that the best feeling when you can go in and you bring your A game and everybody's coming up thinking like you're the second coming of Christ, you know, because you had some jackass and they're doing it with a quad and a plow for 10 years.
01:21:43
Rick
Yeah.
01:21:49
Rick
yeah Yeah. You know, I do it with with four loaders and a pickup.
01:21:53
snowjobspodcast
so Yep.
01:21:56
Rick
four loaders and a pickup and they were doing it with like one old Volvo backhoe and ah like a 226 skid steer. And like, you know, the, you know, the pusher was like a ah rubber edge pusher that was bangled and bent in every way possible.
01:22:06
snowjobspodcast
yep
01:22:15
Rick
And, you know, I just, you know, a recipe for disaster. So yeah, we, uh, so we took that over and we've been there the last two years and that's really got well and, uh,
01:22:19
snowjobspodcast
Yes, sir.
01:22:26
Rick
And that's it.
01:22:26
snowjobspodcast
Awesome. Jeremy, what do you think? Five and five? you oh Let's get do some commercials. Come back and do the five and five.
01:22:33
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:22:34
snowjobspodcast
All right, cool. We'll be back in a minute, guys.
01:23:40
snowjobspodcast
All right, guys, we're back. So, Rick, we're going to do five and five here with you. So, Jeremy, hit them with yours, bro.
01:23:47
RICK JAMES
All right, Rick, where do you want to see yourself in the next five years, your company?
01:23:52
Rick
ah I would say, you know, slowly grown a little on the, you know, the summer work and the digging and excavating the snow. I think we'll probably be right where we are.
01:24:03
Rick
you know um I don't know how much more snow I want to do. you know In our area, we pretty much do what we want you know the places that I want to do in this area.
01:24:14
Rick
We do the the the bigger sites in the area.
01:24:15
RICK JAMES
Perfect.
01:24:17
Rick
I'm pretty content at it. we've been Like I said, we've been doing it forever, the same places. You know, I could grow the snow business. I could probably double the snow business in a day of phone calls if I wanted to, but I just don't.
01:24:34
Rick
It's just not where I want to be. You know, we've we've got a good niche. We do we do it well. And I don't really want to take on much more.
01:24:39
RICK JAMES
Mm-hmm.
01:24:42
Rick
ah You know, snow is not a huge money maker for us.
01:24:43
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
01:24:46
Rick
I do it more to keep my guys busy all winter long. I don't want to, you know, my crew, I don't want to lose them for the summer.
01:24:51
RICK JAMES
Great.
01:24:52
Rick
So I you know, we do the snow and keep everyone busy um You know, I hate it, but I do enjoy it You know, there's like a weird thing there like I you know, it it runs your life you guys know yeah, but I feel like if I didn't do it there would just be something missing and um You know again, I got a great crew of guys and and they all
01:24:58
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:24:59
RICK JAMES
Yeah, love it, love it.
01:25:09
snowjobspodcast
yeah
01:25:14
Rick
do an awesome job at it. So it it's it makes it easy for me to keep the snow. you know A lot of guys are giving it up because of the headaches. I mean, yeah, we have our headaches, but it runs as smooth as it could run.
01:25:26
Rick
It runs. I don't get a lot of headaches from the guys.
01:25:28
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
01:25:29
Rick
Everyone knows what they've got to do. We all work together. We knock it out. And you know it you know and it I don't want you know my customers, it it's you know I do everything. it's you know I can't leave them with, hey, I'm going to do all your other stuff, but you got to go some find some of those, how to do snow.
01:25:46
RICK JAMES
Uh huh.
01:25:47
Rick
and There's not a lot of guys that can do it the right way.
01:25:48
snowjobspodcast
Yep.
01:25:51
Rick
and so i just you know that's I do the snow and um you know it just it keeps us busy in those winter months, and but we're at a good
01:25:51
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
01:26:01
Rick
a good size with it. I feel like if we got much bigger, I don't want to sacrifice the quality.
01:26:03
snowjobspodcast
Cool.
01:26:07
Rick
It's, you know, we'd have to make some changes if we got much bigger. And I just don't know if I want to do that with snow.
01:26:14
snowjobspodcast
Amen. I hear you. What about the last five years? What's been the most important decision you've made in the last five years to get you to where you are right now?
01:26:23
Rick
um
01:26:26
Rick
I don't think there's been anything, any one decision. It's just been a lot of little, you know just just doing what I was taught to do and race it you know how I was raised, do the right thing, put out a superior product.
01:26:29
snowjobspodcast
Okay.
01:26:40
Rick
Don't worry about, you know it's you know obviously you've got to make money on it, but You can't, you know what, if it's going to cost you a little bit more money to go out and salt again, if that's what needs to be done, you go do it.
01:26:50
Rick
It doesn't matter.
01:26:50
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
01:26:51
Rick
Hey, maybe some years we're going to, you know, we're not going to make money, but you have to do the right job. So, you know, that's, you know, all those little things is what, you know, has been instilled in me, which is why I think we're at where we're at.
01:26:57
RICK JAMES
Right.
01:27:06
snowjobspodcast
Good for you.
01:27:07
RICK JAMES
I don't think so.
01:27:07
snowjobspodcast
Love it. Got anything else from Jay?
01:27:11
RICK JAMES
Rick's got a great company anyway, it sounds like, and runs a great, great crew.
01:27:13
snowjobspodcast
Yeah.
01:27:14
RICK JAMES
And, uh, yeah, it's, uh, another New Yorker up there.
01:27:17
snowjobspodcast
Yeah, he's staying out of fish kills.
01:27:18
Rick
Yeah, hats off.
01:27:19
snowjobspodcast
So he's okay in my book.
01:27:21
Rick
yeah again And again, hats so off to my crew because, you know, I love them. Most of them, they're like family at this point. A lot of the extra guys that during the summer months will text and catch up and hey, what's been going on?
01:27:28
snowjobspodcast
Absolutely.
01:27:28
RICK JAMES
Yeah.
01:27:33
Rick
And, you know, we stay in touch and we talk and if they need, you know, if they need something done or, you know, hey, can you give me a hand? And we just, you know, without them, it it doesn't work.
01:27:40
RICK JAMES
Mm hmm.
01:27:43
Rick
And, you know, they have the right mentality.
01:27:44
snowjobspodcast
Amen.
01:27:44
RICK JAMES
Nope.
01:27:45
Rick
They, they you know, They have the culture that we've tried to to bring up in in the company. And, you know, we're just, like I said, we don't have a lot of turnover with guys. It's the same crew. We go out and we do our thing and that's it.
01:28:02
RICK JAMES
awesome
01:28:03
snowjobspodcast
Amen. Well, thanks for coming on, brother. Appreciate it. Got anything else for us before we let you go?
01:28:07
Rick
Absolutely. That's it. I think we yeah think we covered all the basics.
01:28:10
snowjobspodcast
All right, cool. We did. All right. Well, thanks, Rick. All right, guys. Well, that's going to do it, then, for episode 82 of the Snowjaws podcast.
01:28:20
snowjobspodcast
As always, thanks to Rick for coming on with us, giving us a time. Great talking to a local guy. ah Set Jeremy straight on the concrete and stuff that we actually do get.
01:28:29
RICK JAMES
That's awesome.
01:28:30
snowjobspodcast
that was ah I need a couple allies in here.
01:28:31
RICK JAMES
i I never, I never say you don't get it.
01:28:34
snowjobspodcast
but I know, I know.
01:28:35
RICK JAMES
I just, I like this.
01:28:36
snowjobspodcast
I'm just breaking your balls. Concrete.
01:28:42
snowjobspodcast
Concrete. ah
01:28:45
snowjobspodcast
Oh, I love you. It's great. It is funny though. But yeah, guys, thank you, Rick. We're going to see everybody else next week. Everybody have a great week. All right. Please be safe out there. Keep pushing.
01:29:02
RICK JAMES
it.