S3E4: Lessons in leadership with Cohen Recycling's Joel Fogel

In today's episode, I'm joined by Joel Fogel, Executive Vice President at Cohen Recycling.

Cohen has been around for more than 100 years and is a fourth generation metal recycling business. Although Joel wasn't there from when it started in 1924, he's been there for almost a third of its time and was definitely born scrappy!

In today's episode, we talk about:

👉 Operations vs commercial
👉 Internal collaboration
👉 Being afraid of tech
👉 The art of pivoting
👉 And more!

Listen to the full episode. Wherever you stream your podcasts.
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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.

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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 Joel Fogel. Joel is Executive Vice President at Cohen Recycling. Cohen is a more than 100 year old fourth generation metal recycling business. Joel was definitely born scrappy. And although he wasn't there from when it started in 1924, he's been there for almost a third of its time. In today's episode, we talk about the art of pivoting, internal collaboration, being afraid of tech, my favorite topic, operations versus commercial, and so much more. So let's jump into it with Joel, but first intro. Morning, Joel. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing well. And you? Yeah. Fantastic. Um, a little bit earlier than usual. Dropped the kids off and, uh, shot out to the studio to get this recorded. So happy to get it done. Um, but yeah, fresh. Excited and you happy to be here. Thank you for asking me to participate. I'm ready to roll. Yeah, Joel, um, we had brief chat the other day and, um, I love to learn from people with the experience and, uh, you seem to have a heaps of that. So let's jump into that. Um, how did you get started in the metal recycling industry? So for me, um, it started as a summer job when I was working my way through colleges. I, uh, Wanted to do something different, get my hands dirty and found myself on the retail side of a scrap operation, buying aluminum cans, opening bags of cans and, uh, uh, wings and, and blowing them into a trailer. Um, it wasn't really crazy about it. Um, at the time, uh, Cohen was a fairly small company, about 25, 30 employees, a couple of locations. And it just so happened through the four years that I was working in the yard. Doing a little stuff in the office that the company started growing. And, uh, there was a role for me when I graduated. So, uh, here we are 33 years later and I'm still here. So same company, right? Cause I was going to ask you who, where were you, who were you with? Same time. Are you related to anybody? Is it family or? Yes. It's a fourth generation family business. Um, I am a cousin, uh, but I also had a connection through my father who had a best friend. Lifelong friend who was the senior vice president here, Don Zoolanch. So I had a couple of different, uh, entrees and connections and, uh, you know, I found myself kind of always gravitating toward the non ferrous side of the business and as the company's grown over the years, you know, my role has grown also, but really with a focus on non ferrous metals. So Joel, I have this conversation quite a lot, and it usually comes from the younger generation. Who are wondering why they're still spending time in the yard with their hands laboring, if you will, why aren't they in the office yet? And I always explain to them that if you haven't done that work, you can't run the company, you can't be a manager, you can't get to those other roles because you can't do them justice. Did you do that work as well? Um, and what do you say to those people that, that often talk about that? Well, absolutely. I think there's really only way to one way to learn the business and that is to work in, in the business from the ground up. Um, there's not a class that, well, they're starting to be with technology, but there isn't really a course or a class or a blueprint to be a manager in a scrap operation or to do different things. I think it's. It's on the ground training and, and that is very, very important. And we believe in that here. I think anybody that has a role that is a little higher than a laborer has been a laborer before. And I think there's no substitution for that. Yeah, completely. Absolutely. So did you do some of that as well? Uh, I did, I did. I, like I mentioned before, I, uh, I sorted aluminum cans. I've run the baler. I've run skid steers, forklifts, loaded trucks. I haven't done it in a long time, but, um, I, I did do that over a four, four to six year period. Yeah, and that, and that, those, those years sound about right. Wherever you go in the world, um, you've got people saying, well, I've already done a year in the yard. And, and my answer is usually it's about five years, that if you've done five years in the yard, you may have a better idea of it all. You still will learn all the time, but you'll be able to kind of move, move up. The problem is that people can't see their future and it's quite difficult to sit around, um, and doing that labor for a long time. But anyway, we don't have to go into that. Let's talk Joel about, um, some difficult transactions you've had to deal with in your past. You've been doing this for a long time. Um, can you think of any transaction that you had to deal with that, um, was a really big obstacle and it kind of set you up and, um, you know, we learn from our challenges. So was there something you learned that stuck with you all this time? Well, I think you're, you're right. And we do learn from our challenges. And, um, you know, if you're engaging in business in any industry, especially ours, there are going to be a lot of nuances, uh, with any kind of transaction. One recently that happened is we sold some sealed units through a broker, uh, export, the container was picked up. Uh, and by the time that we loaded it and dropped it off, the booking was canceled. We use the third party dredge company. Uh, they had to take it back to their yard, there was chassis storage, there were storage fees, there were re delivery fees, and the freight forwarder couldn't get a vessel to put the container on for 3 weeks, so we incurred a couple thousand dollar cost. Um, and and that is, I think, just, you know, the collaboration between the freight forwarder, the dredge company, the broker, and us, you know, coming to a common solution or an amicable solution. To a problem is the best way to approach it. I think we're all stewards of our business and we all are champions for our own business. But at the end of the day, I think, uh, looking at things transparently and objectively is the right way to approach it. So I want to, um, just delve into that a little bit more. Who was liable then for all the costs on your side? What were you able to negotiate? Because you weren't in charge of the shipping on that. So it was out of your control because I'm guessing selling through a broker, you sold FAS. We sold it FAS, uh, the Cincinnati ramp, uh, the broker used the freight forwarder. So it wasn't our freight forwarder and, uh, we're, we're still talking about it. We're still trying to sort out the charges. Um, but, um, but I'm confident that we'll come to a solution where, you know, everybody's going to have a little bit of pain involved. And, uh, you know, I think that. That makes a positive solution. It shouldn't, it shouldn't be on the burden of me. It shouldn't be on the burden of the broker. Uh, it shouldn't be on the burden of the freight forwarder, the drage company. But if we all take responsibility, um, this is just one example, but if we all take responsibility and are transparent and communicative, I think we can come, we can come to, to solutions that are amicable for all sides. Yeah. And it brings us back to being a relationship industry. And the importance of relationships. Now, I don't know how long you had been dealing with that broker in particular, but if you've got somebody that you have a relationship with, you know what to expect from them. And that's extremely helpful. Um, but at the same time, uh, I've seen many of those relationships, um, go pear shaped, um, over a thousand dollars because somebody is, you know, um, put their foot in it and said, um, well, we're not moving forward on this. It's not out cost. We're not taking it. And then you normally hear, well, the broker only makes. a penny, a container or some story that you often hear from brokers, um, and, and you find that that straight away can, can cause a rift because it was out of your control. So I'm sure these, this conversation will go on for a while on your side to try and get to the bottom of it. But I always would say that if everybody splits it because it was out of your control, you're not going to get anything from the shipping line. We know that. So if you guys, everybody else incurring, you know, you're splitting it three ways or whatever it is, um, that to me is probably an amicable answer to that. Yeah, and you know, at the end of the day too, you know, pretty adamant about not burning any bridges on, on, on any side of any transaction because, you know, we're in a a small industry and, um, you never know when you might need somebody in the future. So, uh, being transparent and communicative, I think is the right way to go. A hundred percent. So now that's on a trade, but can you think of any other tough decisions that you've had to make? We love to learn from people's decisions and when it went wrong and when it went well, um, always like to learn from stories. Can you think of a tough decision that you've had to make, a calculated risk that you've had to take, um, that either paid off or didn't, but it's kind of set you up for your future and how you make decisions. Yeah, I think just the ability to be able to pivot, you know, both, uh, if you're talking commercially or operationally is very, very important. Um, you're making decisions every day or we make decisions every day, and sometimes they're not the right decisions. So knowing when to either change a role or responsibility of an employee or a management person or something operational, whether it's working or not working and being able to pivot is just very, very important. Um, we all wear so many hats and in this business, you know, there's, there's so many aspects to running or operating a scrap, uh, processing company that you're constantly making different decisions and tweaks. And, um, I don't know that I can point to one thing or two things, but, you know, we've, we've had to put people in different roles because it's more successful for them personally. And for the organization, we've, you know, had to pivot operationally based upon different markets or different consumers that we were shipping to. Uh, so there are always decisions that are not second guessed, but, you know, pivoted or made, and, and, and I wouldn't say, uh, it's failure. I think it's growth. I think the hardest thing, you know, pivot is a word used a lot at the moment, um, I'm in the tech space now and I hear it a lot from different tech founders and we pivoted into this or that. Really, what we're talking about is changing a direction or changing a decision that was previously made. And that's really difficult, and there are emotions involved, there are egos involved, and that's a, a difficult decision to make. I can think of one straight away that comes to my head, um, in my previous company in New Zealand. We bought a mobile shredder, and this thing was a dog. Like, we spent a lot of money buying it, we thought it was gonna do the job, it absolutely couldn't do the job. We ran it for probably a year, a year and a half. Trying to get it. And at some stage near the end, you know, the conversations were around, do we just switch this off because it's costing us more money, um, or costing us more than it's making us. And that was extremely difficult because I, you know, I'm being vulnerable here, but I made this decision to buy the shredder. It was going to change the game, change the way we operated. We had only been around for three or four years at the time. Um, and it just didn't work. So for me to make that decision to switch it off. Was extremely difficult. So I think pivoting is absolutely key, but we've got to keep in mind that it's not easy. It's not always easy to change decisions. And you can say, Oh, well, this is an easy decision to change when it's not yours, but when you have brought up a strategy or come up with something, it becomes, you know, you hold onto it so dear and it's having the ability. And I think you get it probably when you get older and wiser and you've learned a lot more from experience that. It's okay to make a mistake and it's okay to pivot. Yeah. And we had similar, similar issues. We have a copper operation. We started in 2014. Um, it's, it was started on the heels of feeding number two copper to the domestic rod mills. Um, as you probably know, there are only a few rod mills in the United States and their capacity for scrap or their appetite wasn't as strong as we needed to grow the business. And so, you know, we had to look for other alternatives and that's when we started selling into Europe and selling into Asia and really looking on the global side of, of the copper market. Um, if we were just to hitch our wagon to, you know, what we originally thought our business plan was going to be, uh, we wouldn't have been able to grow. So decisions like that, I think happen every day in certain instances. I guess good leaders are able to, um, accept when they need to make a change. My wife always says, she says, um, she has strong opinions loosely held. And I guess when I think about this, it's kind of like, I have an opinion. I think the strategy is great. But I'm willing to accept if I'm wrong, right? So I loosely hold it means I'm willing to listen to another party and actually consider what they're saying. Um, most of the time myself, I don't hold them that loosely and I haven't in the past and I work on that all the time to be able to consider what the other person is saying so that I'm not just. Um, gung ho, my, my idea is the only idea. And I think that was me probably 10, 15 years ago and slowly over time. I'm definitely trying to get better at that because you can't grow if you're not willing to listen to other people or at least consider their opinions. Absolutely. Um, you know, collaboration, whether it's internal or external, um, collaborating with your peers, you know, collaborating with operations versus commercial, or even on the financial side of the business and just bringing different perspectives to the table to come up to Amical. Yeah, you must have listened to a few of these podcasts before because collaboration is one of my favorite words. Like, I, um, I love to drive our industry to collaborate. I talk about us being hyper local, which in turn means that we're only competing with the person next door as realistically. Um, the scrap is not going to travel too far because the value has to be worth more than the transport to get it there. So why can't we collaborate with people outside of our town, and why aren't we getting feedback on all, you know, the shredder that I bought, tell me about it, let me learn from it, you know, we should be working together to make sure that we're not all making the same mistakes in order to drive our industry forward. So when we talk about collaboration, Joel, what comes to your mind of, Like great examples of collaborating that you've done in the past. Well, it's an interesting industry, as you know, because you compete against people, um, and do business with them at the same time, uh, as it relates to us, you know, with 15 operations and we have two joint ventures. And those joint ventures are a little bit south of us and a little bit north of us, but we're competing against those same companies sometimes in the industrial space too. So when you think of somebody as a competitor, well, maybe they can be an ally in some way, shape or form to you. Um, whether it's two shredders that are in close proximity that share, share a motor, uh, a spare motor, or whether it's one side of your business that needs Some support in other areas that, that other company can, uh, can help you with. So I don't know that there are any other industries that you compete and do business with people at the same time. Um, but you know, as big as this industry is, it's very, very small too. So there are ways to collaborate, you know, inside of the industry, outside of the industry, and internally, you know, collaboration between your own company. I'm a big proponent on, you know, cross training, uh, commercial people just aren't commercial people, operations people aren't operations people. There is always a tug between those two sides. The buyer wants to buy material and the ops people say, well, you know, you're buying, you know, I can't handle this or it's not the right quality. So why not cross train and allow people to dabble in both sides of that business? And in our stainless blending operation, in our copper operation, You know, we have commercial and operations people. They are cross trained. I think that's very important. Yeah. There's, um, there's two things here. Collaboration. When your neighbor that you compete with on a daily basis for every single customer, when they call you and they go, Hey, we should go for lunch. And it's like, you've got a yard in another area and they've got a customer who now has. Material in that area. And then I, can you go and pick it up? And we can, you know, we can do a deal and, you know, this is the price and, you know, um, you service them on my behalf. That's proof of what you're saying. Like we compete fiercely, but we also able to do business together. And I, you're right. I can't think of other industries where this happens like that. Um, you literally are fighting for every kilogram or every pound to come in through your door, but then your neighbor that you're competing with phones, you know, I've got for lunch and, and. Help me out somewhere here. And you actually help them. I mean, I can think other industries, they probably just would not take the call or just wouldn't even help them and go, well, you can suffer because you cannot conservice them, but our industry, um, we don't operate like that, but really I wanted to delve into, um, operations versus commercial. Like that's my favorite topic. Um, I've been on both sides, probably half my career in each. So. I love this conversation because, and I love what you say that you can't just be in operations if you haven't spent time in commercial and vice versa, because you then firstly, if you're a buyer, not just don't understand what happens to the metal on the other side, but you also don't understand what those people go through and what they think about you and understand the actual whole attitude or behavior from either party when you've worked in the yard. And you'd say, for example, you're going to be a buyer and you've worked for the yard and you spend three months in the yard and a buyer sends in oversized material and they want to pay the customer in size or processed material and whatever it is, and you hear the fight from your manager going on with the, the buying manager, all of a sudden, when you start buying, you realize straight away what you shouldn't be doing and you get it from the other side. And, and, you know, it's the same as the ops guys going on the road and understand how many times do you knock on a door and the guy doesn't answer? So. Well, when the guy's demanding this price and it's oversized, what do you do? You still making money on it? You take it. Um, when they can experience that, it creates a much stronger team. Yeah. Not only experiencing it, but really bringing them to the yard. You know, we have a buyer, uh, industrial account buyer, uh, extrusion, you know, gave him a price. Didn't ask if it was prepared or unprepared. It comes in in 25 foot lanes. And so, you know, I said, look, you know, we, we need to prepare this before we put it into the baler. We can't put 25 foot lengths up a conveyor into an HRB baler. We have to shear crane it. We have to run it through a stationary shear. And there's a cost to doing that. And he says, well, how much does that cost? And I said, well, you know, this is going to take time. It's going to take two, three people. It's going to take a piece of equipment. I said, why don't you come here for two hours and just stand on the sidelines and watch. You'll, you'll see what we're experiencing. And so it's not just, hey, pay. X cents a pound less for this material. There's a reason why we need to pay less for this material. So that collaboration is very important because, you know, the buyer, no fault of his own, doesn't know unless he's trained and unless he sees it for himself or herself, which takes us back to that whole five years or whatever that period is that you need to spend in the yard. Because then you should know, then you've experienced that when you're then pricing material, we're not saying Joel's not saying, I want to make more money on this extrusion. You're saying, I don't want to lose money on this extrusion. And I want to make the margin that we've calculated. But all of a sudden, if there's operational expenses, which are going to come in, which we haven't calculated, if we buy everything like that, nobody gets paid. Right. And as soon as they start to learn that, um, it makes a big difference on the buy side. That's right. Just covering the cost, covering the additional cost. And maintaining the margin that we anticipated and expected to make at the beginning of the transaction. Yeah, I had something very similar with steel beams that came in which the buyer was in agreement with the supplier It was all one meter length and um, they decided to sell us 12 meter length on a special truck They came in and delivered it um on a weekend and all this material arrived and they demanded they get their agreed agreed price Even though the agreed price said within one meter, they said, well, they didn't know what the price was for this oversized 12 meter length. And we had never quoted them on it. And they did. I was like, but you never told us you had 12 meter length. So why would we quote you? We have a bin there, which we service for one meter of cuts, not a problem. There's your agreed price. If you deliver us 12 meter length. And I actually, this was a huge issue in my company. Um, the sales people on my team or the buyers, Agreed with the customer. That's how crazy it was. They were like, well, we didn't give him a price. I was like, well, but we didn't know he had 12 meter lengths and why would we pay him? What goes in the bin? Our agreement is for what we collect in a bin. Not if you deliver an oversized truck with 12 meter lengths to our yard, right? It, it took up space and it was impossible to offload. It was really difficult. Um, and there was a huge fallout at the time with the buyers on my team. Who agreed with the seller and I had to take them into the yard and walk them around and go well This just doesn't make sense Let me show you why and even though some of these people had spent time in the yard It was so adamant that we had to keep this customer that it wasn't even about but why should we lose money? And let's just be fair on both sides and we talk about collaboration. What about collaboration with our suppliers? Once you've got a customer out there and you have to be able to to um work together on things And if they can't well, then is that the relationship that you want to have? You Yeah. So being through a few of those things in my time as well, being on both sides, been receiving it, been trying to buy it. But I think one tip is if you're buying and if you're on the road and there's oversize coming into the yard, Phone the yard, let them know, like nobody wants a surprise. Give them a heads up, this material is on the way, I know it's oversized. I've calculated it in the price, we've managed the, the op ex per ton. We know what it's going to cost us. I bought it for cheaper, but it's coming. Then they can prepare. I mean, Joel, you would have seen it arriving in the yard where nobody knows about it. The phone calls that happen at that time are usually very loud and very aggressive. And they still happen. They still happen. And we just ask the buyers to just be in touch with, you know, not only what they know commercially, but if there's something that just doesn't look right, if they're trained properly, they'll make that call. And we can talk about it before it's a problem, not after it's a problem. And actually as a, because a lot of exporters listened to this and, and we have listeners around the world, um, I think what's important here is even if you're packing a container or sending a truck, let's say domestically to a mill. If there's an issue with that container, let the buyer know. It's the same thing. If you're in India and you open up a container and it's not full of the stuff that you were expecting, let them know ahead of time. Mark Celia was on this, um, early on, um, when he was still based in Hong Kong. And we were talking about that exactly about giving the buyer the heads up, because when you send material and it's off spec, so it's not exactly what the buyer thought he was buying. Immediately he gets his back up. He's now going to put in a claim. Obviously you expect him to because you didn't put the material. But it's going to be larger than what is fair. Because he feels like you tried to get away with it. And now what hasn't he found? Right? Because you, you're trying. Whereas if you say to him, Just spoken to the guy in the yard. He loaded some material. Unfortunately, there was XYZ inside this container. I'm letting you know ahead of time. Please expect it. Um, I expect obviously, weigh it and we can do the differential in the purchase order. We can make a credit note for it. So, that's okay. Heads up. I think communication, the more you communicate, the better in this industry. That's kind of what we're saying, right? Yeah. And furthermore, as an operator, um, or as a shipper that you need to know your consumers, you need to know the scrap specs, you need to know the packaging requirements, and, um, you can take a lot of these issues and a lot of these problems that might come up, um, away. If you're just aware, um, about what your consumer actually can handle, will handle, or, or wants, or doesn't want. I think what we found with rolling out Betty with some of our users now, Is that it's not always it's not the trader necessarily who doesn't know it's often the guy in the yard who's loading the container or loading the truck who wasn't necessarily aware of the specific specs for this. So normally the buyer takes this, but on this deal, the trader decided, okay, this is smaller than X. So we're going to give you a special grade and you've tried it till the yard, but the new guys in the yard and he wasn't aware of that. Um, the whole idea with buddy was that actually it's in their hand at the time of loading and that that's where we found when we did marker validation, um, all the interviews we did, we found that that communication is often lacking. It's not necessarily that the trader wasn't aware of it. And when the claim comes in, the trader normally shouts at the yard and the yard's like, well, I didn't know you didn't actually tell me. Um, so I think, I think that communication, I think communication across the board is absolutely key. Let's move on from that, Joel. So can you give any tips? For our listeners to optimize their trading. So if they're looking for a strategy, how do I get a better price? How do I become a, um, a better supplier to somebody, you know, preferential treatment, what are the kinds of tips that you would recommend your team do to be seen in a better light from the consumers? Uh, well, first of all, I think we have to recognize that we are in a global market. You know, I know that you've been doing business around the world, whether it was in South Africa, New Zealand. Uh, also in the States, but for a lot of the scrap processors in the United States for a long time, other than stuffing a material and going to China in the early nineties, we pretty much stay domestic yet. There's global demand for metals. So being aware really of what your markets are, what your options are, whether that's through trade associations like REMA or the BIR. Um, or MRIA, um, or anywhere else or reading trade publications, uh, talking to the mills or to the brokers who have a little wider stance of really what the global commercial demand would be is really, really important, but then it goes back to communicating and, and being transparent and really understanding what your customer, potential customer would need versus what you could produce. And, uh, having those open dialogue conversations, you know, there was a time probably 25, 30 years ago where the mills were not buying directly from dealers and doing more business through brokers than dealers. But now, I think, with scrap supply being soft and they'll demand both on the fair and the non fair side over the next couple of years, ramping up with new homes. I think that, uh, there's more collaboration from the mills directly to the scrap processors. So opening that dialogue, I think, is ultimately the key to opening up new opportunities and new markets. I guess with opening up new markets, whether it's international or domestic, if you're bringing on a new buyer, what are the kind of things that you and your team look out for, um, when you are starting to sell to somebody new for the first time? Well, we require a credit insurance, so they have to be insurable. If we're going overseas for a new opportunity, then, uh, you know, we're asking for cash on docs or cash up front, uh, to establish some credit. Certainly trade references, uh, understanding who they are, how long they've been in business, uh, who else they're buying from, and really, you know, using our industry contacts and network to, you know, understand whether it is a solid consumer or not. Uh, these are all aspects of really vetting out new consumers, but at the same time, you know, we're constantly looking for them because our commercial team realizes that, um, again, we are operating in a global market. So even though we haven't done, done business with ABC company in India, we're still going to explore and we're still going to entertain doing business with them, but we just have to make sure that the business is protected. And, and becoming a preferred supplier, how do you, how do you handle that? So once you're in with them, how do you make sure that. Cohen is the supplier they, they choose to buy from if they're not buying that much. You know, whether it's documentation, whether it's delivery, whether it's packaging, you know, I think that's earned over time. You know, I don't think you can call someone and say, I want to be your preferred supplier. And they say, okay, uh, Joel, you could be the preferred supplier. Now I think that it's like anything else. You have to earn it. And I think earning it is by being a good shipper over time, being able to produce and, and fulfill orders in a timely manner and being able to provide quality scrap. Yeah, I think it's, it's a whole lot of proof points that you have to hit. Um, they're not written down anywhere, but the consumer will get a feeling over time that this is somebody I can rely on. Um, I've only had good experiences with them and it's kind of touching on all those proof points over the years, but exactly what nobody's going to do it overnight. Right. But it's, it's working towards that and I think Michael Pavlovsky from Oryx Stainless Being a preferred supplier doesn't necessarily mean you get the best price every time or a greater price than everybody else, but it means that you usually have a home for your metal when others don't. That's right. And then also being a good supplier means really doing what you say you're going to do and take ownership for things that could potentially go wrong. You know, being big boys and adults about a situation that could be your fault if you're shipping into them taking responsibility for it rather than trying to push it off on them. I guess it comes back to also the, you know, when there's errors or things like that, it's, it's trying to push for that extra dollar every single time. Or if you kind of fight every single claim, when you're it's unfair, you know, that you loaded the wrong material or the photos approved it, or the videos approved it. And if you're still going to carry on fighting the consumer, I always say fight for your claims. Don't get me wrong here. Definitely fight, fight, but know your position and make sure that you're fair. So if you know, and you've spoken to the guy in the yard and yeah, I did actually load, there was a pile of sand that we were loading on and there must have been a couple of loads, a couple of grabs that went in with sand and I apologize. And don't then go to the consumer and fight and say there was no sand in it. Rather go and say, I've had a chat to the guys in the yard, I accept it. Maybe it's a little bit unfair the volume you're saying, but I accept that there was some sand, right? Instead of just, you know, digging your heels in and saying, absolutely not. Right. Right. So tell me about, did you say you've been in the industry for 33 years? Uh, yeah, 1988 was the first year sorting cans in the yard through the summers. So yeah, 32, 33 years full time. Yeah. 36 years. Yeah, it is. I don't want to date myself too, too much. Um, so let's, let's understand in, in 1988, things would have been very different in this industry. How have things changed and where do you think they're going in the next 10 years? That's a loaded question because when I first started, I remember, I think the 1st day I walked into the office, there was a digital scale head for the truck scale, but there was still the big dial of manual scale there. Um, as far as technology goes, there really wasn't any. I mean, we had a fax machine, uh, we had a copy machine. We were doing everything manually. And I think that the accounting department and finance department was working manually. Also, um, it kind of started to evolve with, uh, The, you know, potential operating systems for scales, computers, personal computers, cell phones, and, you know, it's really just skyrocketed from there. I think technology is such an important part of our industry. Really our industry in any industry. And we've seen so much growth and so much change that to predict and see what happens in the next 10 years. That was your original question. You know, where do you see this industry in 10 years? Um, who knows, I think we're becoming a lot more transparent than, than we have. We have podcasts like Born Scrappy and several others that are shining light on our industry. We have AI that is taking a role both operationally and commercially. Your platform is an example of one of that. Where AI takes us in the next 10 years is really yet to be seen. Because of the technology, we're looking at key performance indicators more than we ever have been. When I started in 88, I don't know that we, uh, we're looking at inventory turns or, you know, bill counts or production counts. I don't know that we're capable of doing that. And, uh, now all that stuff is available and out there and can help you run your business. I think we have to be a little bit careful though, because you don't want to get paralyzed in the numbers or paralysis by analysis. And I think it's very important that, uh, you know, operators, no matter what your role is in the organization, you know, you put your hard hat on, you put your vest on, you put your safety glasses on and you go out and you walk the yard. I don't think there's any substitute for, you know, what you see out there. Um, but technology is playing a big role. It's playing a role in all aspects of our business, whether it's on the financial side, whether it's on the IT side, safety side, transportation side. And it's only going to be refined and get better. I think it's how you treat tech, right? And when you think about tech, does it make you scared? Um, are you that person or are you excited by it? And if you are the person that's scared, you need to start to embrace it. It's kind of like the internet a long time ago. If you are struggling and going, this will pass, or even if you think it won't pass, but you're going, this isn't for me, I'm not a tech person. They start gradually because it is in rocket science and it's actually created now in a way that it's extremely simple to use. You know, if you look at Uber, you look at Airbnb, you look at these sort of apps, they're really easy to use and anybody can just jump in once you've got the app. And, um, it's intuitive. It tells you what to do next and you can kind of work it out. So there's no reason to be scared of it. And you talk about your day to day, you know, you have walking around the yard. There's nothing in the world that will ever replace walking around the yard and making decisions on what you see, um, and being a better operator in that way. The idea with tech is that you can make better data driven decisions. So that now, you know, you talk about an inventory turn. Well, thumb suck and gut feel were great, but what do you need it for anymore? If you actually have the exact data and it's telling you everything that you need, if you're getting a claim from a certain buyer and you haven't been storing that anywhere and every six months, the guy's claiming based on the market movement, you want to know that you want to actually have that data so that when you now next selling and that guy offers you a great price, you know, the markets are high at the moment of the market come down, he's going to walk away. Either you're having that conversation with the buyer, or you're actually just deciding to go with somebody else. So, you know, somebody made a, uh, a comment the other day, saying that, um, and this isn't a plug, but saying that using Buddy. What he would normally take an entire day to compare all prices and speak in all different platforms to get prices on certain material. It took him five minutes. That's what you need from technology. Technology isn't going to replace your job. It's going to make your job easier and you're going to be able to make better decisions with technology. Look, I think a lot of people, when we speak, ask this question, talk about where the yards are going and the odds of like the processing equipment and the separation that's coming on at the moment is. Hello, exciting. Like it's, it's ridiculous how advanced we are and where the yards are going and how AI is going to seriously just take that to another level, um, robotics, AI. I mean, that, that's, it's very exciting, but the decision making and your actual day to day should be looking at finding the right technology to help you make those decisions and drive the company forward. You know, you ask if, you know, are you scared of technology a little bit? You know, I'm, I'm not quite 55, but close to it. So when I started, like I mentioned, there was no technology, but it's so important to have that presence in your company, whether it's in this industry or any other industry, just to understand. Technology, understand the advances that are being made and understand how it can affect your business, both positively and negatively. And like you said, I mean, it's just not all technology. You can't just be looking at numbers. There's a gut feel sometimes too, that you need to go by, even if the numbers, you know, tell you that you shouldn't, I think your eyes and your brain might tell you that you should do something different. Especially if you've got that five years experience, we keep talking about if you've been in the yard, having that gut feel for what actually goes on there, having 33 or 36 years experience, you can't replace that gut feel. Um, it's just having a bit of that data to help you. Um, Joel, cause we're going to run out of time. I wanted to ask you who in the industry. Do you keep an eye on, do you chat to, um, is pushing the boundaries and you think is really, um, making leaps forward or, or pretty impressive in the industry, um, that you, you like to watch and see what they're up to. There are a lot of advances being made on the nonfair side. You know, we have copper companies coming into this country that have never been in this country, whether it's a Rubis or Veland, we have, you know, Omni and others that are doing aluminum expansions in the South to bring on capacity. Padnos has been involved also with, uh, Being pretty active over the last, you know, year, year and a half, I think they have a joint venture with hedro and, and doing some shredding of secondary material to try to enhance flows into some of the primaries with secondary products. So, I think that, you know, we talked about technology as it relates to, you know, commercially or in the office, but, and you just referred to it too. There's so much technology on downstreams, on shredders, on downstreams, on sortation. Uh, they can't be ignored either. I think a lot of that stuff is going to be prevalent and come to fruition over the next three to five years. So you keep an eye on those sort of guys, like the pad noses of the world, see what they're all up to. Who would you like to see next on Born Scrappy? Uh, well, you put me on the spot here. So, um, I don't know if I have any names offhand, but I think somebody from Padnos, somebody from people from Omni, and maybe I can take this offline after I have a chance to, to, to tell them that I participated in a podcast and I threw their name out to you rather than just give it to you right now. Um, Joel, it's been fun, man. I love speaking to you. Um, that was awesome. I just wanted, before we go get a little bit, um, more personal, let's get to know you a little bit. Um, what's your favorite TV series or movie? So I'm a big baseball fan. Always been a big baseball fan. So anything baseball movie wise, whether it's, you know, league of their own or, or, or bull Durham or any baseball movie, it would be my favorite movie. I was going to say the Sandlot only because I think Sandlot's good. I watched it the other day and it was like, I think that's probably the only one that I know. Um, although it wasn't Madonna in a baseball movie once. A League of Their Own. She was, uh, that was the women's baseball team. Right. But you mentioned before this, uh, before we started recording, you have a nine year old son. Another one is Rookie of the Year. So your, your son was like Rookie of the Year. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Okay. I'll tell him about it. Um, favorite place to visit. I think domestically, I really like Arizona, especially in the fall and in the spring, um, you know, hiking, hiking and, uh, just the climate, uh, Scottsdale, Phoenix area, uh, internationally, Italy, my daughter studied for a semester in Italy and we visited, we went to Florence, Rome and Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre was one of the most beautiful places I think I've ever been. I've never been. It sounds exotic. Um, what's your favorite book? Uh, what's funny as far as books, I was never a reader until COVID. And when COVID hit, I realized that I was watching and streaming way too much TV. There weren't sports on TV to watch because the leagues were, were shut down. So I started reading and ever since, and I guess that was 2020. Um, I try to read a book a month and I go back and forth between fiction and business, personal development, uh, management books. Um, so I really liked from a fiction standpoint, David Balducci and John Grisham books. And, uh, from a leadership standpoint, uh, there are a lot of different authors, Patrick Lencioni, uh, Daniel Coyle, Jim Collins. And I, I just kind of toggle back and forth between, between those. Yeah. Awesome. I think it's good to have the mix kind of, otherwise you just get too deep into it. Like to, to lose yourself in another world is also quite exciting. I, I constantly am reading business books and, um, biographies and, and I need to get back into a bit of the fiction stuff. Um, one of my favorite books was, um, I am Pilgrim. If you haven't read it, um, it's probably, yeah, it's, it's phenomenal as a, as a fiction book. And have you got a favorite quote to end us off with? Um, I do. Uh, I think it's by Robert Shugler and, um, the quote is tough times don't last tough people do. And I think it really refers to that. We're all going to have adversity in our lives. Um, you know, whether you're young or whether you're old and, and, and tough times truly do not last, but the tough people do so it really speaks to me. Fantastic. Love that. Love that way to end. Joel, thanks. It's been lots of fun. Thanks for joining us on Born Scrappy. Thank you for having me. Cheers.