S2E8: A lifetime of learnings with Alter Trading's Jay Robinovitz

In today's episode, I'm joined by Jay Robinovitz.

Jay is the CEO of Alter Trading and was definitely born scrappy! He has been in the scrap business all his life and is retiring at the end of this month. His experience in the industry is second to none and he is an incredible storyteller.

In today’s episode we talk about:

• Losing $5m as the ship leaves the dock
• Focusing on the little things
• Not wasting a recession
• The best equipment
• Turning inventory
• And so much more!

WHO IS STU KAGAN ANYWAYS?

25 years in the metal recycling game and still learning and growing...

I learnt from the best and worked my way up from yard labourer to Executive Director of Trading and Operations for the largest metal recycler in sub-Saharan Africa. Responsible for 4,500 employees, 85 sites, and the overall profitability of a multi-billion dollar operation.

I brought my breadth and depth of knowledge to bear and co-founded the fastest growing, most-loved, and most awarded metal recycling company in New Zealand. No small feat in a country where people are outnumbered 4:1 by sheep (spoiler alert: sheep don’t produce much metal waste).

I thought it was time that tech worked for our industry, so I took all of my experience as an operator and trader and leveraged that to build THE killer scrap app, Buddy. That’s right - built for scrappies, by scrappies.

Father of two crazy-awesome boys. Husband to Lisa. Under 9 rugby coach. YPO member. Lifelong learner. Mentee. Mentor. Chief dog walker. Committed Stoic. Undefeated dance-off champion.

COME SAY HI ON LINKEDIN

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stukagan/

Transcript

0:00

Hi, I'm Stu Kagan and welcome to Born Scrappy, the podcast for scrap metal exporters and traders. Join me in conversation with some of the most experienced traders and operators that have helped shape this incredible industry. In today's episode, I'm joined by Jay Rabinovitz. Jay is the CEO of Alter Trading and was definitely born scrappy. Jay has been in the scrap business all his life and is retiring at the end of this month. His experience in the industry is second to none and he is an incredible storyteller. In this episode, we talk about turning inventory, the little things, losing 5 million as the ship leaves the dock, you'd hate to waste a perfectly good recession, and so much more. So let's get into it with Jay. But first, intro. Jay, how are you? Good. How are you? Yeah, I'm really good. Thanks, man. Um, good to catch up again. It was just last week. I was in St. Louis with you in your boardroom. So nice to catch up again. You actually missed out when you're in St. Louis. You didn't get to come to the firehouse. You missed an event. I thought about it afterwards. We didn't get you to the firehouse. So next time through, no one even told me about the firehouse. What is the firehouse? I own an old fire house in St. Louis. Um, when we moved there, there was a ruling from the wife that she was no longer parking the driveway and me and my toys had to go find our own building and no more. I'm not burning the garage down anymore. She has no more fires. You and your stuff get out. And I went and was looking for a building and I bought an old firehouse. So I own the firehouse social and pleasure club. It's a non organized, disorganized. Definitely not for profit organization. So next time you're in town, you'll have to come over have a drink and a cigar Well, that's my incentive now to make sure I get there in the next few weeks or months So you will be seeing me at the firehouse always welcome Yeah. Thanks Jay. That's awesome. Jay, we, um, we got chatting the other day and I got to find out a little bit about your history. Obviously the latest news is you've recently retired, which I want to hear more about and what got you to that sort of point, um, and what you plan to do afterwards. I know a bit about your fishing escapades. So we'll hear about those. Tell me how you got into the industry and kind of what got you to where you are today. So, um, I was kind of born scrappy. I was born in the scrap business. I don't know anything else. That's it. Darn good thing this worked out because I have no fallback. My family owns a scrapyard in Springfield, Massachusetts. My dad's in 92 and still there every day. And, uh, I left many, many years ago and cause he told me, you know, it's, I wanted to make some changes. I wanted technology on new scales. And he said, look, you do whatever you want when I'm dead. But between now and then, this is my yard. We're doing it my way. And I just about then my grandfather walked by, was about a hundred years old. And I just stopped and said, I'm never going to make it. And I just, that was it. That was my last day there. So I, they often told us when we were kids that I was, they found me in the back of a car. And so for years, I thought they'd find me in the trunk of a car as well. So, you know, the things, the little scars from, from growing up in the business. Oh man. I can only imagine. Um, stories from those days, um, and your father's still running around and making those sort of decisions. I'd love to visit his yard sometime. It would be wild. I'm sure it would. It would be an experience to say the least. Yeah, that's classic. And what is a day in your life look like Jay? I mean, obviously now i'm guessing it's winding down a bit But but talk us through that one for just to correct you. I'm not retired yet I got till the end of the month. So i'm i'm a lame duck, but i'm not dead yet You know, my days, um, I kind of wake up in the morning, like I was shot out of a cannon. My whole youth was all, you get up in the morning, crack a dough and went to the yard. When we were in grade school, we'd go to school. I'd ride my bicycle to the yard. We'd stay at the yard till it got dark, throw the bikes in the back of the truck and go home. That was kind of my life. I didn't know anything that you weren't supposed to get up in the morning, hit the ground running and then, you know, you go home when it's dark, you eat, you go to bed and you do it again. So, and we were seven days a week. So, I, I wake up in the morning, like jump out of bed at a hundred miles an hour because all night long, I'm either fixing something or I'm working on something. My head's going a hundred miles an hour. And, uh, as I tell people, you know, when I was growing up, they look and say, what's the matter with him? And my boss, he's just nuts. And now it's, you know, they tell you it's ADD, but you know, if you can harness that, it's a, it's a pretty good skill. I totally agree. Like ADD is a superpower, you know, I read a lot. I mean, I go through the amount of email is incredible to begin with, but, um, I start my days basically with New York times and I'd like to know what's going on in the world. And then I do what everyone that works for me hates most. I do a scan through the cameras. I do one first thing in the morning and before I go to bed at night. And so. Uh, that way I have a list for them before they get in in the morning. I've got a list of stuff I saw last night that I need done. And when I get up in the morning, it's still the same. We go right at it. So that's kind of my day, but I'm continually moving. Are Ulta or your father going to allow you to look at their cameras after you're retired? Because I can't even imagine what getting up in the morning will be like not looking at those cameras. No, I think Michael, if he had his way, would shut me off already. I'd be long since dead. Every now and then when flickers or I go to log on, it's like today's the day. So I, I, uh, I think that's going to be hard to recover from. It's just, um, that day to day jump on everything. And I'm very particular, particularly when it comes to safety. Um, part of that youth and that upbringing in that yard is I saw some awful things growing up in that yard. Um, in my early teens, I'd already seen a couple of guys killed. I had seen some really bad accidents. So I have a very strong attention to safety. So I look with everything from that eyes first, um, and then a hundred percent production. Are we running? What are we running? Right. So right. She married. So I'm a little particular Jay. Just tell us what time are you getting up in the morning? Um, I get up using about 545 give or take a minute every day. I don't need I set one, but I don't need it. I'm usually chopping it by that time. Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. And we talk about it so many times, like intergenerational, um, people in the industry, it's all you ever knew, right? So, you know, that's all you've ever done. It would be crazy for you to sleep in because that's not even an option. Even when it's not work, you know, it's whether I'm on a motorcycle or over at the firehouse or on the boat, it's always still dark when I get there. You know, I, I'm just, I like the morning better than I like late at night. I'm, I'm prone toward getting up and. By noon, you know, I've got so much accomplished that I feel like I've accomplished a day's work by noon. Yeah, it's incredible tennis jay, have you experienced a Something on the trade side, you know, whether it was buying or selling like a pivotal trade experience that Molded the way that um, you've operated um thus far So i've had a couple that stand out that I tell often Um back in the 80s. I worked for a company called susman bloomingbaum where connecticut became aerospace metals You And it was titanium and nickel and we had an aluminum foundry. We had a small shredder. That's how I started there. But in 86, we were processing, cleaning, drying, x raying, and then putting titanium in these little white bags and sewing them closed. It was called Sussman Beautiful Titanium. And we supplied into Pratt Whitney, Sikorsky, uh, Hamilton Standard. It was a high grade titanium product and things are rolling along. It's 26, 27 a pound. Things are fantastic. And then we hit a cliff and all these mountains of really clean, very pretty titanium, and now we're 6 and we think the world's coming to an end. And it became the, you know, part of my penchant toward turning inventory. I am not a speculator. The inventory is so volatile. Um, we're a commodities business and you have to remember that all the time. You cannot fall in love with it. I don't care. That's really pretty cut it up, get the hell out of here. It doesn't matter what it is. I don't care what it is. I hate things in the corners. They go out and clean the fence, keep 20 feet from the fence clean, because then I know you're moving everything. Um, those harder to tackle ones. I want you to go after those first. And the, uh, the second was an unusual event again, around inventory controls in the export business. I work for Schnitzer steel and I was. Early in my career in the early 90s, or I guess midway in my career in the early 90s, and we had just completed the shredder in the dock in Tacoma, Washington, and I'm loading my first ship. It's a brand new Schnitzer vessel pulled up to the dock, and I am just full of piss and vinegar. You know, it's 24 hours a day. It's this beautiful new ship loading crane. We're hitting the ship every minute and 10 seconds. You can set your watch to it, where it's dumping 38 ton in that thing every minute, 10 seconds, and I'm so excited. And then day two, the world's kind of screwed up and the market falls apart. And you know, we're getting ready to sell this and you know, you buy it for 90 days to load the ship. And so your sales are always out, used to be 90 days out. So we're going to let this first ship go. And it's going to lose 5 million when it leaves the dock. The minute it leaves the dock. And I am completely, it's a brand new role. And I don't know enough about that. This is just the way things work. And I am freaking out. And on top of everything, the ship grounds itself. Like, in the last few hours, the tide's going up, the captain had misjudged, and the draft wasn't quite right, and it just touched the bottom, and the lines are all strong, bowstring tight, you can hear everything creaking, and they're gonna rip the new dock down. So, it's like, everybody go get every chainsaw and axe you can find. Go get everything you can find. You're gonna ruin the ship. I don't care about the ship. We're not tearing this, you know, it's a 5 million doc, I'm not ripping the new doc off. So, we're all standing there, the captain's on the bridge, screaming and yelling at us like, you know, I'm, you know, fuck you! We're cutting it loose. Yeah, it's like, it'll take two bouts, it'll be out in open water and it'll be, hopefully it doesn't roll over, but, you know, I didn't really care about that. It ended up being a little touchier, but, you know, in the end, that idea of the commodities and the timing and that offset, you know. Um, you know, falling market, you know, you, you can get just absolutely killed with the inventory, but you know, in a lot of ways it's reversed because, you know, you've collected all this, the market's going out the last 60 days of that market's all gone down. You're buying cheaper scraps or cargo you sold, you know, 90 days ago, those ones, you make up that and then some, so, you know, it was a lesson in as terrible as they look, it was reversed. You know, we, we were better off in those markets. So when things were terrible, it's like, this sucks, it's going to be a really good quarter. Um, So, you know, those are the kinds of lessons that you don't, when it's happening, I was totally panic stricken years following, you know, many, many, many vessels and kind of gauge where you are a little bit better, but I lost an awful lot of sleep over that. Yeah, I'm sure. Um, it's quite interesting, right? Um, so many times I've been taught it swings in roundabouts. So what goes up will come down. Um, and as long as you are continuously buying and selling. You'll be okay. But for you, for example, when you first start, if the first one you take a knock that can freak you out, it definitely left an impression. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. The other thing you mentioned, which I really liked was I remember being 20, 21 years old, um, kind of a supervisor in certain yards. And whenever any of the big bosses would arrive from head office to our yards. They would always walk the perimeter and look at the corners. And that's where I learned you can't hide things against the walls. And, you know, and I ran 85 yards through Southern Africa. And the first thing I would do was walk the perimeter because people always take you into the middle of the yard. They go, let's go for a walk. And they're taking them and they show you these neat stockpiles, but it's what's behind those stockpiles against the wall that they've hidden away. And they're not getting to, so anytime we go to, to a yard or they're doing a tour, it's like, keep an eye on him. He's the one that's going to wander off. I, you know, it's not general practice anymore. Not allowed, but I'm a, I guess I gotta go walk around the yard and back in the, in the early days, Saturdays and Sundays, I walked that yard every single inch in every corner because to me, I wanted to know where it was. So some can be broke down. They wouldn't have a part. It's like, it's right over here. It's like, no, it's not. It's like, come with me. You know, I mean, it's, I, I felt like it was, there's so many things you can learn walking that yard and where nobody ever goes or wants to go. Thinks about going, you know, I go through every cupboard and every little building and underneath the balers, you know, it's, it's, it's amazing for me. That was, that was therapeutic. It gave me a chance to really take a look when things weren't going to stop. And you can go where you can't normally go. You know, the guys could tell I was coming because they, you know, they get the cigar before I got there. It's like, here he comes, you know, it's. My signature thing. Every guy I ever walked into the yard, come on, we're going to go for a walk. It's like, Oh no, it's the walk. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. And they often know I told as well beforehand that you're arriving, that you're going to visit the yard. Somebody's phoned to say, Hey, Jay's on the way. It just happened with me all the time. I'd go to one yard. As soon as I left, they would ask me, Hey, where are you going next? I would tell them the next job they would then be on the phone going, Hey, Stu's on the way, make sure the place looks clean. And as soon as they would start that walk. I would change the direction. So I'd be like, no, no, no, let's go this way because whichever way they're moving you to, it's the way that they've got cleanest. They know they want you on that track, take them in a different direction. Then watch them all of a sudden get a little bit more afraid. So I, I spent a lot of my vacations, you know, I, I didn't vacation well, I was not, um, was never good at it. So I would take motorcycle ride from yard to yard to yard. And I wouldn't tell anybody what it was. I just show up. Yeah. And nothing surprises anymore when you pull in and you say, let's just go walk around. You know, but, but it's, it's not to be critical. It's so that I know. I just, A, it's my favorite thing to do. Anybody's yard. You know, Michael doesn't really let us in ours anymore. I have to go to other people's yards to go walk around. Um, but it's what I love to do. If I can't walk through a yard and learn something that I should have known, or a solution for something in somebody else's yard, I'll see it some days How could I have not thought of that? And I come back, you know, with, okay, here's one little thing that's going to save just countless dollars or hours or even minutes. My theory is if you run a good operation, you're not going to have anything that's a silver bullet that's going to make this dramatic change. It's going to be little teeny incremental improvements. That collectively make all the difference in the world. So I believe you should fix one thing or improve one thing every day. I don't care if you paint a railing, do one little thing every day. That's moving forward. The guys get used to it. They know what you're doing and they start treating it differently. But I believe that the operations and efficiency comes from a million small details that you focus on. Save a step, save a half a swing of a crane. Every little bit of that is what makes you the best in what you do. Yeah, that's 100 percent right. I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. If every day you improve by 1%, you've got compound interest, right? All of a sudden, by the end of the year, you've had 365 days. You are so much better at what you do than you were at the beginning of the year. But think if you saved a minute or two a day. At the end of the year, you know what that huge it's crane time or equipment time or shredder time You know, it's it's not a big thing. There's no one big thing that you're going to do. It's going to go Ah, i've now fixed everything that's just not going to happen. That's not realistic little things little things add up Yeah. Yeah. Great. And Jay, you know, you spend quite a bit of time at different companies. Is there any sort of factor that influenced who you sell your material to? I realize in America, there's a huge domestic market as well. How would you make those sorts of decisions? Um, as time's gone by, how did you change that? You know, my world's changed in the time we were just a small, small family business where, you know, when I was in my single digits, I'd ride with my father in the truck. So if you go to Krohler in Boston, he'd go inside to settle stuff. And he'd stick me on a dozer with the guy pushing the strike file. You know? So my idea of the shipping and who you sell to changes, you know, we were the small guy and I believe everybody along that food chain matters, first of all, every guy from the pickup truck is my best friend because they're collectively the best supply you ever get and most loyal normally. Um, but I, I think that the, the answer really came from something that Dr. Leonard Schnitzer said, you know, she is the. I want you to sell it for the best price you can get. But the most important thing is to make sure you get paid because it's don't chase. And then it's who's loyal to you when things aren't, you know, there's fair weather friends in our industry. And then there's the guys that are there for thick and thin and for each other. And, you know, my wife, you know, has, has been married to this industry now for 42 years, probably a little longer because we were a few years before we were married. And, you know, You know, she's saying somebody calls and you drop everything and run. She goes, I call and then you disappear for hours on end. You don't even think about it. She goes, but you know, when, when there's someone that needs something, there's nothing more important than taking care of those people because they take care of you when that shoes the other foot, you know, when the markets go up every suspension, do you need us to help you? And when somebody calls and says, I'm in trouble, I need help. To me, that is the call of when you become a great supplier. And when that relationship really builds to something different than, than the. Transactional side of the relationship. I'm a, I'm a people person. I think that the relationships are what matters. And I think we like doing business with the folks we know and trust and they trust us and we ship you what we say we're going to. I, I tell everybody, I have three things, safety, quality, customer service. You stick to those three tenants and your life will be good. Yeah. Yeah, totally agree. Um, Michael Pavlovsky on Bourne Scrappy, um, from the owner of Oryx. Um, Mentioned how to become a preferred supplier. We spoke about becoming a preferred supplier, right? They're one of the biggest stainless steel buyers in the world And I said to them is the benefit that you're going to pay me a much better price than everybody else And he said no, it's not really about that. It's actually about having a home When no one else has one. So now all of a sudden, like you say, somebody that will buy from you when times are tough, that's a good relationship. Yeah. It's not, it's not who's there when everyone, when the market's crazy and every, and anybody can make a living. It's what happens when that pendulum swings and it does, it's a commodity business in my career. There were so many days we didn't know, and I listened to George's Scrappy podcast, you know, there was days we went from, we were all good to, we can't make a living. We're going to die. Um, you know, and, and, and really serious where you've got big cuts, which are the hardest thing ever. And you can't find a way out. We had a conversation when George and I were talking. I said, George, I've only been good at one thing my entire life. And that's making money with scrap, and I suck at that. And we were just laughing our butts off. We could not figure out at that time, you know, there was no way to, to stem this tide. It looked like you couldn't sell anything, nothing was moving. And then we were just, now eventually it eased and we got through it, but you know, there's not a lot of people that you can talk to when it's like, my world is turning to crap and I can't, there's, I pulled every lever I can pull, I'm out of good ideas. But the suppliers that were there, the guys that were there in those times that helped us get through that really helped us. Bottom of the, of an industry cycle are the ones that, that you're endeared to for many years. And you mentioned, I think one of your three things was customer service. So when you're looking at setting your buying strategy, right? So that we've spoken about selling now. Obviously Alta's got quite a few yards. Some of the other companies you've worked with had a few. You've worked in the family business. When you're looking to buy the material in, what sort of strategy have you used in that regard? Are you looking at, um, a lot of marketing? Are you looking at customer experience? You know, what are the main factors that you use to, to get the material in the door? Well, having grown up in a little small, old Dark yard. You know, to me, I love, and anyone who knows me, concrete, pour more concrete. I want the guy to come in, get in and out of the yard as cleanly and safely as possible. No flat tires, you know, and try and be that service provider to your customer so they know I can get in and out of here and it's not going to be a mess. Now, some days, you know, when things are crazy, it's always challenging. I think that the idea is you're always there. Customers come and go. You know, there's your customers that are, that again, are fair weather. They, they're, they're$2 friends, you know, for$2 a ton. They're gone. You know, and, and you have those, you have to, it's part of the industry. Some you have to do with dollars, but you know that core base for people that have been there, that truck broke down, so you got their truck fixed or, you know, it's, it's what you do. Outside of that is, you said it's not always about the dollars. I mean, it's always about dollars, but it's about what do I get above and beyond that because I can get dollars in. The market's very competitive, because how do we know what the market is? Like, you know what we pay, you know what they pay. The guy that's 2, Tom, you know, you know when he goes the other one, they're paying 2 more. Next month we're 2 more. You know where the top of the market is because that's 2. And you share them with someone very well if you've got a, I always believe there's nothing better than a good competitor who also would like to make money, um, you know, and run a good business. And I think that there are times where you just got to say, look, we're just going to buy it. We're just going to go out there. We need everything. The consumers need it. It's giving us a little peek at the window coming. They need our help. Just go buy it. Don't worry about the margin right now. Go get it done. We need the scrap. We need the volume. I'm, my wife says I'm bipolar on this. I am like, there's no scrap, or there's too much scrap, or there's no scrap, or there's too much scrap. I can't There's never the perfect amount. It has to be exactly perfect. Can you bring in a day, everything you could possibly run, and leave, you know, four ton on the ground in front of the shredder? And tomorrow I need 800, 000 tons to make sure you can run all day again. So, you know, I'm a Justin kind of guy, but I'm just, you're never happy. It's like, you know, I'm never going to be happy. I'm just that push pull of what we do. Um, but I am a, uh, uh, turns guy. I believe in the way. Take money out of this business, buy it and sell it. You know, you're not going to go broke making a profit. So get it in, get it out, and move on to the next time. And I'm all about spin. And the faster and the more frequent you can turn. We watch turns like you can't believe. And it's like, what about margins? Like, margins will follow. You just keep turns moving. If you're buying right, it's all going to hit the bottom. Collectively it all adds up. And you know, when you're larger, you know, you're always going to have one guy that's out of tune or out of sync. It happens. It's like an orchestra. It's like an orchestra. You know, you're watching over the top of it, you gotta scan the horizon all the time. With scanning with the cameras, there's a lot of people that don't like that, that theory. But, you know, you see, this one's out of whack, and so you focus on that one. And, uh, it, I think that that's the right answer, is to just keep things moving, be the best supplier you can, the best consumer you can, the best buyer of scrap, and the fact that you provide a service, and you're always buying. You know, there's never a day where you say, Today I'm not going to buy, I don't think there's a good market for my item. Yeah, you got to keep buying and you also have to keep that experience consistent, right? Like you say, get them in, get them out, make sure they leave with a smile. People remember how you make them feel. So if they come into your yard and have a good experience, which is not what people usually expect when they go to a scrap yard. All of a sudden, they're more prone to come back to you, even if it is just to come back to you to find out what the price is, because they might be one of those customers that are moving back and forth with price. But if you give them a bad experience, they might not even check your price next time. And, you know, if somebody calls us, I got more money from somebody else, like, I understand that that's going to happen. Just come back when, you know, when you're ready, you'll come back because it's not always, you know, that going to be that way. And, you know, we'll, uh, let's leave his friends. So they make sure the door's always open the door for scrappy. I don't care who you are. And I don't care. Cause a little green man from art. If you've got scrap, you're in. You know, I really don't care where it comes from or, you know, it just, just keep coming here. And people say, well, what do you buy? It's like aluminum cans, it trains planes, doesn't really matter. If it looks like metal, smells like metal, we'll probably buy it. Yeah, we could recycle it. Exactly right. Jay, in a large Company like alter and schnitzer. You've got a lot of reliance on key people How have you managed and how do you recommend we manage key person risk, right? It's a key man risk if that person leaves they take all of their clients with them or whatever it might be How have you managed that over time? So I think that you know It's it you can't lose that and when you see and I never fall to in fact says i've got an opportunity It just looks So incredible. It's like, I gotta go. It's double the salary. And it's not, it's like, look, if it's that good, I didn't get here because I'm bashful. Got here. Cause I kept reaching for the ring and inviting it. I think there's plenty of place to go here. If you want it, if you can be patient, let me tell you, there's a career here, a future here that, that you will enjoy, but you gotta do what you gotta do. And I've seen leave and come back. And you know, I, I'm still soft when they come back. Most of the time, if you leave on good terms and you leave for the right reasons, I just had somebody who left who was, you know, a key marketing individual left, said he had to do it. It was just a huge opportunity. He's like, look, and I sent him a note when he left. Says, look, I'm going to miss you. I wish you the best, but you know, Thor's always up to call me. And it wasn't a matter of months later. He goes, look. Did you mean it? I made a mistake. Can I come back? And it's like, I would welcome you back with open arms. And, and it will be an employee for life now, because you know, you went and you had to go look, and you had to try, and it doesn't always happen that way. I think that you're gonna have people that are always just, I'm leaving, I'm leaving, I'm leaving, and it's like, you know, you can't, you can't help that. I think that if you have the relationship with the people and they feel like they're part of something bigger, I think that that really matters. I mean, if they're, if they're together and you know, we have a great culture. Rob has just built in the family. It's got this great way about them. And Rob said to me when I got here under odd circumstances, and, uh, you know, he said to me, he's like, you come to work for me. He goes, you take care of my family and I'll take care of yours. And he's done, and he lived up to that incredibly. I have had the opportunity. To when somebody's sick or a serious injury or a serious illness, you know, we have access to it to an airplane It's like it's like send the plane get them pick them up Get them on the plane where they want to or not and get them here to a real hospital or whatever the right care is And it's never a matter of dollars. It's a matter of your family's in trouble. That's important And, and I've been able to do that over the years, so many times, and people say, I remember when you did this for my daughter, or my son, or my mother, or my father. You know, that part of it to me, A, it was incredibly good to be able to say, this isn't about the money, this is, this is about people. And those stories, when somebody loses someone close to them, the things that we're able to do. I think that endears people for, you know, for a really long time and they know that we mean it. It's not just words, you know, we get to show it often as opposed to just rhetoric. And that, that's a, that's a pretty strong retention tool. You know, you've got L tips and things that, that are there, but you know, there's ways around all of that and people can appreciate that. But I think if you love what you're doing and you're challenged and you say, I want to go try something different, you're like knock yourself out. Yeah. I think people love that. Okay. I tried it. I'm not so sure it'd work. Can I go back to what I was doing? Or I want to try something different. I've had people take left turns where I didn't know if they belonged or I've taken people and say, look, I want you to go do something. And they'll say, I can't do that. I, I'm not, I don't think I'll be successful. It's like I do. Come with me, come take a ride with me. And they come back, you know, five years later, he was like, this is the best thing ever. I can't believe that you plucked me out of nowhere. Okay. And gave me this opportunity and you've changed my family. And that's the kind of, um, to me, that's the stories that make alter alter, that's the thing that make retention there. You know, we were, you know, and I, and part of that is, you know, growing up in, in where I did, you know, it was all about how tight are those relationships when someone challenges them, whether it's the job or for whatever reason, and, you know, there was times where we were just thick as a, someone would come and ask questions like. Nope, not happening. I don't know what I told you, but I know he didn't say that. So I've just done we You couldn't have broke ranks like nobody's like, okay, we're dug in nobody believes this is happening But that's trust and I think that that is probably The key to everything is trust when your employees trust you when your co workers when your peers when they trust each other And there's no I gotta gotcha you if i'm going to get anywhere. That is a bad And so I, I think that that trust factors, like people call me and say, I've got to tell you something. It's like, tell me first, you had something bad to call me. I want to be the first one. I'm not the last. Now, it doesn't mean I'm not going to yell and scream and carry on like a crazy man, but I do want to still know first. Yeah, exactly. Um, you talk about people. People are going to come and go, um, you know, I, I once had a manager of mine resign. As a, um, as a bargaining chip, they tried to negotiate with me without even telling me they wanted to, they just came and they said they're resigning and they sent me a resignation letter and I replied immediately accepting the resignation letter. They complained to HR that I didn't fight for them to stay. They actually lodged a complaint against me who owned the company. You know, I've had, I've had people like that and I, and I think that that's just, uh, you know, not everybody. Fits in our world and and people like why can't I come to work for you? It's like you're just not Right that that high maintenance You know, that's somewhat deceitful that comes with trusting and somebody saying look I can't I need more What do I got to do whether it's here or another job? I have to have more I'm not happy as soon as you tell me that, you know If you can tell me that I will do anything to find something that because I believe when you have a commodity that people are are unique You Everybody's got skill sets. It may be something you didn't think you were going to do or be good at or like or want to do, but give me the chance to do it, you know, and give me that opportunity, you know, to, to have that conversation. And I think that comes again with trust, but there's something that can never get there. There's something to think that there's an art and they can gain this scenario and look, you know, I, the petty stuff on I don't, I don't suffer fools. Well, um, You know hr i'm probably like on the hr. What did you do now list more often than anybody, you know Um my first few weeks at that altar I went up to visit a yard that had a large loss and within the first two hours there I fired the manager told me how things were going to be And I walked over sat at his desk get all your stuff out of here and leave don't ever come back And hr's like you can't do that. They didn't know me yet. They're like you can't just throw them out It's like I just did And that's where we're going from here. And that message rang out. It's like, you know, look, we're either all in this together or we're not, but I, I'm not, I'm just not that guy. You know, you've got something to say, sit down here and talk to me about it. But this is not every man for himself. And this is about doing the job. And it was a serious issue. And you know, you try and keep them. And then sometimes I've saved you three times. It's time we separate. You need to go somewhere else. I thought you could be more and you'd see the value here. But if you can't. I wish you the best. Go do something that makes you happy and your family happy. Get the hell out of my life. I can't handle that rollercoaster. Jay, it's, um, that's classic, man. I am, I came from South Africa to New Zealand. Um, and I was very much that sort of manager, right? We make a decision on the spot and I deal with HR afterwards, but no matter what, as long as my intention is right, so I'm doing what's best for the company, not what's best for me. I was always happy to back myself. Um, things were a little bit tougher arriving in New Zealand, but, um, I couldn't agree more, like if you can make a decision and you're saying this is the best decision for the company, whatever comes afterwards, you have to deal with that spine because you made that decision, the worst thing you can do is not make that decision, right? For years and years and years. So my closest friend at every conference report tends to be the attorney because. I'll have a stack of lawsuits. It's like, you can't do this. And you, you said this and you said that, just, I'm going to sue you. It's like, put your name on the list, sign up, go to the bottom of the stack at some point. It's like, it's okay. You know what I mean? I realized I have to pay for, you know, the privilege of my attitude. Uh, it's, it's gotten me in trouble more than once, but you know, the. The, um, one of the past attorneys, she'd walk in the office door and I could tell her, look, it's like another one, you know, but it's, it's, look, I'm not going to temper what we need to get done because I kind of hold somebody's hand or I got to be, you know, I'm, I'm not foolish about it, but at the same time, I'm not afraid to, you know, look, I'm going to do what I got to do and I'm going to suffer the consequences after, but it has to happen. There's no, you know, there's no question. So, you know, coming from the East coast where, you know, everybody's go, go, go, And going out to the West Coast was, was the first adjustment. It's like, this is a little more, you know, and now in the Midwest, it's a good thing I went to the California first because it's like, okay, this is a little, you know, calmer than I'm used to. And, you know, it's, it's, uh, we bought a company at one point in Hawaii. And so I go over, I'm like a hundred miles an hour. This big, huge Samoan guy walks up, puts his arm around and goes, Mr. J relax. You're now part of our Hawaiian Ohana, our family. Come, we'll have lunch. And we sat down on a bunch of, of logs, dumps, and had Portuguese lunch. And it's like, okay, I can do this. And so I come home from Hawaii, like, all, all half, half throttled. She's like, you shouldn't go there. It's like, that's bad for you. You know, it's, it's, it's trying to figure out the environment, figure out the people. You know, I've gone into some awful union scenarios, how place it would be. Acquire or come into business with where the union tension was so great to guys. This is done. Whatever this, you know grievances We're gonna figure this out because we make money you make money We're all in it together and and some of the hardest ones are now at some of our best facilities And we haven't seen a grievance in forever. But you know, it's like look we got a contract We'll live by our side. You live by yours, but let's make sure we're all focused on the same thing We're all going to be employed and we're all going to do better. And I promise you, if you will give this a try, it will work. And it's been, you know, as it always been, you know, uh, uh, rainbows and unicorns. But, you know, we get there eventually. Yeah, the journey is often quite tough, but usually where you end up is a good place. Jay, you love your cameras, right? I remember first using cameras in South Africa a long time ago with 85 odd yards and freaking people out. I had it on my phone, right? It was very new and there was a new technology that came in. Which if you had multiple yards, you absolutely loved it. If you worked in one yard and head office was watching you, you usually hated it, right? Because I could phone and say, why hasn't that stock moved in two days? Or it looks like you're not loading that truck. That truck's been sitting there for an hour. Why hasn't it been loaded yet? I see there's nobody in the yard, whatever it might be. That's the sort of technology that benefits us. That really adds value. What sort of technology do you see coming in the future? That's going to help us even more. So I think that it will replace me who sits and can't walk away from the camera, you know, I get a free minute. We sit and watch TV. There's a shredder running on the side or, you know, I'm watching. She's like, turn it off. It's scrap porn toss. You know, I cannot turn it off. It's like, don't have it in me. But I think that the combination will be the AI and the improved technology. And I'm speaking around cameras just as an example where I think this is going to go. You know, we focus on infrared cameras on a bunch of the piles where we have potential flashpoints. We know where, you know, so many times, you know, we have a rule, you empty the stacker underneath the non ferrous conveyor at the downstream plant every night, clean to the ground, because that pile is the most likely to catch on fire, and it's in a nice concrete bin, but that conveyor above it catches on fire, it wicks inside and burns a plant to the ground. You lose a couple of those, And you don't do that anymore. So, but, but then you'll catch one. It's like, I damn it guys, what part of empty that bunker didn't get through and then things on fire. And so, uh, not very long ago, a matter of maybe a month ago, I get home. It's like 9 30 and I'm tired and kind of cranky and why I turned the camera on and the first thing comes up is a yard that has a fire. So on the phone, it's like, Yard's burning. It's like, no way. It's like, turn on the camera, call the guys, call the fire department. Yard's on fire, big fire, not little fire, big fire. It's like, now, it's like, what the hell did you see? And the guy's like, who found it? It's like, who do you think found it? But I think that what happens from there is you'll get AI to lay over the top of that, and it'll watch for if something moves, a rail car that's moving that shouldn't be at night, a fire, a conveyor left running, a, you know, there's a million things to go wrong in the dead of night. And, and I think that is that tech, and there's some of it today, but I think it's getting so advanced and it's going to be so important now that technology with cameras inside manufacturing plants can see a trip hazard or can see when you're moved to someplace you shouldn't be in the plant. You know, I see people in that, what I call the kill zone at the shredder, right at the mouth of the shredder, walking by there some days and it's like, no, it can't be, how is it guys? I'll send you two pictures. He's shoveling out under another one belt while the shredder is running. That can't happen in my world. I mean, it just can't. You know, all the safeguards are one guy is trying to do the right thing walks up Somebody doesn't see it, but I think you'll have technology. I'll say I saw this alarm will go off It'll send a message. It will say, you know, you've got a problem. Shut this thing down clear this So I think that that's going to come on the technology side. And I think your customer stuff, when somebody pulls on the scale, I think you're going to know everything that they've done for you and what the pricing was and what their truck is and their kids and their birthdays and their every little thing you could imagine, you know, that you try and do manually because you, cause that's how you endear yourself. But I think technology is going to make that, I don't know that it'll all be good, but I, I think it's coming, uh, and there's going to be a lot of things we can use it for way more than we know what we can do. Yeah. Yeah. I think the trajectory of, you know, might be like that, but it's going to absolutely, um, hockey stick once, once we get better with AI and AI starts adding more value, it's going to just add it incrementally. One of the things you spoke about with cameras. I think at night is incredible because I think it's going to be a lot easier to pick up things like fires and set off alarms and things like that. And people in the wrong area set off alarm, it could even switch off the machine if it had to, if somebody walks into the kill zone, things like that. Um, but also I think you'll get things like unshreddables. That if you have a camera in the right spot, that something's going to get loaded in and you might actually be able to detect that and might be able to set up a siren inside the loaders machine. Well, you know, a lot of times we, you know, you employ technology, you know, we use a system that monitors vibration all over the shutters today and impacts. And, you know, this has been, I've had it for, since the, since the nineties, in the early days. And he would call me up and say, you've got a loose bearing bolt. And I'm like, there's no goddamn way you could tell that. He goes, I'm telling you, you have a loose rotor bearing bolt. And I go, in the morning it's a vibration. When he's right. Or a broken drive shaft bolt. I mean, the sophistication of monitoring things when something goes, you know, it's deviation. It runs at one level all the time. Something's wrong. It's like, and if you don't pay attention. So he, he would call, and I would just, I wouldn't believe him. It's kind of heathens, right? And, and it, it taught me to rely on those. And those are third party, and I think where we're going is, that was an outside third party. Nobody could influence, nobody could change it. It was just watching data. A lot, a lot, a lot of data. And now you can interpret all that. Before it was, you know, one guy or you could look at it and you could kind of understand it. Now, technology is so far that it interprets the data and tells you what you need to know, whether you're trending differently. And again, it's small little variations. You've got something coming that you can't see. And you'll know about it two weeks before you spend this bearing on it. They call once and said, you have a broken race in a bearing. It's like, there's no way you can know that. And he goes, Yes, there is. I'm telling you. Went out, shot it for temperature. No temperature problem. Within a couple days, the temps started creeping up. It's like, wow. Open the kayaks and sure enough, broken race. You know, and, and you know, the fact that you can believe, start to trust that technology and depend on it. And now I depend on it, like wholeheartedly, whether, regardless of what it's monitoring. And I think, I think technology is just going to continue to be incredibly important in our efficiency. In our mro and our maintenance and our predictive maintenance, um, I think that's where that's Going to be incredibly value added and what's really interesting is you touched on having data, right? And now ai the place that it's going to really benefit us is when it mines So you can't stick AI in somewhere, um, where it has no data because it can't read anything. So what's going to be really important is to start capturing data. Now, wherever you think in future, you might be able to learn from that. You might not know how yet, but wherever you can capture data, you should be capturing data. Here's a good example. You spoke about a customer coming in and you knowing how many children they have, um, et cetera, et cetera, their hobbies, whatever else. That's a CRM system, right? Now you could actually integrate now your ERP system that you're using on the front scale and your, um, and a CRM system. And you'd be able to identify at the front scale when somebody drives in, maybe with a registration detector. That registration comes up. It pops up your CRM system, a HubSpot, and it can tell you their hobbies, their name, everything. Well, that's exactly where I, where I see this thing going. You know, I think the camera is just going to say, look, I see him. I see, I know I identified the truck. I got all this. I got the license plate. I got the picture of him. I'm going to just pull all this stuff up and it's all right there. You don't have to go and click in a customer number. You don't have to know who it was. It's going to be, it's going to be so much faster and so much more information. You know, back in the day, I tried, I'm a data whore, the more information, the more numbers I get, the better I am. It couldn't absorb it all, it couldn't get it into anything, and I've had some great people for me. I had a young man that was with me for years and years and years, and all he did was crunch data. And I'd be saying something, I'd look over at him and be going, Shit. It's like, what? He goes, sounds really good, but you're wrong. That's not what it sounds like. Damn it, I hate when that happens. But, you know, it is part of learning to trust the data. So I decided, I'm going to do something IT techy. And the IT guys laughed at me and said, We're going to put it in a data warehouse and I'm going to oversee this project. Well, that was a disaster. Again, I'm a scrap guy. If I can get the camera to come on, I'm happy. If the mouse works, I'm like thrilled to death. Um, but I've always been driven by comparisons and I like trending. Um, I had an opportunity many, many years ago to work with. Oddly enough, Alter Goldstein has nothing to do with Alter Trading or the Goldstein family that I work for today, but he was a pinnacle. There was a situation that happened. He came out of retirement and he had data, he had been tracking, he had spreadsheets that he rolled out that would be like 30 years of pricing. I mean, just data points. And to me that trending that graph and you can see where it fell off in, you know, and you can see that slow up gradual recovery and then they fall off and it was every four years or so it was just, it got my long term what you can see and learn and there is, you know, it always comes back and you know, I've, I've told many people when it's at the worst, the worst, don't worry, it will come back, just keep going, keep fixing and make sure we're ready when the tide turns, right? That we, we can't sell any scrap and we can't process any. So we might as well fix things and just make sure everything's ready when we come out of the other side, because that's what we got to do. And it always does. It's usually right at that ragged edge where you're not sure if you're going to live or die, but then it, then it, the trend starts to bend again and you come back into your own, but to waste those, uh, those opportunities, you know, you hate to waste a perfectly good recession. Absolutely agree. Tell me Jay, what is the best or worst piece of equipment you've ever purchased? Um, so I, you know, I can tell you the worst one because it, and it probably wasn't the worst. It was just the weirdest deal I'd ever seen. It was during one of these slumps and we had bought another company and I needed another portable shear, another excavator mounted shear. And I, you know, trying to get capital and the whole thing. And then, uh, the guy that I'm working with when I'm like, Pierce calls me up. He goes, I'm sending you a shirt. It'll be there tomorrow. Click. Oh, what is it? It's yellow. Click. Is it a cat? Click. It's like, what is he not telling me? This thing shows up and it's a yumbo. Y U M B O. It was a French made excavator with a Mercedes motor in it. And it was the weirdest looking thing you ever saw, but it ran and it cut iron. And in the end, it was an incredible piece of equipment, but it's like, so we had the yumbo from hell song. And then, you know, it was. I don't want to be the only guy in the U. S. with a yumbo. It's like, you know, I can't find a yumbo that's broken. You know, and it was, it became the joke of, I have a yumbo award. So, it's, it's in my box at the office because it, um, somebody gave me the yumbo award one year. It, it, we cut a ton of iron with it, but, you know, it was one of those. Um, but it's those one off things you inherit or you get, you know, and part of growing through acquisition, wherever I was, I was all about, you know, I'm never quite happy. And I'm happiest when I'm growing. I'm happiest when I'm out. Building and growing. And that's just kind of my, my bent. And so you get a weird mix of things. You get a little of everything. You know, it's like at one point I had no two shredders that were the same. You know, it's just, you know, when you get one here, one there, they're all a little bit different, but you know, they're all turning and grind and spitting something out of the bottom. Ton of favorites. I go with whatever. The best technologies at the time and I tell the guys, you know, you can't fall in love with anything You got to make sure you know what everybody's providing and things change You know at one point I was you know, I grew up 100 cat But cat love cat and then you know, all of a sudden we had the bears I went to the west coast and need a rubber tire machine. Well cat didn't make one And then, you know, it was a brand new asphalt yard. It was, you know, 40 acres of asphalt and I didn't want to scratch it. To me, the asphalt was worth more than anything. And it was this beautiful yard. You know, you say that about a scrapyard, but you gotta be a little nuts, but it's gorgeous. You know, it's, it's like seam to seam asphalt with stormwater controls. It holds 2 million gallons of water. It's a beautiful brand new dock. And so I don't want to scratch it, but they're all rubber tired. You know, I had every Liebherr test machine you could ever want and, and that at the time, so that became a need. It was out of necessity. And then, uh, you know, Senegal, do you mind it in fuchsia, you know, everybody has, um, everything changes in the availability of different machines, change size, reach, weight, um, small, uh, safety features. And, and I think that for us, a lot of what we choose. Comes down to who the local service provider is. You can have the best corporate support in the world. You need somebody, you know, I'm a, when I scream help, I really mean it. I need help like right now, like not tomorrow, not an hour from now, like we're right now this minute, you know, and I, and I, I'm willing to pay for it when I need it. I need it because to me, nothing is more possible than that. Unplanned now. I like to say that my opinion is, is business is a, we are in the manufacturing business. Now I realize we're in the recycled materials business now, not the scrap business, but I can't help being born scrappy, you know, I can't give it up, but to me, when we changed and what, um, what drives me is if we are in the manufacturing, we have very expensive equipment and very expensive non ferrous recovery plan and they are high tech and they are very costly to operate. So every minute, you know, I'm a, if you were supposed to start at eight, I want to. empty conveyor loaded and ready at 801. And I expect something to be hitting against the rotor, you know, and, and, and, and run until time and then you shut it down if you're supposed to. To me, and that's what makes me feel good. I can't make everybody else do it, but when I ran a yard, to me, it's like, if I said, I was going to start a date, when that machine, when that vibration thing says, okay, he's running now, you know, I want to see you running. And I see, want to see you running at full load amps. Until the time is to shut it off. So you got to run it. Like my dad loves love. I said, love historically loves Detroit diesels. And Detroit Diesel, you got to run at a hundred miles an hour. Like you were mad at him. You got to stand your foot on it, let it scream bloody murder, blow oil everywhere, until they stop and they shut it off. And that's how, that's how I'm wired. It's like, go like hell and stop. And that's how that you ask what a day is for me. I get up in the morning, shop at McCann, and at 10 or 1001, I'm done. And I lay down and I'm out and I'm just out. And so, you know, I have a Fitbit that I wear. And when I first got it, you know, I say you're asleep before your head hits the gullet. So the Fitbit used to measure how long it takes you to fall asleep. And the first couple of nights, it's like, look, two, zero minutes. I literally have a sleep before my head hit the pillow. I mean, there was no question. It was so, so it's, it's, it's about predictability and timing and, and expectations and I'm my own worst enemy. She's like, why do you do this? You know, we're winding down now. He's like, is there some reason that you have to be gone at six o'clock in the morning, going to the boat? It's like, well, you know, it's like, I got to go, you know, it's going to be going. So it's, uh, it's my opinion that the business and the industry will move toward that structured production, more predictable, uh, it has to, because that's, that's the world we live in today is efficiency, predictability. Right. measurable, um, maintenance and repair and be able to stay just ahead of that curve. You like to start at 8. 01, right? You expect the actual machine to be processing at 8. 01. How many times, and I guess it's a rhetorical question, have I seen it started 20 past eight or half past eight? And it's almost every single day. We spoke earlier about incremental growth and that 1%. If you're doing 15 minutes, if you got 15 minutes every single day that you're missing out, that you should be running, you're missing out. Imagine how many hours or days you have extra at the end of the year. So I think that that's different. People are wired differently. Some just, Oh, well, it's, you know, we're supposed to start a date and the guys kind of dwindle in. It's like, no, I want two guys there beforehand, get the motor started, get the infeed running, get all the belts turned when the guys didn't show up for running time. No, they can show up at eight. The other guys have to show up beforehand, make sure everything's going. And it doesn't, everybody doesn't get that part of it. And you can't expect everyone to be wired that way. I expect them to be that way, but all that does is aggravate me. Um, but I, I think that once you get there, and you see the benefit of everybody knowing, you know, we're on time, we're on time, we're on our game, we're on our game, and I make it a sport. I look at that like a pit crew. When you take that shutter down, you want to change camera? Make sure everyone, like, start to watch it. How long does it really take? Yeah. To me, that, that's what excites me. I can't get, you know, you can't make everyone feel that way. But to me, when I was running, you know, and I go back and say, when were you happiest? When I ran one single little tiny yard. And I controlled everything, seem to seem, all day, every day. And I could go home and sleep and know nothing was going to move that I didn't know about. As you get bigger, it changes. You can't do that. But, you know, the, uh, the contrary, if you can get a guy and you can see it when they get it. You can see the look in their face and the fact that they're getting it. Of a young man in one of the yards who took a container and made all his tools and all his parts and he's got everything right there. When that gun goes out, he knows they're on it. Everything Nate needs right there and it's fixed and the tools are right. It isn't, I went to grab the tool, I forgot we broke it last time. We didn't send it fixed. It's like, ah, you know, it's, it's, to me, every time you lose that, you know, and you can't get it back. There's no recovering the lost time. You can't go back and get back time. So, um, you know, part of it, and, and, you know, there's a lot that think it's neurotic and, you know, there's nothing normal about the way you look at the world and, you know, you really need to sleep more and watch a lot less camera, but, um, it's just my opinion of the perfect world and the perfect yard and the perfect operation, exactly the right amount of scrap to run every day. You start exactly that time, you end on time, everybody goes home safe. Well, it's perfect. You know, I don't know. It doesn't seem that hard to me. It just doesn't. Is that so much to ask? Yeah. Yeah. Is that so much to ask? You buy the perfect amount, you process the perfect amount, you sell the perfect amount, you have the perfect amount left on your floor. Is that so much to ask every day? Yeah. I have enough to load one car in the morning and then get going. You know? Perfect. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not hurting you anymore. Not asking too much. Jay, that's a great way to end. Um, this has been awesome before we do call it off completely. We've got a few questions at the end. We want to ask you, who do you want to hear next on Born Scrappy? You know, um, I don't know. I think, I think I'd rather wait and see who you pick. You know, there's so many, um, great people out there. I don't know whether to go with the historical side of things, because I'm always intrigued by the, I've been fortunate to have all these, you know, Guys that whether it be the new family or the Schitzer family or Goldstein's or, you know, I mean, I've just had so much that the Newell's were incredibly good to me and I'd get the Alt Newell, Dr. Leonard Schitzer. I mean, just these guys that I revered, you know, as a child. Um, but I think that, that I'm curious as much now to see the next generation. I'm watching, you know, Sean Doe and Brett and those guys come along, Michael. You know, I'm now at the point where I want to hear what they see, what they feel, what they think, how they look at it. Um, so I, I'm going to be, I think after Israel, you'll come back with plenty of people signed up to do it. So I'm just going to wait and watch on that one. I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus like George. All right. Thanks for nothing. Jay. Um, we're going to ask you the last few questions, which we ask all the guests. What's your favorite movie or TV show? Well, I will tell you the movie is, it's got to be the, the Griswold family vacations because we are the Griswold. Our family is, it is literally protrude our life all the time. And, um, our family motto is we've never seen that before. I mean, regardless of what it is. It can be a meal, it can be a car thing, it can be, it doesn't matter what it is, it can be a medical condition. You know, they walk in and they go, we've never seen that before. And we all burst out laughing, it's like, this is serious. It's like, yeah, not in our world, you know, we're so used to that. We don't even, we don't even expect anything normal. So we are the Griswolds. So when we leave on vacation, there is no expectation of anything short of that. And do you read a lot? Have you got a favorite book? I do. And, uh, you know, usually the, my, my favorite book is the book I'm reading right now. But generally, always. You know, whatever, whatever book I'm reading right there, I am, I'm all in all the time. Um, but I'm, I'm, I'm reading one today, The King of Oil. It's about Mark Rich. And a lot of your viewers, it is about traitors, traitors, traitors. And, and it is, it is an incredible read. Um, of a guy who's got a very unusual background, was chased out of the U. S. And, uh, we got one more second. Okay. So my tie back to this, the reason I decided I wanted to read it was when I was a teenager, my dad bought a 2, 000 ton Harris baler and an old Lohman baler at the site that Mark Rich had in Providence, Rhode Island. And so I'm 15, 16 years old. I didn't have my license. So I'm down there with the guys. We're hanging from this old eerie crane, trying to take these six inch bolts out of this area. I don't know anything about this machine. I took it down and moved it back to my dad's yard. And, and then in part of this, he tipped me upside down in a hole to cut that Logan and Baylor out, cutting the shear cylinder off the Baylor cylinder off underground. It was 30 feet below ground. I'm tied upside down with a little radio with the torch. Didn't think about the fact that cylinder was upside down for all those years. It's on fire. I'm burning. I'm, I'm torching and yelling at dad. You got to pull me out. You know, I'm on fire. He's like, well, you'll finish, hurry up. It's like, I am hurrying, but I'm on fire. And so I did get it cut off. And then he pulled me out. My hair was all perm of his. So it was one of the many times I quit over the years. But you know, uh, um, so I, so that was my tie back to Mark Rich and. So as my wife came on in our life, she used to ask me all the time, like, well, bang, burn, or had to do something, anchor, cable, attach something. She's like, why do you have to do it? It's like, Well, you know, Dad said it's too dangerous for the guy, so you know how to do it. She goes, I want you to stop for a second and think about what you just said. It's too dangerous for the guy, so you've got to do it. Well, you know, when you put it like that, it does look, it does look a little different. And what's this book called? The name of the book is called King Oil. Okay. I haven't read it. I read, um, the world for sale, which is quite similar to the commodity trade with Mark, which is in that as well. Yeah. It's this, this is just an incredibly deep dive into personal and the trades and some of the things in the oil trades. Um, around the world that nobody could know about. They're going on, and everybody knew about it, but nobody could know about it. It was one of those, uh, things that crossed international borders that, you know, you could never do, and the things that, that were done, good, bad, or indifferent, you know, in the name of keeping the world moving, um, it's, it, it's a traitor, and what happens when you make a mistake? Because, you know, you talk about what happens, He talks about they made one really bad mistake. It's a great read. Um, yeah, so I'm going to get stuck in that this week. That's awesome. Jay, have you got a favorite place to visit? Um, I will tell you, I've got a few. I am. I love Hawaii. I, I just fell in love with Hawaii, even though it's not good for you. I'm learning. I come back. So we, that, that yard was in Oahu. Then we bought one on Maui and then I go to my, I come back from Maui after a week and I'd be melted into the chair. And it's like, my blood pressure's lower, I'm just like, Jesus, stop it. So I, I do love Hawaii, I love the people, I love the culture, I love the island, um, but I love Italy as well, I'm, I'm, I think Italy is just a beautiful country, and my entire family knows that when I disappear someday, that I will have changed my name to Giuseppe Rabini, and I will be somewhere in Italy. Probably Montepulciano, and that's what I'm going to do. So they're all, everybody knows, the kids all know it. It's like, where is he? Well, I think Giuseppe went to Italy. That's awesome. Have you got a favorite quote? I do, and I'm going to actually, give me one second. This one I have to actually read. As much as I've said it a million times. Being on air, it's a little A little bit, uh, harder. There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, or perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. And it was a Machiavellian quote, and you know, for as many times as you take on something new, and you know, you step into that thing for the first time, completely cold. And I've done it so many times, and I thrive on it. You know, it's not, you know, You know, change is like, can't you sit still and think, no, I suck at anything being the same. I am happier when things are in constant change. But you're either wired for it or you're not. And I, I love things moving and changing and shaking and developing and seeing what comes out of the other end. You know, I, I like that vision of this may be what it is. This is not what it's going to be when we're done. And I, I just love it. And that's where ADHD is a superpower. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Manage a lot of turmoil, a lot of different things to create that change all at the same time. All right, Jay, thanks man. That was awesome. This has been an incredible time together. Esri. Um, thank you for being on the show. Thank you, sir.