Leading by Example with Becky Proler

In this week’s episode, I chat to Becky Proler, President of SCR Recycling and a powerhouse in the metal recycling world.

Becky’s family is credited with inventing the "Prolerizer," the first automobile shredder, a revolutionary innovation in metal recycling. And she’s still innovating today.

We cover her decades-long journey from hand-sorting metal as a kid, to building a thriving shredding and processing operation in Houston, to pushing the boundaries of what AI can do for alloy separation.

Becky shares what it’s like being a woman in a male-dominated industry, what she’s learned about leadership and trust, and why you should never stop buying, no matter what the markets say.

In this episode, we talk about:

👉 Building a business that values loyalty and grit
👉 Why technology alone won’t save the industry
👉 Why “never stop buying” is rule #1 in scrap
👉 Adding value in a world of shifting alloys
👉 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.

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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/

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 chatting with Becky Prolab. Becky Pro is the president of Southern Core Recycling and a powerhouse in the middle recycling world. Becky's family invented the pro, the first automobile shredder, maybe the most revolutionary innovation in metal recycling, and she's still innovating. Today we discuss her journey from hand sorting metal as a kid to building a thriving, shredding and processing operation in Houston to pushing the boundaries of what AI can do for metal separation. In this episode, we talk about building a business that values loyalty and grit, why technology alone won't save this industry. Why never stop buying is the number one rule in scrap adding value in a world of shifting alloys and so much more. So let's jump into with Becky, but first intro Hi, Becky. How are you? I'm good, Stuart. Thank you for, uh, for inviting me on today. Yeah, I'm, I'm excited to have you on. I must say, I remember when I first moved to the US and started doing business here. Everybody always spoke about having you on the podcast and making sure that I met you. Your family has an unbelievable reputation in this industry and, uh, um, I'm excited to have this conversation. So thank you for joining us. Thank you. Let's run back, you know, a few years. Um, I'm guessing growing up you were always sort of a, in and around the industry. Can you talk us through kind of what it was like and how you landed firmly in the industry like you are now? Yeah, so, um, it's a great question. I, you know, went to work with my father at a very young age, not legal to work, but I, you know, he put me outside and, um. I liked working outside. I always had like working with my hands and stuff like that, so I, I immediately took to the outside of the yard and um, you know, I liked the metals part or I liked the separation. And at the time the shredder was running, the polarizer was running. We did a lot of hand sorting on the non Ferris, so he would kind of put me out with, um, a bunch of the other hand sorters and they would watch me watch over me for, you know, four or five hours and it was great. Um, and then as I got older and was more interested in what was going on, spent some time with my uncles and things like that. You gotta remember, I grew up in the, in the eighties and women were still not considered, especially in the south. That was not something that women went into that kind of industry. And I was, you know, for the most part, dissuaded by my family because of being a female, that that really wasn't the type of industry I would wanna. Get involved in. And so I went completely opposite direction. I have a master's in counseling psychology and back then women were still going to college to get their MRS, which I don't even know if women going to college now know what that means. Much less, you know, the whole idea of an MRS. So, um, that didn't work for me either. And, um, eventually I, I got back into the business through, uh, pick apart. Yard that my father had and that really did get started on the west coast with pro and uh, a joint venture that they had with these pick apart yards. And I was fascinated about, you know, how they worked and also about the parts that came off of them. So my father closed the pick apart yard down. We started what was called Southern Core. A customer who was supplying us with cores, and just real briefly, cores are. The part that gets remanufactured. And for some reason I was able to learn those parts. Like you learn a language, I don't know how many languages you speak Stuart, but I could look at a motor and tell you if it was a 3 0 2, a three 50, if it was a three 18 Chrysler, I could just look at it and tell you what it was. So it came very easy to me. And then, um, when we closed the pick apart yard down. I started Southern Core with my partners, the Walkers, and um, then started gravitating to scrap. Because part of the core business is only taking the parts that can be remanufactured. And what do you do with the parts that you can, well, that's, you know, Ferris, non Ferris scrap metal. Absolutely. And then, so then Southern Core obviously has grown into a large operation. Now I've been to visit your side down in Houston. Um. I can't imagine. Just to touch on one thing that you'd mentioned, I can't imagine a better way to learn the grading of metal than sorting the shredded non Ferris at a young age. Like now everybody's got equipment for that, but if you're sitting there and taking every single piece and having to sorted, I mean, what was that like? I mean, that must have been incredible. I know you learned the cause and the motors, but that must have been just incredible. I still have pickers on my, on my shredding line because I really still realize and appreciate the importance of that later. Um, we're now working on some AI technology that we have installed, but I still work on the picking line off and on just so that I can understand how the flow is going. How are any currents. Pushing material through what they're rejecting, how to make those adjustments. It, it's not as easy to describe. So, you know, sometimes you just have to do it. And, um, in this business especially, you have to get your hands dirty to really understand not only what you have, but what you need. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's well said. I mean, I don't believe there's any other way to learn. Yeah. You can join other areas.'cause we want to get college students to come in and, and not just see it as it's a really hard place to stop. There are other areas, there's, there's trading, there's logistics, there's other places you can go. But if you want to be well-rounded, and I guess even on the trading side, you probably do need to understand your metal really well that time in the yard. Hand sorting is absolutely vital of what anybody who's trying to make it further in this industry. Yeah. I, it's, there's just no substitute. Um, you know, I learned, I, I I keep learning, you know, because the streams are changing, right? I mean, exactly. You know, we started out crushing cast Iron Motors. We were the largest supplier of cast iron in the South because the motors coming out of cars were all made of cast iron. Well, that started transitioning and changing to aluminum head motors, and then you had aluminum block motors, and now you've got aluminum mixed with all types of fiber and plastic and things like that. So the stream keeps changing. Yeah. And so yeah, without really knowing and feeling and touching it, you really don't have a good grasp of it, and you have to stay on it because let's face it, these engineers. In, in the sixties and seventies, they could put a three 50 Chevy in a three 50 olds and it would fit. Now gm, there is only one thing that GM makes that can fit into all their other cars, and it's a liquid. Wow. So it's not even, the parts are not interchangeable anymore. Yeah. So things are gonna change on the downstream of that. Yeah. So you have to be, you have to be awake to all of that. You actually have to see it when it comes in. Having had the time with your hands teaches you and it gives you the ability to do that. So you went, you went into, cause you then started shredding, um, you built the metal recycling side of, of the business as well. That you hadn't been on the, I guess, on the commercial side by the sound of it much, or were you spending time commercially buying and selling as well up until then? Yeah. No, we were, I was doing all the commercial end of it too. Okay. Um, we had, you know, plant managers and and ops people. Um, but yes, I was, I was in charge of the buying for the courtyard and then when we transitioned more into scrap. I did the majority of the buying. Um, my partner, Carrie Coffee did and still does a lot of the non Fara sales. So, yeah, and, and as the, as the commodity transitioned, right, we went from cast iron to aluminum, then I became more interested in more involved on the aluminum side, right? So the things I did. 20 years ago or 25 years ago, are not the same things. That the commodities aren't the same, simply because the engineering changed. Yeah. They'll carry on doing that. I mean, they're gonna keep changing. Oh yeah. And it'll continue to changing. Yes. To have it all the time. Yeah. Absolutely. Can you think of on the commercial side, whether you were buying or selling in a trade that kind of taught you something for life? Right. Something that we've got the next generation that listen to the podcast, they always try and get stories from people like, from, um, something that, um, they learn to lesson from. And they, they try and teach everybody else that, um, that joins the company as well. You know, I, I. I think Stuart, there's several of them because I've been around for so long, but probably the first one that sticks out the most is I was, um, having to buy a bunch of three 50 Chevy motors. Um, and some of them got shipped to Australia, believe it or not. So you would go to salvage yard and there was this one particular salvage yard owner who was located in Plainview, Texas. Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Plainview, Texas, but it's very small and um, he had the majority of the three 50 Chevys in the south. You gotta remember that trucks are like the number one driven vehicle down here. Yeah, of course. So, um. I had called him, called on him and asked him if there was any way I could come down and look at these motors. I wanted to buy'em, and he agreed, you know, on a price and all that. I get there and he's got, you know, you can put about a hundred to 125 in a trailer. Um, so he had three trailers worth of motors. Ready for me to buy, you know, he's like, write the check, whatever. And the difference is, is I was buying two Volt Maine and four Volt Maine. So a four volt Maine is in a heavy duty truck and they can be made into hot rods, which apparently in Australia there was a lot of market for. Yeah, it makes sense. And um, the two bolt mains are mainly in large cars. So. He wanted me to pay him based on the number of four bolt mains I had, but the oil pans were still on them. And I said, I can't pay you for four bolt mains if I can't see if they're four bolt mains or not. And he said, well, then you have to take the oil pans off. And I said, well, I, I didn't come prepared to do that. He said, I'm not gonna sell'em to you unless you pay me for what I have. So either pay me for all four volt mains. Or pull the valve covers off. So the next three days, I literally stood there with a 55 gallon drum. He took a forklift and he would, he'd had it as guys put the, the three 50 Chevy on top of the 55 gallon drum. And he did give me an air, uh, an air wrench, you know, so that I could do it faster than by hand, or I'd still be there. And, um, yeah, seven sixteenths and a three eighths docket, and I took every one of those darn things off and paid him for a four volt Maine versus a two volt Maine. But that, that particular man became my mentor. He became one of my closest friends and never ever had to pull an oil pan again. Um, he brought people over to see this little girl sitting there sopping in oil and grease. Pulling oil pans off to see if they were, he brought people over to look at me, and we did it in a barn that I remember it was raining part of the time and the barn had a big hole in the roof. So I mean, it didn't matter. It couldn't get any worse. Right. Yeah, absolutely. But at the end of the day, he respected me and, well, I was. I, I had another word besides respect for him, but, but we grew into this great friendship and um, he was an incredible man. Always has been and, you know, always will be. Yeah. It's incredible. That's, um, that's interesting because often going through something like that can build a relationship. Where somebody puts you to the test and they gain respect and, and I think a lot of the time the older generation are testing the younger generation, if they come there to buy something. Absolutely if you want to buy it, but you're gonna have to do the following things. If, if you have those rules around how you're paying and when you do it and you're willing to actually get your hands dirty, you immediately gain respect. I think you as a, as a young girl, I think Absolutely. And, and back then as well, just would've been, um, an incredible side to see for all of them running around there. No doubt. Yeah. And, uh, at the time my father was still alive. They didn't have smartphones back then. I mean, they had those big bricks that were phoned, so it's not like you could get the picture or see it. Nobody FaceTimed us back then. I was thinking the same thing. No one was putting it on social media, otherwise it would've been all over. No. Yeah. I, um, I once was called out to, um, to buy some metal. It was an old airplane, and I was called out to buy this airplane from a, you could call him a hoarder. He had a farm and on it, he had every vehicle possible, every, he would go to auctions and he bought just absolutely everything. Um. I wonder still today if he's sitting on everything, but he wanted to get rid of this airplane'cause it was taking up too much space for the value that it had. And I was young, I must have been 21, 22, and really eager to start buying some material. Um, and I went out to the site and I, I gave him a price. It was durum. I gave him a price for it. And what I didn't do was, I didn't take into consideration that all the pop rivets were steel. So the entire plane had steel putting together every single sheet of dium. My boss at the time, after I made the purchase, said to me, did you take into consideration if there was any steel? I said, yeah, I checked it with a magnet, and I went through certain areas. He's like, did you check the rivets? I said, no, I didn. He said, okay, well get a cutting torch and go there and literally burn out every single rivet. I think I was there for like four days. Just every single one. I had to melt off, take it apart, put the sheets together, um, and send it into the yard. He was like, we are not doing it in our yard. You made this. You can do it on their side and then bring it in. I just remember that it was hot. Uh, I was 22. Just felt like an absolute idiot. You know? They gave me a magnitude test and for whatever reason I didn't even see it. But they teach you a lot those lessons. My Right. My uncle used to call that the high tide test. Uh, Sammy er went to work for my grandfather at, I think like 12 or 13. My grandfather pulled him out of middle school because he told the, the principal of the school. That the family needed to eat, not learn. So Sammy was the oldest and he, and he told this story on his second bar mitzvah when he turned 83. He called it the high tide test. Um, he went and, and found some steel in Galveston, which was about 50 miles away. He bought it from a guy. He went and looked at it, paid the guy before he, he bought it. The next day he comes back to load it in, you know, whatever kind of makeshift, uh, truck that they had and it was gone. Couldn't find it. And the guy that he bought it from was there, you know, with his money and all that, and he said, I can't go home. I can't tell my father that I lost all this money. I was trying to buy all this steel from you. He said, don't worry. He said it's high tide right now. When it goes to low tide, the steel will be there. Turns out that's exactly what happened. He had to wait all day long until we got low tide and then he and his guys loaded it all up and brought it back to Houston. That's so he called it it the high tide test. That is awesome. I, I think the feeling of arriving there and nothing's, there must be something he would never forget. I think we all do that. I mean, that's all of our high tide. It's a high tide moment, right? Yeah. And I think we all have'em. If you stay long enough in this industry, you're gonna have one. Yeah, that's for sure. They normally come early and if they don't come early, I'm sorry, but they're gonna come eventually. Yes. Yeah. Tell me now. Becky on the pricing side of things or the, let me rephrase that. On the buying side of things, you guys are constantly, as any metal recycler, you guys have got a shredder. It's hungry. You constantly want to be feeding it material. What's the strategy you've used over the years to make sure that you constantly buying enough material, it's coming in the doors, customers keep coming back. You know, some people are using marketing, location, pricing. What do you guys stick to? Well, I think the fact that we've been in business for over 35 years, that in and of itself is, is a brand. People know you. They, you have name recognition. Um, we don't stop buying. It doesn't matter how low the price goes. It doesn't matter if the mills close down like they did in oh eight. My family and, and Carrie and Sherry's family, that's your first, first rule. You never stop buying. You can lower your price, but you never stop buying. And even back in the pro days, you know, you, you, you don't sell unless you can make a profit. And during oh eight, we used to talk about the fact that you can't lose money if you don't sell. When you had those huge drops of 200, 300,$400 a ton. So yeah, it's a commodity and you sell it when you can make a profit or at least cover your cost. You know, I have a very different philosophy about this because our company isn't run by lawyers and accountants. I know some of the bigger companies that are, they feel differently because. Inventory is always a tough thing for accountants to understand. You know, my father used to explain li o and FIFO to me and I'm like, you know, I don't get it. You know, I just don't get it. Um, so we, we take a very basic approach to buying, which is, you know, if we can make money on it. We can add value to it because I, I very much am into adding value, then we're gonna buy it. And sometimes we'll hold if we don't like the markets, or sometimes we'll sell, but we're not gonna be forced to sell. So to be put into an inventory situation where you have to account for it, that's something that we try to really understand our customers, um, both on the buy side and the sell side. Yeah, I think, um, I'm very interested to know if you've ever run outta space. No, I mean, you know, it, it's, it's not something that we've had to deal with. I mean, I, I, I think in oh eight we came close in some commodities to running outta space. And during COVID, everybody stopped letting a ship. I mean, literally for months. Um, Toyota was the only company. That did not cancel shipments. And to, to this day, the loyalty that I have for them is amazing because everybody else was saying, you can't ship, you know, it's COVID. We, we don't have employees. Mexico was closed, which is our closest shipper. Of course, Asia was closed because they closed first. Um, and Toyota here in the US did not shut us down. They let us keep shipping. But you were still able to buy Right. During that period, there were still people delivering material, which is interesting. It was, we were in New Zealand, it was completely shut down. Yeah, no, it was very interesting that it went state by state. Mm-hmm. And so Rema, which was Isri at the time, had, uh, people that helped us keep the state open, um, because Texas didn't recognize that, um. The recycling business was a part of the critical supply chain. They, they recognized that the steel business was, but they didn't put two and two together, which is you have to have a supply in order to make the steel. So we lobbied as hard as we could to keep open. Um, our employees couldn't work virtually. You can't buy virtually. So, I mean, yes. During that time we, we kept the peddlers coming in. In fact, our peddler count I think, increased because a lot of people who, as you know, were laid off or, you know, couldn't work. They, they started gathering up scrap. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh, I think everybody found that Pedler scrap went up. Um, larger industry account volume slowed down, but in New Zealand, we were shut down completely. You weren't let out your house, so like you say, you couldn't do it. We couldn't process our stock virtually. We couldn't pack containers virtually. Um, everybody just sat at home. And you carried on paying your team obviously.'cause that was the right thing to do. And we, we paid our team and we paid our rent and we paid everything and we waited to go back into the yard. Um, crazy thing with New Zealand was one case of COVID and they shut the whole country down. It was, it was a very hard time, um, to be a metal recycler. We, we weren't, um, either allowed to operate as a metal recycler. We weren't either seen as essential. What our company did was Waste Company. So waste services were, so we quickly opened up a waste company and we put our trucks on the road to start servicing waste. And then we just collected our, um, accounts as scrap metal at the same time as collecting all their waste. Was the only way to operate in the country at the time? No. I mean, we really, I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the, the lobbyist at, at Rema and, and everybody helping us, you know, stay open. And it was also so much better on our employees because they had to have a place to go. You know, their kids were at home, their spouses were at home, and they needed to leave. They needed to have some normalcy in their lives. So it was. An incredible moment for all of us. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Becky, you talk about starting really young and being involved in the industry for so long. Um, how have you seen technology change and how are you making decisions better? What sort of data do you use now, what you weren't able to use previously? Well, the data, I think is the same. Um, it really hasn't changed for me that the, the technology. Would be, you know, this, this whole AI thing that's starting up and the importance of that technology. Um, in regards to alloys, I wanna say about 15 or 20 years ago, the mining business. Um, a bunch of the steel mills got involved in buying X-ray technology to look for low copper steel and, um. That worked for a little bit, but it wasn't perfect. Now the technology is, you know, is looking at various alloys, especially in aluminums. Um, and so shredders are great. They clean up everything. They clean the, the, the Ferris and the non Ferris, they size things. But now you have all this different alloy going into the material that you're processing. And now I think the challenge is how to identify those alloys and, uh, you know, and add value that way. And are you already implementing stuff like that or are you busy rolling that out? Yeah. Yeah. I think people have to be patient because this technology is very new and it's not been tested in the field long enough. And I mean, for instance, the AI technology that we're using now, and I've been working on this for 10 years, for over a decade, really, to try to segregate out these, these various alloys and do it in a way that you could take it out of the lab and scale it. And that's the big challenge. Yes, you can identify a different alloy with these fist size pieces coming outta the shredder. But can you do, uh, you know, 300 tons an hour? Right now the capability is still very low. And the other thing that I would add is that it's important that we develop this technology so that the, the industry, the recycling industry can grow. Start to adapt, but it's also equally important that the mills, the aluminum mills, the primaries, understand where we're at with this technology and try to meet us halfway. You know, we can upgrade the material to a certain extent. They have to be willing to take that upgraded material to that extent and develop it. They can come up with ways to melt that material. It may not be perfect. It is definitely cleaner, and then you could skip the secondaries, which is what I think the primaries are trying to do. Um, for a number of reasons. They have multiple reasons for that, but I, you know, we have got, I mean, we, we all have to be willing to grow in this system, but that includes the actual end user. I, I haven't seen a huge amount of growth by the end user. I haven't seen, it seems to be more they. Expect us to make all the change. Our industry has to spend all the money and come up with all the ways to make it cleaner, to be able to, to allow them to buy directly from us. I don't see that necessarily changing. Um, but I do see a lot of the people in our industry starting to work on these sort of projects to make sure that they're ahead of the game. Um,'cause those that get it right first are gonna benefit the most. So are you actually working on the project? Or are you using the product? Which, which one is it? Well, we collaborated with a company called Bender out of Austria, and I gave them specific goals that I wanted them to set, and we collaborated on the throughput, the types of material, the types of separations. And there's nothing proprietary about it. I mean, I want everybody to win in this. This isn't a selfish thing because the more that we can put this product out there, I think it will change the primaries and, and, and address some of their concerns. And also we have more power to say, look, this is where we can take this. You've gotta give us an upgraded price. You have to be willing to then take what we're gonna sell you and, and push it forward. So, um, I found that collaboration with the actual manufacturer of the equipment works really well. Yes, I'm the alpha, I'm the one that, that is starting it. And this is not my first rodeo when it comes to being the first that they've wanted to try, um, equipment on. I don't mind that part. And so far it's been a really great relationship. Awesome. And have you started reaching those sort of, um, volume levels yet?'cause you were saying that's obviously the hard part is scaling. Yeah. I think what happens with new technology, especially with AI technology is it doesn't go like this. What I see is it goes like this, you know, I mean, you have good days and you have bad days. Yeah, of course. And you introduce all these complex sorts to it, and it has to figure it out. And then the way that it works to separate from the other alloys is so you have a mechanical separation based on a technology brain. And so the two of those have to interface and talk. And as long as. Those things. I mean, even with Eddie Currents, you have to make adjustments. So as long as those two things are going on, you're gonna have good days, bad days, good days, bad days. I haven't seen anything take off like this, but I am so, I'm so excited for our industry and for the people that are working in it, like Ben Pope and what he's doing. And you know what? Hiro is doing with some other recycling companies. Um, you know, I think that's exciting and I think that is the direction that this particular commodity is headed to. Yeah, I think you're talking about the joint venture with Padnos, maybe. Um, it's very exciting what, what they're working on. Absolutely. I agree completely. Um. Let's talk about people for a second because you touched on your team having a place to work. How do you see, um, I guess how do you see culture? What is your idea behind keeping your team always motivated, wanting to come back? And if anybody does leave, how do you make sure you have depth in, in all the roles? Yeah. Well, I think that the main thing is we cross train. You don't just have somebody that runs an excavator. They run an excavator and a wheel loader and a magnet, and you don't just have one, uh, shredder pilot. You have two or three shredder pilots. I mean, you have to cross train. And, um, we're very lucky. Uh, we have employees that have been with us for over 20 years and it's like we've both grown up together. It, it was funny'cause when we first started, I was younger than most of the employees. Now after 36 years, I'm older than most of the employees. I've, I've not, I've not only caught up to them, I'm, I'm ahead of them now. And so it, um. It is pretty interesting. You know, I've raised, uh, a couple of generations of families and, um, I'm very proud of that. How do you, I mean, what do you instill in the team? How do you make sure that southern coy is a place people want to come back to all the time? You know, I think that, that, that people find value in work, especially if they know that, that they are the, the reason why that value's been added. They like that satisfaction and so I make sure that they know that where the material goes, you know, I mean that, that we supply the big three automakers. They like knowing those things. They like knowing that this material goes to all the way to Korea and things like that. They appreciate the hard work that both myself and. My partners show and literally being involved in things hand in hand with them, whether it's me being on the picking line or Carrie getting involved in, you know, quality control and safety. They understand that that, you know, especially after COVID, that we're just a big family and I think that's really brought it home for most of our employees. I second that, that notion of, um, when you're hands on as an owner operator, where you can jump in and do the role of so many people to help them out when you know they're overworked or whatever it might be. There's too much material or some material, some equipment's broken down, whatever it is, when you can do that, I've seen it in my own yards. Just everybody's face lights up when they realize that the owner of the company's willing to actually do what they do and they're not. You know, too good or too important to actually jump on a forklift and and go move some material around. Yeah, no, and in fact, it's funny, you know, there are times when I think it's an inverse relationship. You're only as good as your employees. Hmm. You really are. Totally agree, and, and it's about getting that known to them. When they realize that, then realize that that's how you care about them and that's how you think about them. Um, it goes a really long way to get the most out of people and have, have that team spirit where people wanna do the best possible for everybody. I like to ask the question, what is the worst. Piece of equipment you've ever bought, and you don't have to mention the brand name, the company's name, um, and what exactly went down? You know, that's a great question. Um. I try to forget the bad stuff, meaning the bad equipment that I got in, I do. I try to forget it because there's no point in belaboring it. I think right now, and this is just in general, whether it's a wheel loader, a, an excavator, the shredder, the electronics in this equipment now is just crazy. I'll go and we have a, a problem with one of our large pieces of equipment and literally the tech that you call out to send and they come in, is sitting in his truck, not for five minutes, not for 15 minutes, but 50 minutes on his computer running diagnostics. They no longer get out and get into, you know, to your equipment. Everything is, you know, they're in their air conditioned truck and these systems that they have developed, the whole death system, I mean, don't even get me started on that. Um, it, it makes no sense. It doesn't clean any better than what we had before, and the failure rate on these systems is just ridiculous. So what I figured out now is by the time you've paid for your equipment, whether it's three years or five years, you have to buy a new piece. Yeah. So you're constantly staying in debt or you're constantly having to what? The average piece of equipment's, 300,000. Now a decent forklift is 75, 80 5,000. I mean, this is not chump change. Then they come out, they do the diagnostics, and the part is in Milwaukee and there's only one of them, and then they ship the parts the wrong part. So I don't know what they expect us to do, you know, have four or five spares sitting on I, I don't know. And I don't know how these big yards do it. You know, Georgia's got hundreds of yards. I don't know if he's got, you know, a spare wheel loader or material handler. That he can just take to all these different places because I'm sure he has the same problem. I mean, this is not, it's not a person problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I mean, I, my company in side, we had 85 yards. We had our own engineering division or business. We carried as many spares as possible for this exact reason. You know, if you're down for a week or two weeks, the effect it has on your business is just absolutely drastic. So you can't actually afford to be down. So what is, I guess, what is your advice then, is it to buy equipment? The older versions with less technology that can go wrong and more simple. You know, um, systems. Now the problem with that is now they won't stock the parts. Yeah, absolutely. So then you have to custom make the parts. So I mean, you're, it's, this is something that is directed by the manufacturers. I mean, it used to be you could buy a wheel loader and it would last 25,000 hours, 30,000 hours. Easy. Yeah. And now that there, you're lucky if you get 10,000 to 12,000 hours without having a major, major problem. Yep. And I don't know the answer to it. I know it's a problem and we are constantly dealing with it. I can't tell you that Caterpillar is better than Volvo, or Volvo is better than sbo, and I can't, I can't, I can't tell you because it's throughout the whole industry. The one thing I will say is that in general. Everything that is made now is still not made for the use and the type that the recycling industry demands. It's construction equipment, you know, it's made to dig a hole. It's made to move dirt. But is it made to pick up 12, 15,000 pounds at a time of shred? Yeah. And dump it in a truck. I mean, you, you're smiling'cause you know what I mean by that? Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. That's why equipment doesn't last. We uh, we grinding it against metal every single day and uh, you need to do a lot of work on that equipment to make it last longer. Um, and that costs a lot more money. But let's, let's finish up here quickly'cause we're gonna run out of time, but I need to ask you the last few questions. So before we go quickly, who would you like to hear next on Born Scrappy? No, I think, um, hearing from people who have been in the industry and understand the challenges both today and where we were 20, 30, 40 years ago, I think is really important to the viewers because that's really how you learn is through experience. There isn't a book you can, you can buy. I mean exactly. And that's why we built this. Right. Is there an example of somebody who you think we should have on? You know, I think you've had some really great people. I think Shelly Pad knows if you could ever get ahold of her, and especially talk about what's happening in legislation, um, and, you know, sort of her family's story. That's, she's a very interesting person. Yeah, it's a great example. There's, there's a lot of, to be honest, people of my age and my gender we're few and far between, and I do think that this industry, we're gonna start seeing more women. We have to, we're half the population. Yeah. Yeah, I try promote as many as possible on the show as well. So, um, you know, I always tell everybody that if there's somebody that, you know, if there's a female that you know who's doing wonderful things, please, uh, I'd love to put them on. Um, but there's still a lot more in our next season. We start season five soon, and, um, there's a whole list of females we're gonna have on there, which we're really excited to stop promoting. Even the, the younger coming through ones that are doing some incredible things, um, it's important to, for us all to be aware of them. Becky, I just want to the viewers to get to know you a little bit better before we go. So I'm gonna ask you the last little quick fire round. What's your favorite TV series or movie? Uh, movie still is Butch Cassy and the Sundance Kid Classic. Awesome. It's my favorite movie. That's awesome. Favorite? I don't have a favorite TV show. That's okay. Favorite place to visit. I'm here. That's why I, I have a house here. That's amazing. Santa, New Mexico. New Mexico. Awesome. Favorite book. There's a book that, uh, the biography of Amelia Earhart. Amelia. Very interesting. Yes. Yeah. She must have a great story. Yeah. Awesome. Um, last thing before we go. Do you have a favorite quote? Well, I think when, um. When I was president of the Gulf Coast region, it was very interesting being Jewish. I have, I have had a lot of things taught to me from the Bible as well as from, uh, rabbis and things like that. So there's a quote that, that basically says that you're not obligated to, uh, complete the work, nor are you, uh, free to not do it. Which basically says we're all, we're all in charge of this environment. That's awesome. And, um, that retirement or whatever you move on to, you're still, you're still part of the bigger picture and you can't just divorce it. As long as you're standing up and not laying down 12 foot under, you're still responsible. So that's probably my favorite quote. I probably said it wrong too. I love it, Becky. Um, this has been lots of fun. We could have actually gone on for a few more hours. So, Becky, thanks so much for, for making the time. Thank been board scrappy. Cheers.