Born Scrappy

Embracing Change with Sarah Zwilsky and Sam Padnos

• Lisa Kagan • Season 4 • Episode 12

In this episode, I chat to Sarah Swilsky, President at Potomac Metals, and Sam Padnos, Trader at PADNOS.

Two different paths. Two different companies. One honest conversation.

Sarah and Sam reflect on growing up in the industry, stepping into leadership, and what it means to shape a business that reflects your values. If you're building something that lasts, this one's for you.

We talk about:

👉 Strategy beyond spreadsheets
👉 Family dynamics in scrap
👉 Leading with intention
👉 Culture as a choice
👉 Letting go to grow
👉 And much more!

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

Born Scrappy. Brought to you by Buddy.

The only marketplace and trade OS built for scrappies, by scrappies.

https://www.tradebuddy.io/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/tradewithbuddy/


WHO IS STU KAGAN ANYWAYS?  

26 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/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/born-scrappy/

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. Today's episode was recorded live at the Remay event in San Diego. Our chat with Sarah Razowsky, the president of Po Mac Metals, and Sam Padnos, the non various trading manager at Padnos. About the next generation of recyclers. Based on these two, the future of the industry looks like it's in good hands. In the episode, we chat about family dynamics in scrap, what drives the next generation leading with intention resistance to change AI and automation and so much more. So let's jump into it with Sarah and Sam, but first intro. All right guys. Um, I'm really excited to get you two, um, together for us and give us some words of wisdom. We're doing Born Scrappy, which is my podcast. We're gonna go live now. I wanted to bring on, um, Sarah and Sam, and they'll just give an introduction of who they are and what their experience is, et cetera. We'll get into that shortly, but the idea of this episode is gonna be talking about what the future of our industry starts to look like. And I'm not just talking technology. We're talking to two people that are gonna be around for the next 50 years, 40 years, um, in the industry and taking over really large companies. How they look at how the industry is changing, right. Because when you are in your late twenties, thirties, I actually should have probably asked mid thirties, you're, you're, you're now planning for the future and, and you know, a lot of people are answering to the previous generation and everyone's really excited about AI and we all hear about it. But how do you start planning now is kind of what we're gonna go into, how we start planning now for what the future looks like. So if you guys can just, um, Sarah, we'll start with you. Definitely beauty before Sam. Um, if you can just tell us a little bit about the company, how you got started in it, and what your role is today. So, Potomac Metals was founded in 1996. We're outta Sterling Virginia. I operate 10 facilities, uh, two very large wire chopping lines, and I broker material from all over the world. 30 years ago, my dad started this business on a hope and a prayer. He didn't have a GED, didn't have any money. Uh, he took a chance and he opened the first facility in Sterling. And now we have 200 employees that I oversee every day, and I take the lead on non Farris trading at our yards. Awesome. Sam. Um, Sam Pat, uh, with Badness Recycling. Um, company was founded in 1905. I'm fourth generation with the family business, Ferris non Ferris Paper, plastics, electronics. We have 33, uh, facilities, uh, about 800 team members at this time here. And, uh, based in Michigan and Indiana, uh, my responsibility is really on non Farris trading. And I'll just tell you how I got into it. Was really my cousin Jonathan, the president, CEO of the company now, and he was really on the plastic side of the business. And I thought I was gonna get into the plastic side of the business when we were, um, compounding extruding at a facility in Northern Indiana. And. As I spent some time getting into the business, I had an opportunity to kind of go throughout and work in many different departments and get some experiences, and I quickly gravitated towards, uh, non fares as there's opportunities for international trade and, uh, material travels a little bit further, uh, throughout the country. And, um, yeah, my, my day-to-day responsibilities really overseeing the non fares trading with a, a few colleagues. Seeing that we are at REMA and we talk about all materials, there's nothing wrong with plastic. You just happen to have landed up in the non various world. Um, I've also been on the metal side forever, so I've got one question to start with for you guys and hopefully we can put some context to the theme here. And that's, um, when you close your eyes, what is the industry look like in 20 years time? That can go anywhere. Like we're not, I'm not like, well now we've got robots. I mean, if you want to go robots, that's cool. But really because you are the future of your companies, the future of the industry, you have to be thinking about this all the time. If we just kind of sit back and wait for it to happen to us, we're gonna be 20 years and doing the exact same things without any sort of efficiencies. Although the people that are getting more efficient and doing better things are gonna way surpass us, right? So answer that for me, Sarah, like what does it look like in 20 years time? Yeah, so I think 20 years, maybe less. Uh, this industry is gonna have a seat at the table and we're gonna have a seat at the table next to policymakers. Um, everywhere else in this country, they're gonna be asking for our opinion. Uh, we are the bottom of the food chain in many conversations of a circular economy, but we are making this economy whole, and I think you'll start seeing more of that. And recycling's gonna be a household name. It's not gonna be scrap anymore, and we're gonna be a huge part of what's going on. Just a follow up. I, I completely agree with that sentiment as well. Um, I think that traditionally the, the scrap recycling, uh, streams of the, the people that were involved in the business, there was, uh, kind of this, not necessarily a, a, you know, it was not necessarily looked down upon, but it was always seen as like a dirty business. You know? Now, uh, we're turned to, as people look for their various sustainability goals, carbon reduction, et cetera, you know, they're looking to us as the, just as Sarah mentioned, really as the subject matter experts there. I, I think that we're gonna continue to see that come more to fruition here. Especially as, you know, people try to seek out their, their goals for just a circular economy as well. Um, you know, but I, I think that it, it's critical right now just to be extremely open to different technologies that are out there, whether it's ai, um, you know, we'll see. We're seeing some pretty rapid transformations within, you know, many different industries, especially the recycling industry as well. Uh. Anywhere from just like how things are traded, um, you know, with Stew and the, and the buddy platform there. Uh, but anywhere, you know, throughout the organizations, you know, down to the team members and, and making people being as efficient as possible in their workspace, it's easy for me to double click into what you just spoke about, Sam, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna really stick with, um, Sarah, and it's easy to say that in 20 years time we are gonna have a seat at the table, right? The next thing we know we're gonna, you know, wipe the sleep out our eyes. It's gonna be 20 years time. And if we haven't done anything, we're not. So how do you ensure that we have that seat at the table? Like, what are you doing now knowing you're the next generation to ensure that your company and the industry is going to have a seat and they are gonna listen to us when we want certain policies in place or need? So the first part of that, I think, is we have to be willing to get involved, uh, get involved in these hard conversations. Rema does a great job. Um, our team was just at the legislation day down in DC and, you know, advocating for new policies and change amongst the industry. I think the next part is getting involved in your community. Uh, personal ways we do this is we go to local schools. Uh, we reach out to certain teachers, a lot of them we met here, uh, the convention and we try to get involved with the classroom. It starts there, you know, changing the image of the recycling industry of, you know, it's not just the dirty scrap yard, it's. This whole big circular economy and we're just the beginning piece and how can you help and be a part of that. And um, so then I wanna ask, you know, other than that, is there anything else that you see for this generation coming through that you can identify as broken in the industry that the next generation needs to kind of fix? And yes, we've got the, how we're seen out there. Is there anything else that you kind of want to focus on, um, to make sure that we do get to the places we hope to get to? I could, I could take that. So I would say, I'm not sure if there's really anything like fundamentally broken, uh, with our industry we see a lot of like disruption and, and new ways of processing, et cetera. But I think what the, the foundation really to Sarah's point is it comes down to making sure that you're educating people there. I mean, and starting young as well, just so people get an understanding as far as, you know, what can and cannot be recycled there. Um, and b. Open to, um, be able to have those tough conversations with people as well. Um, really giving'em an idea and touring your facilities as well is, is also very helpful into that whole educational piece because it's like they, they need to see what we do here and we need to really be working with people as far as how to design things for recyclability as well. Talking about design, right. There was really a good reason why I invited you to, to talk with me today. And it wasn't because everybody else said no, although they did. Just kidding. Um, you know, what I need to understand is I want to go into a few of the tactical things so that when people leave, they go, wow, that was, you know, a great thing that I can implement today. So if you were to design a metal recycling yard from scratch, right? And now it's like the whole hat of the next generation, you come in, what would you do differently? Whether it's equipment, people, supply chain, transport, whatever that might be, how would you rethink rejig that now? So I'll jump in. I think first and foremost, we're big on the retail side of the industry and we designed a lot of our facilities after the brew throughs in North Carolina. Uh, so making you know that first entrance for someone from the outside coming into your facility. Big, easy to get to, easy to understand. If you've never been to a yard, where do you go? What do you do first? Uh, and then from there, equipment, nice, upgraded clean equipment, clean facility. Organized, uh, at our warehouses, we have, you know, a primary warehouse for coppers, another one for aluminums and secondaries. I think it's important to see a clean facility, uh, on the outside looking in. Again, you're trying to change the image of this industry itself. It's important to represent that in your yard. Uh, the next part of that is your team. Your team's gotta be bought into what you're doing and know that there's a bigger picture here than a homeowner trying to make a couple bucks. Uh, you're helping the future and having a good experience. Jessica Cole spoke to it today. Every visit you have should be a great experience. They should leave with a great impression. It's a really great, great question that you, you poses there. You know, if I close my eyes, like what does it look like here if you were to design a recycling facility from scratch? I think, you know, to Sarah's point again, it's really, you get to make things very, very, very easy and intuitive. Um, you know, proper signage, you know, cleanliness in facilities as well. People don't want to go into facilities and, and have to risk popping a tire or just have any confusion when they are. They want to be able to go in, get out in a timely fashion here. But I mean, you could design facilities. If we're talking about like a, a single recycling facility there, if you're talking multiple recycling facilities, you know, you can have different conversations, obviously, you know, if we're talking about having multiple recycling facilities, I think that you could very much see kind of like that franchise model where it's just like every single thing. It's doesn't matter if you're going to a facility in, uh, San Diego or if you go into a facility in Los Angeles, I mean, they're all gonna be very, very similar, you know, same. Um. Interactions, obviously pricing, whatever, we don't need to get into that. But, uh, you know, just similar, um, hospitality and just that customer service aspect. I actually had the luxury of seven years ago setting up a brand new yard. And, um, and I'm not talking about, I actually, it was a brand new business so I could rejig everything. I'd come from running 85 yards, which I'd taken over in South Africa. You know, we employed 4,200 people to moving to New Zealand and, and literally building a greenfield. And I had the pleasure, which a lot of people wouldn't say of working with my wife. Um, not that they didn't like her, but maybe don't like your wife to work with. Um, and she came from an out with an outside view. The first thing we did when we wanted to design the customer experience was she took her, she got her friends to go to all the opposition in the area and sell scrap, and they were selling pots and pans, whatever they could find around their house, and they documented their experience. It was crazy. We had 15 experiences come back and almost every single one had the same outcome, which was, they didn't answer. These are just some tactical thing. They didn't answer the phone. Right. Which was like the first time I phoned for a price. They just didn't answer. Some of them took five phone calls. Some of them were hold for 45 minutes, whatever it might be. That was one thing. The other thing was every single person that delivered felt intimidated when they walked in. Because these are people that are coming into a space that's uncomfortable for them. They don't know what to do. And usually there's some big burly guy shout at you, put that over there. Right? And, and, and this was like, we got that experience. So what we did was we said, if McDonald's could do it, we can. And we created a drive through, literally you arrive and way finding, you talk about signing like when you know where to go next. Everything feels more comfortable. If you've never been into a metal recycling yard before and you have no clue where to go, you it's, it's intimidating. So we had these big signage. It was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. As you drove in, you knew number one, push the button. You'll get told which scale to go to through an intercom. You go to please go to scale one, and you go to scale one. Somebody that would offload with a smile, hi, lovely to see you. Let me help you. Let me offload the trunk, or do whatever it might be. Oh, did you know you can get this as an upgrade? Et cetera, et cetera, et. Number three, you go to the teller and she's, we hired her from a coffee shop because every morning she was there at 5:00 AM with a smile on her face, and she treated me really nicely. She knew what my order was, so I knew that she had great customer service. We have, you can even go look at it now. It's endless metals. Not my company anymore, but it's still sitting on 4.9 stars with over a thousand ratings. Right? That's unheard of. Find me another scrap yard that has anywhere close to that little tip. We ask people, how would you rate us? Anybody had a good experience, got to rate you, right? Great way. And that just, that was just a flywheel that got more people.'cause when people wanna look who they're gonna sell to, they go on to Google. Like they go and look at who's got the best ratings. Um, and we by far, I mean we now advise two companies in New Zealand, um, because that's not our company, how to basically do what we did. Um, and that's because Lisa came in with a total different view and kind of rejigged, um, how you might do that. Sarah, you, you speak about, and I, and I, I realize how important customer experience is for you. Is there anything there that resonates with you that you've actually seen customers either have a good time or a bad time where you've got involved? Yeah, so a lot of the time, again, our retail space is big. Uh, a lot of the times it's just a misunderstanding between the customer, what they have. Every customer thinks they have gold, uh, and trying to explain to him, Hey, why is this? Copper wire not bringing a bare bright price. Like that's easy to explain, but maybe they don't wanna hear it from my buyer that is probably disgruntled after 10 minutes of this. So I, I love to jump in and work with customers and just explain to them in a kind way, and hey, if they don't like it, I always tell'em, what can we do better next time to make your experience more valuable? And usually that feedback is where we find a good relationship and we can build off that. One of you are nodding. It might've been you when I said we answer the phone, like people don't answer the phone. How do you ensure you answer the phone? Either of you? How do you actually ensure that? Because everybody wants to answer the phone. No one's out there going, oh, you know what? Like I don't really care if my customers don't get through to us. Everybody wants to, but at 99%, maybe 90%, um, of metal recyclers don't. How do you guys ensure you do? So I'll just tell you, um, everyone likes metrics and data, right? Especially now, more so than ever. So one of our KPIs is we track, you know, how many rings it takes for a customer to actually get it with a live person there. So if it's more than three, it's like, you know, we'll dive into that data there, see like what exactly happened, why is there a delay, just so we can identify the root cause and you know, essentially make our own internal corrective action there so that we can make sure we're providing the best possible customer service there.'cause at the end of the day, people just want to talk to a live human too. Agreed. I think, um, Jesse Cole said today, H two H instead of B2B or B2C, and it's human to human. And if you kind of consider that, as you know, one of the most important parts of what we offer as a service, it changes a lot of how we interact. We actually hired three people to answer our phone in our small company that we gave them other work to do, but their number one thing was if somebody else was on a call. They had to answer a call and we used data for all of that. Another little tactic we used, which was super helpful and helped us with ratings, even if a customer didn't end up sending to us, we got five star ratings. And that was because, um, Lisa expressed to them that if somebody phones, your objective is to solve their problem, even if they have the wrong freaking number. Right? So it would always be like somebody's like, Hey, do you know I can get such? And that. The people who answer the phone would go, unfortunately, you threw to like who so and so, but let me quickly Google for you and give you the number of who you're looking for. And we would get five star ratings of people that never sold to us.'cause they'd be like, that's the most incredible service I've ever had. Like I've, I've never experienced that from somebody, but it absolutely blew people away. I wanted to ask you next generation, you've gone through the period of coming into a company. As a young buck, um, wanna make a name for yourself, big, bright future? What does the previous generation not know about your experience? What would surprise them to hear of what you've either been through or what it's like right now? So I'll jump in. I think, uh, again, my family was never college educated. When I came into the business and I had a college education and I understood like the fundamentals of accounting and I could teach, you know, my dad or brother at the time, like, Hey, our books are a little off. We're pretty big to be running them this way. Try it this way. I think it just brought a different outlook and opinion in, and also giving value to marketing the business. You know, previous generation, there was this huge resistance to putting yourself out there and taking the risk and hey, spending a little bit of money on marketing and. There's been a huge ROI and a huge shift on how people look at our company because of that. You know, it, that's, it's a really good question and it's tough for me to really answer because like I said, I'm fourth generation, third generation has always been like very much looking at, Hey, what's next? What's possible? What can we do to improve and polish the apple a little bit further there? Um, so that's, you know, I don't really have a good answer for that, unfortunately. I expected that from you, Sam, just in general, that you what? What's one, like traditional belief in this industry or practice in the whole recycling industry that you think needs to be completely left behind? Like, what do we need, just need to stop doing today? Um, you know, whether it's in your business, other people's business, or what you see all the time. I, I would say, you know, um, you know, for us it's, um. Don't be afraid to say no to people, even if it's like a big customer as well, you know, what you can and, and cannot do as well there. So I would say like as, uh, as there's, you know, transitions in different generations, some people are, you know, find it a little bit difficult to have those tough conversations there. Um, I'd say, you know, if you've got problems, you gotta be able to go and just like. Head on and go and, and identify those there. Uh, that was a little bit different from your question. Yeah, no, that's good. I wanna just double click on that quickly. Are you talking about, um, inter intercompany, like inside the company, be able to, you know, stand your ground when you're younger or even with customers or where I, I would say it's, it's really both there. Um, you know, I've just, just as an example, um, you know, we, we've got a couple customers that we do a lot of, uh, business, whether they're OEMs or tiers. And they kind of tell you where you need to be as far as a, a pricing standpoint or there was some misunderstanding there. And you have to be able to stand your ground there just'cause at the end of the day, you know, it's your business that you have to protect there. So, uh, but I would say internally as well, um, you know, you need to really manage your time accordingly there, and, and, you know, it's very easy to say yes to everything and then just be completely inefficient. You, you know, you say standing around, I like internally as well. We've got a client on Buddy that, um. She's like the younger generation, her father's still there running the show and the father was like adamant that we trade over the phone. There was absolutely no way it's gonna ruin relationships, et cetera. And then she just said to me on the side, let's just do a couple. And she put an electric motors box up and if you guys know the value of electric motors, she made$5,000 more on her first trade. Just by putting it on Buddy. And she went and took it to her dad and she's like, so do you still want me to make phone calls? They now do every single trade on the buddy platform because the advantage is you can have relationships and technology as well, but the idea is that the older generation, sometimes you need to put your foot down and go, I know what I'm talking about here, and maybe if you gimme the opportunity, but Sarah, I think you wanted to say something earlier as well. Yeah, no, Sam, I think that's, that's a different aspect than I was thinking about. The biggest for me. Uh, whether it's our staff or other customers resisting change, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, whether that's in a spec or, hey, like we started making an aluminum breakage package this year because we got so many downgrades and there was so much resistance, uh, among the warehouse and a couple of our traders of like, Hey, are we gonna do this? Are we gonna try it? And it's, you have to try it. You have to be willing to change new technology, bringing in new people with different outlooks. You have to be willing to get with the times. Technology, massive thing. I've just come from a talk upstairs all about that. Um, what do you guys see really having a major impact? You know, is it ai? Is it the software systems? Are we talking robotics? Like what are you as a company? Your companies right now really delving deep into. I would say, you know, for us at patent, it's really AI is what we're really focusing on predominantly. And not to say that we're not looking at just different machinery, et cetera there, but AI just, if you just look at, one example that I have is, so we buy a lot of end of life vehicles there and so you have to make sure you've got titles and everything, just the, the amount of paperwork, and you'd have like manual entry there. Now you can use ai, you know, essentially you upload all these documents. It'll, it saves hundreds of hours right there, so you can just, you know, by adopting and embracing, you know, just the various aspects, you're able to save so much more time and have your team be so much more efficient there with you guys. Yeah, so I have a bit of a different one. Of course. AI is helping us. Our AI is actually integrated into our software, which is really cool now. And then the next part of that is I, we actually have a third party assistant that runs our payroll services. Uh, she lives in Sri Laka and I think that technology and using those third party services has helped me grow our business exponentially. Frees me up. Yeah. I think AI as a whole is very intimidating for a lot of people. Like the majority of metal recyclers have a on-premises, ERP, what you guys would call software inventory system. And what that means is it's got a service still in your office. Um, you know, that's moving cloud-based, et cetera. So when people throw AI at you, it can be quite intimidating. The only thing I say to everybody is like, start really small, right? And look for efficiencies. We at Buddy, like, Lisa, I'm not allowed to do anything without asking, could AI make this faster? Right? And that's kind of our entire process and all of thinking runs around there. But if you, if you're not, and I, I wouldn't be like that if it wasn't for Lisa who was there pushing and shoving me, right? But if you don't have that person internally, you can become that person. It's just asking the question, can AI help me do this faster? And if you can achieve, I mean, a half an hour more in your day, granted, I promise you, by the end you'll get three or four hours extra in your day. But if you can get a half an hour extra in your day, in the first few months, and every single staff member in your team can get a half an hour back, I mean, the efficiency is just unbelievable. So start somewhere is the only thing I want to say. You know, come and chat to me, come and chat to some of the others afterwards with some tips. We're not gonna delve into a whole lot of that. You should have been to talk ear earlier if you want. The other I, I've got one more as well here. It's just like, I mean, like you said, just dive into it and just learn to embrace it and just see what you can do as well. You know, another example we have is, you know, just think about like. A lot of the, um, you know, your, your team members that have a lot of experience as well. You know, if you wanna create a work instruction, you know, you're not gonna just have necessarily that team member just write down, here's exactly every single task now, now you can like, take a video and you can just use AI and it create work instructions. Absolutely. I mean, there's, it's, it's so much possibility out there. It's, I Now we're gonna go a little bit down this rabbit hole because it, it excites me a little bit, but just to give you guys practical examples. So we have a tech platform. This isn't a plug for my platform, it's how I used it. Every single demo when I'm trying to sell to somebody and I show them how the platform works, we record it in, in a, in a platform called Fathom. And what it does is it transcribes it for me. Now, the transcription easy, you can get heaps, heaps of, um, platforms that'll do that for you. What I've done is I've taken every single transcription and I've created my own chat, chat, GBT, my own GBT, and I've trained it through all of my demos. So if I put in 20 demos. It's heard every single question that somebody has challenged me during the demo exactly how to run the demo. I hired nine people last week. It was only my wife and I for two years. Last week we hired nine people. I've literally created a GPT for all of them, but when they were doing a demo, they can ask it any questions. They can get a full script written up from all of my demos and all that. Now, that is something that would take me months and months. To train a sales team to do, and they now literally have every question answered on their phone. Now that's not rocket science. Trust me, if I can be doing that, you can all be doing that very, very quickly. So, um, that's just an idea of, of efficiency and how, you know, you can get back a huge, huge, huge amount of time. What tech are you guys betting on though? So like you, you're looking a lot of ai, but where are you guys going? This is where we're investing in our future. Where do you see the company strategically? You know, where, where are you focusing on? So I'll jump in. I think for us, I have the same question to myself. It's not ai, but what can I automate here? Uh, what can I automate sorting wise? What can I automate processing? So right now we have two guys processing e scrap all day long. Uh, we can automate a lot of that, so we're looking to bet, you know, double down into the e scrap processing, whether it's a depopulation, uh, or another furnace to po to process all that material. You know, so aside from ai, um, you know, obviously we've got a partnership with, um, hydro aluminum, you know, for the Libs technology that we've implemented, uh, now. And so, uh, you know, I would say now there's a lot of adaption there. I mean, obviously you see the, the various manufacturers are here at, at this trade show as well that are selling this equipment. And I think that there's a lot of adaption for circularity, you know, um. Being able to introduce more materials into the raw material streams as well. Um, and I think that you're just gonna see more of that just come to, come to fruition. Now the challenge is, especially when you start getting into other material streams, like as an example, plastics, you know, like that's, that can be a little bit challenging there. If you look at the various, various OEMs or tiers, they've got some pretty big aspirations. As far as carbon reduction sustainability goals. So I think that one of the challenges that we need to work on really, is making sure that when you're having these conversations with their sustainability team or the recycling team, you gotta make sure that you also have the purchasing team right there in the same room, just so they're all singing the same song here. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. I, I agree with everything you both said. I want to kind of just take a little move away from tech'cause we could seriously go on for a very long time. I want to talk about the next generation, even the one after you. Like, how are we bringing them in? How are we making ourselves cool enough? We are not the tech guys. We're not, you know, we don't have all this AI usage and, and things. And, and how are you guys doing that, and how are you promoting yourselves? I hired, um, last week John Paul, who's here with us today. I met him in an Atlantic City conference for Rema, and he graduated from college last week. He immediately is using AI in everything. He's doing all of his training. We've got him on a training program through a core course that we, um, give all our people and he's recording all of it and creating his own GBTs so that he can ask the actual, um, lecturer who's training these courses by recording. And you can now ask it questions because it's learned from the lecturer that you've just watched the course. Like that is. He's bringing that in, but he comes from a background where his father worked in metal recycling all his life. How are you guys attracting them, um, that aren't necessarily with that background? So you, we just had our board meeting, um, in April. And um, I'll just say from like a family perspective first here, my nephew, um, he's gonna be going to university here next year, 18 years old. And, you know, we really embrace bringing some of like the next generation in and have'em involved. I remember when I was younger as well. I remember just like having conversations with my grandfather and my father around the dinner table there. So it, it was like a kind of a unique perspective there from like the family perspective there. Just like so, so Eno's board policy is that the family was, have more children and spread it out through generation. Nice. I see what you've done there. Exactly. You gotta recruit very young. Um, no. So like, you know, that's, that's an aspect there and, and it was fun after like my nephew bringing him after the, uh, board meeting, you know, giving him the opportunity to actually go into around, it's like, okay, so we had all these conversations and everything. There's a lot of data thrown at you here, you know, differences between buying from dealers, industrial accounts, you know, the scale traffic as well, what we do as far as processing, but it's like really actually bringing them into the facilities there. And, you know, again, it goes back to like what we said earlier in this conversation about educating people as well. And so like now you can transition over to like the, how do you recruit additional people as well? For us at Padis, we really focus on education partnering with, as an example, grand Valley State University, uh, where we'll actually have like engineers and we'll work with their team, bring'em on as interns, and then, you know, hopefully they, they like what they're doing and then they end up staying on one of my colleagues, Derek, who you've met. He started off as an intern. We've had a number of people that started off as interns, so partnering with local universities, but it's, it's even starting before that there as well, and bringing people into your facilities so that kids can get excited about this. So, on a smaller scale, I think, you know, I, I don't know if you knew this, uh, but I, I went to Grand Valley, say I played lacrosse there and I reached out to our alumni director every year. Anybody looking for a job? Anybody want to come see what I do? That's step number one for me, always, but also posting about what we do on LinkedIn. And just getting our face in front of the youth, whether it's, you know, at the local soccer games wearing a Potomac Medals t-shirt. My husband and his family do a great job of representing us and just being really involved and showing people we're not that scary industry that people think we are and we're friendly. We're doing well. Come work here. What are you looking for Firstly, I love, I mean, my big thing in South Africa was, um, hiring people from my rugby club. I was like, they were hardworking people. They would practice, you know, the ones who had to practice every single day on time. They work really hard. Um, I hired a whole heap of them and then some of them turned out to be fantastic. Run through some walls for you. They'll run through walls for you. Trust me. Absolutely. They had those intimidating guys. They go put it over there. What are you looking for when you're hiring these people? Because we're so desperate sometimes to hire. It's like, oh my God, you want to come in the recycling industry? We'd love to have you. What is, what are you actually looking for in people that you're hiring? So, two words for me. Competitive greatness. Um, this is, I live our life by this. If you're not willing to compete with the best, we don't want you. And hick grade valley lacrosse, those girls wanna compete. And I, I know their work ethic. I know their hard and whether they're doing it on the field or they want to come do it in your workforce, if you can get them to buy in to what you guys are preaching, it's, it's cold. Yeah. You, you can tell pretty quickly, you know, especially when you start going through the interview process there as well, you know, who's gonna be a good fit. You know, I, I would say like our business, you don't need to go to university, you know, to, you know, have a successful career. Or to even be in the recycling space at all, you know, as, as, as I'm sure you guys all, you know, have, have seen and witnessed here. So it's really making sure that people have a good attitude, they're hardworking, um, and, you know, we'll train for skills there. I mean, as long as they're very willing and open to new responsibilities and new opportunities more so that you know, there is a fit. You know, especially within the recycling space. It could be anything, logistics, it, support, you name it. There's so many different areas that can all be impactful to the business. I always try and explain that early on, it's like, it doesn't mean just because you're working on the ground right now doesn't mean this is where you're gonna end up. I mean, the amount of people I've seen go completely different directions than we you expected. Um, yeah. Yeah. It's massive. How, when you're bringing in the next gener, when you're bringing these people in, how are you ensuring that they're going to be adequately equipped? To perform in the future in a changing world, right? So I spoke about earlier, you know, my team are all doing courses at the moment. A lot of it is, is tech, sales and learning like how to sell in that sort of world and understanding how technology can help you. That's my side. I'm very different now compared to what you guys are doing operationally, what are you guys doing to make sure you guys are, you know, always ahead of the cutting edge? So, um, you know, for us, I would say a lot of people are looking at like individual development plans, things of that nature. You know, call whatever you want, one pagers, et cetera, there. And it can be both personal and business related as well, just so it's like every single quarter you're meeting with your direct reports as well, and you're just able to see, okay, where are you? Are you on, are you on track? Or you making some good progress here, but it's like making sure that they're, at least they know that you're bought in and you're invested in their future as well. And I'll add on. So I think for me, and on a smaller scale, uh, we've got 200 employees. If I find one my manager's recommending, Hey, they're working their butts off, this kid's really bright. I go outta my way to take that kid under my wing, uh, and show them, you know, what it could become for them. And then train them, find out their passions. Are you really into doing the electronics? Are you interested in growing this business in another way? And trying to connect on that and help them feel a part of. Are you seeing any sort of shifts in where the material is coming from? Um, or the quality of material. Um, and you think that'll change over the next 10 to 20 years? I, I think, you know, obviously it's, there's a lot of different, um, you know, material streams and where they're coming from as far as like the actual composition of material. Is that gonna change? Uh, maybe to, you know, to a certain degree it will. Um, you know, obviously we see a lot of like closed loop type programs that are in place right now. Um, but as a recycler, I'm not nervous about that. I think there's always gonna be a, uh, there's gonna be a space for us for as far as processing there. Um, I, I think the, the big thing is, and it go, goes back to like the secondary material stream and having this material, you know, cleaned up or further refined in order to be used as a raw material, not only for domestic consumption, but also for export as well. Just to make sure that people are using, you know, raw material that meets their specifications as well. And I think that you're gonna see more, uh, adaption for, uh, people trying to, you know, introduce more of this type of material streams, even if it's is slightly different specification. So, um, I just kind of wanted to understand, you know, what's the hardest moment that you've had to deal with in your experience and coming through in the next, as the next generation? Like, has there been a time where somebody's been like, nah, you're still young, you don't understand, and you've had to fight through that, or, you know, what has, what has really molded you to be a better leader, um, now than you were before? So I'll jump in. I think for me at 29, uh, and again, my, my father passed away and stepping into his role and my brother stepped away as well. It's just me at the company. It's been a big learning curve and everything I have is earned. Right. Uh, you know, every employee we have is much, much older than me at times. They look at me and kind of question what's going on, and I think that's when it's in me and in my heart to hit the ground running. If I wanna change the process, I'll go in the warehouse, I'll start doing. It, and I'll make sure it works and I will show them. I'm willing to put the work in and you have to earn it from each and every person in the company. And then I think once you're in that respect, it comes a little bit easier. So we touched on this maybe a little bit earlier there, but I, I would say like the biggest like learning experience that I had from like myself early in my career. And if I was like, looking back and just reflecting on it, it's like again, it's, you know, don't be afraid. If, if you have a problem, you need to go and, you know, face it head on there. If there's anything that has to do with like, you know, contract negotiations and if there's something different, if there's some sticky point you need to run at that. And don't just sit there and wait idly by. You need to go address that issue and then you can obviously deal with it when it comes to any issues. It's not gonna, not gonna get better as an age there. So you need to address that very quickly. And, you know, like I'd give myself that same advice. It's like, run towards that problem and figure it out. You, you said something earlier. Which is almost like a swear word at the moment. That was export. Um, I have to, I feel like you can't have any show right now and not ask about tariffs. So what effect is it having on your business at the moment? What are you planning, you know, to get around it in the future? What have you done so far about it? So, you know, with the, the tariffs, I mean, it's, that's the fun part about the business. You know, it's not the tariffs part, but I would say the fun part about the businesses, especially being on the commodity trading side, is, you know. We're market makers, you know, we will find the homes where material can go. You know, there's a lot of unique opportunities when it comes to arbitrage and ex and exploiting these opportunities as well. So I, I would say it's like, you know, you gotta be very, very in tune. You know, be disciplined about looking at the markets, having the various connections, whether it's domestic export, and even if you're not necessarily doing business, being able to at least share a, a dialogue as far as what people are seeing in different areas of the world. And that's a nice thing with technology. Now, quick WhatsApp text. Quick conversation, quick, you know, teams, message, whatever. It's just like the technology's right here where you have so much data there that you can be very dangerous with you. Sarah, I'll add on. I think Sue, you had a great port in AC and I've really taken this back to Potomac, is find the opportunity, right? Is find where you know your business can succeed in this and. Like other businesses, we're looking to import material and trade off the comax, you know, with a huge arbitrage. It, it makes sense and find the opportunity where your company can stride and take a step above your competition. Yeah. In, in South Africa many years ago, what seems like a previous life, they, um, basic almost banned exports out of the country. And it was the greatest thing that ever happened to my company at the time. We thought it was the end because all the melters and would now the consumers would now buy direct from the OEMs. And we were the hugest, the largest metal recycler in town. In the country. And, um, we just went and bought a whole lot of copper foundries and found a massive opportunity. I think I was speaking to you in one of the events, and all of a sudden you were bringing material into the us, which you had never done before. Yeah, yeah. I mean that's, that's opportunity that comes through this sort of volatility. So when you sit there, and I, I say this quite a lot on LinkedIn, if you sit there and it's like, wo is me because something has happened to me. If you turn that around and like, where is the opportunity in this? Immediately your team sees things differently and it's funny how things just come out. I mean, how did you guys come up with, you know, we're bringing in, was it, were people offering it to you? Was it just that the team sat around and saw the opportunity? No, I, I would say like, first off, it, you know, I, I'm a firm believer that coming, you know, conferences like this, all it takes is like one new connection, one conversation, and it can make a, make a pretty significant change. Obviously these events are, are pretty, uh, expensive as well. So you gotta be, you know, very, you know, financially, um, prudent with it. But it's really just having the very diverse network and being able to exploit it and just having a conversation be like, you know, I had is other companies. I'm sure you do a lot of collaboration with your team as well, but you know, when we're looking at Comex and LME as an example, and just like that Crazy Arbor, I think I went up to like 72, you know, between LME it, it was, it was pretty wild. So we're seeing this. My cousin, Jonathan and others on the, um, leadership team. Like we're like, something is going on here. We need to figure out what is the opportunity and keep challenging each other. Just like find out what's the opportunity and how can we exploit this. And there's a great saying, either average of the five people you hang around. So five people around you are being negative and woe is me because the tariffs are in place, you and your whole team will be thinking the same. If you sit around a board and they're thinking like Enos, and they're going, there's something here in here for us, we've just gotta find it. It's funny how you will achieve that, right? Like that, but it's gotta be, it's that mindset that has to change. Talking about mindset, let's just understand a little bit more about you two personally. Like what does success look like for each of you individually, not necessarily your company. I just want to like kind of get into your own mindset. I think success defines itself and not only keeping the doors open for the next generation, but leaving a legacy that, hey, people either respect you, you leave a legacy, that you were kind, you were easy to work with, um, and that you worked really hard at. And if at the end of the day you can say, you gave it all you got to me, that's success. You know, some people might define success as, you know, being record profits, et cetera. It's like everyone of course wants to win. You know, if you're not in this business and, and not competitive, you know, wrong business to be in, you're very competitive. And, and at, at Pattis we're extremely competitive. Um, you know, but I, I ran into a, a former colleague here actually, and I say, like, for me personally, success for me is just having that lasting impression. So I, I ran into a colleague. And he's like, Hey, I, you know, we left on good terms and, and you called me and I'll never forget that moment. I was like, that's exactly what I want to see. Yeah. Success so often revolves around people, like even if they do fly from the nest, um, whether you're bringing people through internally or they're moving on and when they're successful, you feel that success. You feel like you've achieved something. So it's my, for me, it's just a private jet, you know? It's pretty simple. Come on guys, gimme with here. Um, how do you guys stay hungry? You're competing every day. You need to be hungry as shit. And how do you stay humble at the same time? There's like a, there's this fine line of coming out there hungry, aggressive, but also not having too much of an ego and, and attitude. How do you guys stay humble and, and, uh, get out there? So for me, you know, is this for Sarah? Not, he hasn't done this yet. So, uh, no competitors. Maybe you'd be better than Sarah. It's not competitive at all. Uh, you know, the DC market is an animal, right? It's ultra competitive. Every job, there's a list of bidders. I'm walking jobs and everyone's giving dirty looks to each other. And for me, it's, I thrive in that and the competitiveness and knowing, Hey, maybe I got beat out this time, but next time we're gonna win that job. Whether it's a service, I can provide a price, a smile, an impression. Uh, I thrive in hearing that. So to avoid the fear of failure and just know you're doing the right thing, you're putting your foot forward and never to fear the failure. That that's a really great point there. You know, I would say, yeah, definitely don't feel, um, fear of failure. That's, that's great. Um, you're just asking some really good questions here. It makes you actually reflect, so I'm really sorry about this. I know. So you've done this a few times. This isn't like a school test. No, I know. I'm, uh, I'm just trying to reflect here. It just, um. It's challenging just because, you know, you wanna maintain, you know, I, you know, for me personally, it's just, I've always been kind of humble, you know, like to fly under the radar. I don't need a big award or anything like that. Just kind of how I roll. You've always been great at being super humble. Yeah, I, I've try to be, try to be at least. Um, but as, as far as like the competitiveness there, I was like, I've been an identical twin brother, you know, right there. So it's like, I mean, that helps for sure. And then I've got a lot of other family members that are involved in the business and we're all freaking competitive. We all wanna win. I can make this multiple choice if you'd prefer that much easier, just like b. Um, so for me, for example, like I am completely driven by proving people wrong. So like I absolutely love it when somebody says, oh, you will never be able to change this industry to trade with technology. I'm like, well, what do you think WhatsApp and, and, and text messaging is? That is technology. You're making a phone call. Somebody once was like, no, we need to use, we, we'll never move on from carrier pigeon. Right? Like, like things are gonna change. And I still have the people. I mean, I have the ex-president of Sims North America, Michael Mos, who's like one of my favorite people in the world. He was the ex mentor of mine, my ex CEO. And when I told him, um, what I was gonna do in New Zealand, he was like, stew, like you're mad. Like, don't even think about it. It'll never change. And um, he's like, just get into trading. Like that's what I brought you in the company in South Africa to do, like, that's your gig. Um, and then I did a demo for him like six months ago and he's like, oh my God, you're gonna change the industry. Like he, he was the driving force. But then it was cool'cause then I got to come to Rema and hear a whole lot of other people say, oh, you'll never do this. So at least I got somebody, some other people, some more fuel. Like I go looking for it and it, it really does. I think the same in like sport, you probably felt the same in sport. You know, when somebody doesn't believe in you, it's like you can even get you down. Or like, I will show them how good I can be and that, that's like what drives me. I haven't yet learned to be humble, but I'm, I'm working on that like you. I wanted to ask you guys, um, if you could speak directly to your, the younger you, you can go back in time, you're starting out in the company. What are the tips?'cause hopefully the next generation who listening to this can, can kind of take something from that. But what would you tell yourself? I would say for me it's just like, be very, very open to just new, you know, try things new, you know, get comfortable being uncomfortable. You know, go travel to BIR, go travel to all the various industry events. Go travel and visit that customer that you've never, never met with, or that they don't return your phone calls. Just go knock on those doors. Don't be afraid. Uh, don't be afraid to fail at all. Fact, failing's a good thing. Yeah. Teaches you so much. We don't, you know, we don't lose, we learn. Sorry, Sarah. I think for me it's kind of believe in yourself and believe in the vision of continuing to grow in the business. And you know, at 1617, I didn't see a seat for me at the table as a woman in the industry. And now I see one and I can see where there's a huge platform for us now and to grow this thing. So we always end off born scrappy in the same way. And if you've never watched the episode, you're gonna be surprised by this. Sorry, Sam, I'll give, I'll make it multiple choice for you, but, um, I, we, we just want to get to know you guys a little bit more personally. I think we've got to know you guys quite well, but what's your favorite TV series or movie? Did I make this multiple choice? Um, I, I got, I'll get something here. I'll get Sarah, do you want to go? I, I'll help you out. Uh, we're watching Love on the Spectrum right now. It's really cute. It's my favorite show. Puts you in a good mood. You should watch it. If you have it, it's awesome. I would say, you know, for me, I've always loved like the Entourage series. I just love that. I mean, just like a old, I mean, it's a relatively old there, but it's like, you know, we'll go back and forth and I'll, I'll like rewatch some of that. As far as, you know, some of the, the newer episodes right now, so everyone's watching like, what, 1943 and, and all those, uh, various things about being a cowboy and just like being out in Montana and just like. Having a, you know, a very, very, very difficult life and just going out and making it on their own. So you could definitely have been a character in Entourage. A hundred percent. I'm, I like Ari Gold for me, but you could have been definitely somebody else there. Maybe the guy that drives the car for him. Um, favorite place to visit. Favorite place to visit Lou Delaware by the Cape May Ferry. Family time. We've got a house out there. Um, it's lovely. Um, so my wife and I, before we, um, had the, our first child, you know, we were always making a, a plan. We always wanted to travel and go somewhere international once a year, just like go on a, on a trip. So, so far I would say that my favorite place that I've been is, uh, Greece. You know, went to, uh, Santorini and just traveled around there. I mean, that was great. I mean, I would say a close second. I mean, it's come, it's really different. Also, I went to Egypt and that was amazing as well, going through the, the tombs and everything. I mean, that was, that was amazing there. Yeah. That's cool. Look, this one's probably just for Sarah'cause he doesn't read good. But have you got a favorite book? I do, uh, the The Grand Valley Way. Oh, by Tim sgo. I. Is that a private joke? No, no. This is a really good book. Uh, Tim Sgo is the most winningest athletic di director in history, and he has a couple books, uh, the Laker Way about Competitive Greatness. I, whenever I'm down having a bad week, I, I open a couple pages, reread it, and it drives me. Amazing. Awesome, Sam. So not necessarily a, a recent read here, but, um. It wasn't really a pleasure read, I would say it was that, and we like just said, Hey, all of our team members, we want you to read this. It was the boys in the boat there and it's like, you know, but all about like rolling. Is that the one they made? Was that the movie that they make on that? Yeah. Great. Yeah. I don't know how to read, so watch, so still if you don't wanna watch, if you don't wanna read Darren, I listen to the book. Um, lastly, have you guys got a favorite quote that you sometimes throw around at work or at home or something? It always comes out your mouth and you're like, yeah, that sounds like Sam or Sarah. I, so I've got this. So I, I would just say like being in the commodity trading, um, side. I would, I would say for the most part, inventory doesn't love you back. That's very cool. I love it. A little less related. Chop wood carry water. Let's what too. Alright guys, on that note, um, this has been lots of fun. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you Sam. Um, thanks for coming. Thanks.

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