EXPERIENCE 130 | Keeping it in the Family with Dan Garvin, President of Colorado Iron & Metal

dan Garvin is the president of Colorado Iron and Metal, one of our region's largest metal recycling centers with locations in Fort Collins and Loveland. They accept over 60 different kinds of metal from aluminum cans to copper wire to scrap cars and appliances. This was my first time really digging into the industry and I was surprised by both the complexity of the operations and the similarities to an industry I grew up around. Grain elevators, they take in various commodities, sometimes clean it up, or blend it for max value and then sell to a very limited number of potential customers. In 1995, Kent Garvin purchased Nelson Metals in Fort Collins and renamed the business called Colorado Iron and Metal. Dan Garvin, Kent's nephew came to Fort Collins to work for a season after high school and he fell in love. Dan fell in love with metal recycling, fell in love with business, fell in love with Northern Colorado, and in 2003 he moved to Fort Collins to be a part of Kent's team with hopes of being the transition plan, but no promises. In 2014, he and his brother purchased the business from Kent and have subsequently grown the operations and team and added the second location. Unless you're already in the industry, you'll learn all about metal things in this episode, plus lessons on business and team and family and trust. So I hope you'll make time for my very interesting conversation with Dan Garvin. Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Kurt Baer, and my guest today is Dan Garvin, president of Colorado Iron and Metal. Kurt, thanks for having me. Yeah. Um, tell me what is Colorado Iron and Metal? Colorado Iron and Metal. We are the metal recyclers here in town. The, yeah, the metal recyclers. There was, uh, a company here, uh, formerly Aragon Iron Metal. Yeah. Yeah. Family owned. Uh, I wanna say they were in business 60, 70 years, something like that, if not 80 or more. I don't dunno. Yeah. Yeah. Old family. Old family, old family. Um, very nice family. Well established Covid came along and they said that was enough. Mm. They, they retired. Was it financial or more like, I don't wanna screw around with all these mandates and this and that and whatever. Probably a combination of everything. Right. Was it a slow time for your industry? Yeah. Yeah. I guess nothing's really happening as much. Right, right, right. Yeah. We, uh, we had some industrial accounts that, you know, turned over some bins, but we were working like four hours a day during then, and, and, um, Aragon called us and said, Hey, we, uh, we're closing down. Everything's for sale. Come buy what you want. Mm-hmm. That's how it worked. We didn't buy their business. I was just say, did you get the property? Because that's a pretty nice piece of property. It's a nice property. They sold that otherwise. Okay. Um, yeah, you didn't need that much more property. Had my pockets been a little deeper, maybe we would've done that. Right. You were already working four hours a day, probably not making that much. Or week. Not at all. Not at all. Yeah. Yeah. Was, uh, was like the p p p and stuff important for you guys to get through? Or did you have kind of the reserves to fit it? No. P p P was essential to us. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So that was a big good positive program for your perspective. It was, it was, it was a positive program for us. Yes. Yeah. We, we, we used the money wisely. Uh, my brother and I, uh, were partners 50 50. We did not take that money home like you raided about Yeah. Some of the headlines. Did you at least get a new boat or anything? No, no, no, no, no. So it, it went to the employees, it, it went to the intended keeping their mortgages paid Absolutely. And all that. Absolutely. Yeah. So, so tell me what. The metal recycler. What like what's that mean? Is that it's not just soda cans and stuff. You mentioned industrial accounts, that's like trimmings for manufacturing and stuff like that or, yes. All of that. All of that. So it's bags of aluminum cans, small bags of aluminum cans to semi-loads of aluminum cans. Mm-hmm. Anheuser-Busch here in town. Sure. Uh, probably one of our biggest customers. We, we haul in literally semi-loads of aluminum cans from them on a weekly, um, you know, monthly basis, like defective cans and stuff like that. Right. They're rejects. Okay. Misprints, um, you know, misfill, um, old, old supply, you know, the hay, they're changing whatever they're gonna make out there. I don't even, I don't even know how many beers they make out there. And then you like squish it into blocks, I suppose, and then sell it to whoever's got the best price on blocks of aluminum right now. Right, right. We call it bales. Uh, we make two forms of cans. You know, one's a bale running like seven to 800 pound bales. Okay. And then like a small little brick. Um, it's a 20 pound brick. It's very compact. Interesting. Yeah. It sounds more like a grain elevator kind of a business operation than I've imagined. Like a co-op type. Yeah. Well, and you, you just take in commodities mm-hmm. And you find the best price for it. Mm-hmm. And then you ship it there. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So like on a regular basis, I think we trade about different, 50 different commodities. Okay. Yeah. Um, talk about some of the other customers, like Yeah, yeah. So going back to what we are products. Yeah. So yeah, it's not just a aluminum cans, it's also copper, aluminum, stainless steel, brass iron cars. We also recycle cars. Oh, okay. Um, and, and just this afternoon, uh, a friend of the company, their daughter, Their daughter's car broke down right over here on lame and near prospect. Um, lame and prospect. We actually own our own tow truck'cause we'll, we'll go out and we'll pick up junk cars that are, you know, the people own and the car's dead. It's been in the driveway for two years. Right? Right. So we actually bought our own tow truck, um, many years ago. We dispatched our guy to go pick up. The friend of the company's car off the side of the road, we'll bring it back. We will, we'll drain all the fluids, we drain the Freon out of it, remove the gas. We take the battery out. Uh, we, we take the Cadillac converter off the bottom of the car. Um, interior. We leave the interior. Somebody else does that. Yep, yep, yep. So the shredder, the car will eventually end up at a shredder and Oh, they just burn off the interior basically or something? Probably, no, they literally shredded apart. Think of a paper shredder, but, you know, magnified by horsepower. 5,000 horsepower. Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, the car gets shredded. The steel goes one way, the aluminum goes another, and the interior goes a different direction. Really, just by like the weights of those things somehow. The sweater kind of, yeah. Yeah. The first step is magnetic. Sorting, you know, that's the easy step, right? Yeah. But then there's a series of other steps along the way, and you have one of those things. We do not have a shredder. Okay, gotcha. We do not have shredder. You ship it to the person that shred. Right. There's three down in Denver. Gotcha. If I was looking to make probably a 25,$30 million investment, then we could have a shredder. But I don't, it doesn't seem like your volume might not demand that Our volume is not there yet. Our volume's not there yet. Yeah. So, uh, so like in terms of like who does what in a team and stuff like that, is it, is it mostly just the manipulation of these materials with a lot of heavy equipment and stuff? Absolutely. Absolutely. So what, what we do is we are a processor, right? Yeah. So, so the metal comes in, we sort it. We package it. Packaging means like bailing it up. Yep. Or, or putting it in a cardboard box, uh, to ship, uh, we call'em Gaylord boxes. You put'em on a pallet. Mm-hmm. You fill it up and then we ship it off to the mill. So, so we're a, a, a processor, um, we're sorting the metal, uh, categorizing it, and then we're, we're reselling it to the mill. Hmm. Think of us as like reverse retail. Kurt, you're, you're a customer. You've got metal, right? Yeah. You've got something that you need to get rid of. You're gonna bring that to us. I'm actually gonna pay you, you're gonna leave with money. Right. So like reverse retail, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I take that product, I process it, and then I ship it to the mill. The mill pays me the whole mill. Yeah. More. Exactly. Exactly. Interesting. Yep. Yep. And then the mill just puts it in the hopper and turns it into new steel or new aluminum or whatever Exactly it is that they do. Exactly. So like, I guess the Owens Corning over there, that's a glass bottle. That's glass, not aluminum. Yep. That's a customer of ours, but theoretically. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. So mm-hmm. Even that, that you can send them if it's clear glass or maybe they take whatever thing Right. We don't do any glass. Oh, I see. Yeah. We don't do any glass. We're just metal. I take that back. We do a very little bit of cardboard. We do a very little bit of plastic. Um, we have some larger accounts, some larger customers that, um, they're like, Hey, if you want the metal, you gotta help us out with this. And disclaimer, we're not looking for any just plastics or just cardboard people. Right, right. Um, but if, hey, if you have any listeners out there on the, on your think tank here, you know, that has a, a recycling issue. Yeah. Send them my way. You, you know, a guy at least maybe I might, I might know a guy. Yep, yep. So, um, from a, from a, like revenues and standpoint and stuff like you, you, most of your money is then from these basically reprocessor types. Right. They, they're the ones that pay you, uh, for all these lumps of aluminum or lumps of iron and things like that. Absolutely. So they're your customers? Yes. And do you have a, a big spectrum of them or do you kind of only ship to a few because that's how you can get power with them? Kind of really just a few. Well, I mean, as you can imagine, there's, there's not too many aluminum refineries or, or steel mills across the country. Right, right. Um, so yeah. Uh, our, we have a limited, um, basis of consumers Yeah. That we can actually ship to. So, you know, we're. On a regular basis, we're, we're selling 50 different products to 10 different people. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. So, so the industry becomes very tight knit, right? Sure, yeah. The scrap world is not that big. Yeah. Uh, I'm involved with our trade association. Uh, I was, I was the Rocky Mountain Chapter President from 2016 to 2018, but then after that I stayed on with the national board as committee chair of various different committees. Yeah. And, and even a director at large. Um, and through that I met so many people across the industry. Interesting. It, it, it's been very valuable to us and I've really enjoyed it. And some of these people are, are my best friends now. You know, we get together on a quarterly basis. Yeah. I'm gonna see'em, I'm gonna come in contact with'em five, six times a year. Um, I'm gonna see some of these people more than I see some of my local friends here in Fort Collins. Sure, sure. Well, it seems like, um, like, because you're so geographically constrained, right? It's like, how do you capture. Not just market share, but just awareness of your services and more of the volume, keep more things out of the landfills, I assume. Mm-hmm. As part of your, your mission and the landfill's one of our customers to success. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And, uh, but just the dynamic of of just moving materials, like that's ultimately the, the equation, right? It is, it is. So, and like you said, it's geographical. I mean, there's, there's no reason that Dan here in Fort Collins, Colorado has any business doing anything down in Texas, right? Right. It's geographical, but through the network of people that I have met through our trade association and, and just various other events across our industry, um, sometimes something comes up where I've got a customer, let's say it's an oil and gas company up here and they've got a, a satellite operation in Texas or Oklahoma or some, well, I've got that network of people where I can broker a deal. Oh yeah. That is not something that I pursue. Um, I'm a firm believer in staying in your lane. You know, you do what you do, you stay in your lane. Um, and I'm not looking to stick my nose in there just to, you know, make a couple bucks off of a small deal, but it does happen. Yeah. And sometimes it makes sense Know, absolutely. Know that. Absolutely. The, the brokered parties are both very happy mm-hmm. That this new relationship is established and mm-hmm. You could maybe just a one time hookup or whatever. Right, right. There are, there are guys in our industry that are just bro, just brokers. Yeah. Yeah. So you're probably, because it's not a huge industry altogether, you know, there's might be a half dozen or a couple dozen. In each state almost. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the small states, you're probably like in the top 500 or 1000 people that know the most about your stuff in the country. Yeah. Perhaps, perhaps so. So our trade association has like 1500 members. Okay. Um, that's even worldwide, predominantly in the US here. But I'll, I'll tell you, you cross the Mississippi, you go to the east of the Mississippi, and our industry is, Way bigger back then. Mm. You know, you've got the rust belt back there. Sure. You know, and then you've got all the manufacturing plants down south and southeast. Mm-hmm. Know the, the, the car industry, the car manufacturing is, is huge in the tiny state of South Carolina. Right. You know, that makes sense. Yeah. You got BMW's Volvo, you know, they all have plants down there in all the southeast scrap and whatever. They do. They do. Absolutely. Absolutely. So our, our industry is much bigger out east than it is here on, on the west side of the Mississippi. Yeah. Um, yeah, so, so that makes sense. Geographically, we go greater distances, you know, I've got some really good, I've got some really good friends in Ohio that they don't go 20 miles from their, their facility. Right, right. I'm like, well, geez, I've, I've gone 200 miles, you know, I've pulled metal out of northern Wyoming, even, you know, touching Montana, you know, so, well, you're probably the closest. There are some along the way, but you know, again, it was, Hey, I got a customer here and they got something going on up there. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, uh, as, as we talked when, uh, when we had breakfast a few weeks ago that I was familiar with the predecessor owner, your Uncle Kent Garvin, when I was in first in town in banking, right? Yes. Yes. And, uh, so one of the things I wanna dial, delve into is that kind of transition of, of you and your brother moving out from Minnesota and stuff. But, um, before we go there, I want to just kind of like focus on iron, Colorado, iron and medal of today. You're, I think, did you tell me about 20 employees? Yes. 22. 22. 22, yep. In kind of a headquarters office that deals with all the customers and invoices, sales. Yes. Yes. So sales, we've sales got locations in Fort Collins and we're up here in Buckingham, right behind Odo. Yep. Brewery kinda by the new overpass or whatever in the May. Exactly, exactly. Yes. Yes. So you hang a left before you go over the new bridge. Yep. And then we're down there. Um, yeah, so there's 20 of us at Fort Collins and we've got a little operation in Loveland. There's two guys down in Loveland. Oh, okay. More of like a, just a convenience drop off. It, it, it is, yeah. We call it a feeder yard. Okay. You know, everything from Loveland goes up to Fort Collins. Gotcha, gotcha. Don't even sort it really, there's just a trip that everything drops in virtual. Yeah, exactly. Makes sense. Exactly. Makes, and, and we don't run any trucks outta there. Um, a big part of Colorado Iron Metal is our roll off container services. We've got over 300 bins that we place at industrial sites. Oh. Or like one-time cleanups and so forth. And are they like automated on pickups or they kind of call you, or, it depends on the customer relationship. They, they call us when they're full. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, for some kind, we have some customers that we service six days a week. Wow. And some bins that they fill'em up with metal six days a week. Wow. Yeah. Uh, is there then a Greeley competitor? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. We've got a big competitor in Greeley. Okay. Yep. Yeah. Do you talk about'em? Um, you know, they're the Anderson's Okay. Uh, Anderson Salvage over there. All right. Uh, long established family in our industry, they've been around a lot longer than the Garvin family's been around. Fair. Um, they're good operators. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They, they are a good operators. They have a shredder. Oh. Uh, earlier on I talked about a shredder is, is ultimately the processing tool, right. For our industry. So you think of a car, uh, the average car weighs, you know, 2,500, 3000 pounds. Well, about 80% of that is gonna be metal metallic. Mm-hmm. 20% is gonna be your interior plastics, your tires, the fluff Right. Coming out of it. And they've got a shredder that separates all that. Wow. So think of them as the top of the food chain. Sure. Yeah. So do you send stuff to them even sometimes, or not really? Um, not so much Greeley. Um, there's three shredders down in Denver. Yeah. Also, we do more work with the Denver guys. Fair enough. Mm-hmm. Um, and then the, the. Crew in Fort Collins. A lot of it's, like I said, kind of the, just the manipulation of materials, moving trucks around. Do you, are you on, on the train yard then? Can you fill train cars? We do not, we do not have train access. Um, train access is something that would, sounds like an I wish kind of element. Very much so. Very much so. I've got some, um, commercial real estate friends that are always keeping their eyes open for me. Fair, uh, on that regard, um, having train access would take us to a new level. Yeah. Fair enough. Yep. Yep. Would that be a situation where you would consider getting a shredder then too?'cause other people would send you stuff by Trane. Um, perhaps not a, a shredder and, and most companies don't receive via. Rail either. Oh, Uhhuh, they just ship out on a rail, right?'cause it's a retail, yeah. Ish. Yeah. Yeah. Retail and, you know, wholesale, commercial side too. Um, semi-truck, you know, when we ship to the, the shredders, we're moving five, six semi-loads a day down to these shredders via semi-truck fair. Yeah. So we've got, uh, we've got six semi-truck out on the road all day, every day. Wow. Yeah. Um, so let's, uh, I feel like, uh, you know, there's. More to be learned in the exploration of the journey. Yeah. Than in the what's up right now? So, so start from the beginning? Sure. Yeah. Or let's, uh, let's, let's, uh, let's go back to when you were just a little shaver. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, 10 years old, born and raised, Mankato, Minnesota, Southern Minnesota training camp of the Vikings. Yes. Formerly, yeah. Formerly. Oh, that's right. Yeah. They built a new plant. They built a new headquarters up in the Twin Cities. Um, but, uh, training camp days were fantastic. My, my brothers and I, we would, we would ride our bikes up, you know, to the go see Chris Carter, the campus. Yeah, yeah. Herschel Walker when he was with, uh, the Vikings for a couple of years. Um, yeah, there were some great names there, but we would ride our bikes up there with our football cards, trying to get autographs on t-shirts, cards, hats, whatever we could, some success, you know, um, some failures that, you know, may have caused tears. Like I really wanted Herschel Walkers. I really wanted his autograph and I wasn't able to get it, you know? Right. One of those things going, he signed Tommy's, but he quit signing before I could get up to the front of the line. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But, uh, training camp was cool. That was, that was always fun. And then you'd see like the Vikings players in the mall, like, oh, ju see him. Right. He's at the Orange Julius. Right, right. Randall Cunningham was just at the mall, so it was fun to see those guys around town. That's funny. Um, what were your folks doing? Um, so my mom worked for the state of Minnesota in the court system. Okay. Um, some middle management type of roles in the, in the courts and everything kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, you know, um, She always knew when, uh, one of my friends got in trouble. Right. I'm not know if I want you to hang around with Tommy anymore. Exactly. Exactly. So, so that was always fun. Um, but then, um, my dad was a salesman. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Had a couple different, uh, careers, but predominantly a, a paint salesman with Diamond Vogels. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And, and, uh, they're an Iowa based company, so the headquarters wasn't too far from there. Okay. And he would travel around to different paint stores and try to like No. To the customers. Okay. Yeah, like industrial accounts. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. Repping the product and everything, but, um, yeah. Good salesman. You know, he just had the gift of gab and, you know, people liked him. Fair. Yeah. Uh, family dynamic. You have a much older brother that you're in business with, right? Right. So I have two older brothers. Uh, I'm the youngest of three boys. My oldest brother Marty, he's in town with me here. And, and we bought out our uncle. Okay. Um, and then our middle brother, Joe, he still lives back in the Twin Cities area and, um, he sells wholesale coffee. He reps a coffee line and you know, gets'em in the stores and, and, uh, sets up the cool, the, the shelves and how they want it and everything. And I mean it, he crushes. And is he he closer to Marty or closer to you in age? He's closer to me in age. Yeah. Okay. He's three years older Okay. Than me. And then Marty is nine years older than me, so he was just, just old enough to be able to kind of whoop on you a little bit. Uh, Uh, but keep you in line. I could hold my own. Yeah. It's up Joe. Mm-hmm. But you know, it, it was, uh, growing up in Mankato was fantastic. It's Mankato iss like a smaller Fort Collins. Yeah. We got the university there. Minnesota State University. Yeah. Um, go Mavericks and uh Yeah. Surrounded by other small farm towns. Yeah. Farming especially, but Mankato, because it was both hub, university hub, total Hub, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Big hub, you know, big hub there. Uh, 50,000 people. Um, you know, just growing up playing baseball in the driveway and, you know, racing bikes and, you know, jumping bikes. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, uh, going out to the lakes in the summertime. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, something that most people don't, uh, most people haven't experienced Minnesota Lake Country. And it's fantastic. It's fantastic. Yeah. It makes those brutal winter winters worthwhile. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So good student. Uh, no, not terribly. No. No. Not, not a great student. Not a great student. I did much better in college. Um, short attention span in high school or, yeah. It was kind of one of those things where it's just like, you know, I know I can do it, but why do I have to prove it to you? And that's sad. That's really too bad. You know? But I don't know, maybe call me a cocky young kid or something like that. And there was, at least in my high school, there was some element of you were a nerd if you tried too hard at school. Yeah. Perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we grew up in that era where it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't cool. And that's terrible to say. It was too bad, but Right. Don't listen to this advice. Uh, kids at home, I was always more interested in working. I just wanted to work. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. From the time I was 15, you know, I was working every single weekend. And what were you doing? Um, I worked for a little family pizza shop. Okay. And make it a Jake Stadium pizza. Okay. It's still my favorite pizza. Awesome. Yeah. We call it Minnesota style. It's thin. I mean, it's Cracker Crust. I love it. Crispy cracker crust. And we cut it in squares. Oh yeah. And it was right up near campus. And so all the Vikings players were always coming in also. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Sadly those all the pretty girls from the university Sure. And stuff when you're a 16 year old boy, it's like Yeah, this place is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And so, um, it was great. I mean, I delivered pizzas in high school and then it was the coolest job. It was the coolest job. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh, college became, yeah. So, um, or did you I did, I did. It wasn't, I don't think we had a term for it, but I took a gap year. Okay. Actually, I took a gap semester. Alright. So I was, uh, a senior in high school. Um, it was, it was Christmas, 1999. I graduated high school in 2000. My Uncle Kent, uh, Kent Carvin, who, uh, Marty and I bought the business from, was home for Christmas. Okay. And, and said, well, what are you gonna do? I said, you know what? I want to be in business for myself. He said, really? What do you wanna do? I said, I wanna open up my own pizzeria, but I wanted to do it in this little resort lake town in northern Iowa called Clear Lake, Iowa. Yeah, it was right near Lake. Yeah, it was right near where my mom grew up. And we still have a bunch of family in Spirit Lake is right there too, right? Um, it's miles away, but you know, spirit and Okoboji, those are the big lakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Clear Lake is slightly smaller, um, but Cool. In its own right. Cool. In its own right. And still affordable. I mean, Okoboji is just not even affordable now. Is that right? Oh, absolutely. It's just insane. But um, I wanted to open up a little pizzeria on the lake. I thought that would be the coolest thing. Yeah. You know, and he is like, what are you gonna do for the seven months a year there? There's nobody there. Yeah, right. We didn't even get that far. But, um, he said, he said, Hey, you know what, um, You want to know what it's like to be in business, why don't you come work for me this summer in Colorado, you know, you can stay at my house and, you know, I'll just take you to the yard every day. And yeah, you can work, you know, and, and that's what I did. Um, the summer kind of rolled into fall. I took that gap year off and, and I just worked for him. I was on the back dock cleaning radiators, you know, taking the plastic ends off of radiators, stripping copper wire, you know, cutting copper tubing, um, you know, operating the baler, sorting aluminum, sorting copper. And I just fell in love with it. Hmm. Um, uh, and that's what they say about our industry, the metal recycling industry, is that it gets in your blood. Um, not literally, you know, because Right. It's not mer it's not mercury poisoning, although I think I have a good iron balance in, in my blood, but, um, it gets in, it gets in your blood and, and you know, you just fall in love with the industry. Yeah. And that's, and that's what happened to me. So, um, by that time, um, I'm like, well, I'm kind of over the pizza business now and my uncle. Was never married, has no kids. So Marty and I are really next of kin to him and I'm just like, Hey, I wanna make a, I wanna do this right. You know, you know Uncle Ken, let's work out a deal. I'll come work for you. I'll learn the business and someday I'll buy it from you. This is already like you're 18, 19. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. So I went back to Minnesota, um, and, uh, went to the community college there. Um, it was South Central Technical College. Now it's a full on accredited four year university, south Central College. Cool. Um, I got an associate's degree. Part of going back there, um, to go to school rather than just going to like front range here or something like that is, um, I was in the sport of curling. You know what curling is? Yeah. I, I, I, I've said before, like, curling would be my only chance to still qualify for the Olympics'cause it doesn't seem to require a lot of physical skill. So I grew, although I've never done it, so I'm pretty sure I'm never going to qualify there either. So I, I grew up with those guys that went to the Olympics, is that right? And the, um, John Schuster. Tyler George. Yeah. I've watched'em. Um, 2018 they won the gold medal. I watched that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We're all just blown away that they won it. So I grew up curling against those guys. Um, Tyler George was actually a teammate of mine at one time. Oh wow. That's my, one of my claim to fame. And they didn't have any curling out here? Not much. You know, the Denver Curling Club had an original location on Quebec. Oh, really? Kind of on the, on the west end of Denver there. Um, Pam Finch is her name, great family down in Denver. Um, she really spearheaded it and was heavily involved in the u s a curling. Oh, wow. And, and the club just went defunct, you know, the membership was down. This is the mid nineties. Yeah. Curling really wasn't a. An Olympic sport until 98 in Japan. Mm-hmm. But, um, they lost their club, but then the early two thousands, you know, you have the, the Olympics in Salt Lake and curling is catching on across the country. You know, it's starting to grow over time. Um, yeah. Circle me this, when are you getting outta high school In, I graduated high school in 2000. Okay. And so then my junior career, my junior curling career was, uh, late nineties to 2003. Okay. Junior curling is 21 and under. Right. Okay. So I was still eligible and um, again, I was competing against those guys, you know, it was, it was my team from Southern Minnesota versus those guys from Northern Minnesota. From Right. From the Iron Range. Right, right. Yeah. From way up there like Hibbing and Chisholm, where it's always frozen. It is always frozen up there. Yes, exactly. And so, um, we were always competing against those two for it. It was my team and their team for the state championship for the Minnesota Junior State Championship. And so I didn't want to give up curling just yet. Yeah, yeah. Um, The Olympics was like maybe a small little dream that I had. Yeah. Yeah. I never got real serious about, you know, pursuing it. Um, again, did you make any money curling? You know, funny we did. If you won you'd win a hundred bucks or something. Kind of. Yeah, there was some cash spiels, like the, the Duluth cash spiel, the, the, um, St. Paul Cash bill. I think one year our team netted maybe like, I shouldn't say net, we gross like five grand in like earnings. Yeah. Yeah. But we among, but yeah, we six people or 10 people? Four. Four. But you know, like we, we spent out in like 10, 15 grand and we spent, you know, for, for entry fees and hotels and so forth. Right. But curling was, it's a great social sport. We had a a lot of fun, you know, going to those tournaments over the weekends for sure. And they became lifelong friends and so forth. That's awesome. But, um, curling in Denver then picked up in the early 2000, mid 2000. There's now two curling clubs down there. Uh, there's one in Denver, the Denver Curling Club. And then, um, there's a new one called Rock Creek. You know the Stevenson family down in Denver, like the Stevenson car dealerships? Yep. Yep. Stevens Chevrolet, Lexus. Right, right, right. So one of the brothers, one of the Stevenson brothers, Scott Stevenson got really into it. Scott and his son, Sean Stevenson. Um, Scott is the brother to Kent Stevenson, who, who runs the cardio dealership. Kinda the patriarch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the, the face He's in all the commercials and everything. Yeah. Scott Stevenson got really into it and he says, you know what, I like this. I want to help this sport here in Colorado. He put up his own money for the Denver Curling Club. Oh, wow. They paid him back. They're a 5 0 1 C six, I think is their official. Okay. Um, but, uh, couple years of that and the curling club in Denver was successful. Scott said, you know what, I'm gonna turn this into a business. He opened up the Rock Creek one here in Lafayette and, uh, much closer to my house. Okay. Than, than the Denver one is. You know, Denver's an hour and a half away. Yeah. Rock Creek is like 45 minutes away, so I need to get back into that. And this is like a top golf almost, where you just go and curl? Yeah, kind of. I mean, it's like a league. Like you gotta, you gotta one, you gotta become a, a member, join the club, and then you gotta pay for dues. And it's not just like going to bowling alley. Yeah. You can't just show up. Um, they may have some drop-in hours, but it's not really like that, but it's like, it's more of like a bowling league, you know, you're like, you're gonna do this like 30 weeks outta the year or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Um, but, uh, Scott made a for-profit business outta the curling, um, curling arena, which is absolutely un unfair and it actually makes profit. I don't know that, but um, yeah, it's still open. Yeah, fair enough. He's also got Stevenson money. Right, right. So yeah, who knows? I think he's got a long runway there. Right. Yeah. Of, of operating. So for listeners that have no idea of curling, Uh, tell me like some of the, you know, it looks like shuffleboard, but with brooms, shuffleboard on ice and big boy rocks or whatever. Sure. The rock raised 42 pounds. It, it's shuffleboard on ice. You deliver the stone, you push it off. Um, you know, the, the sweeping is to carry the rock farther. Okay. It doesn't make it go faster. It just polishes, it takes away friction. Yeah. Right, right, right. It creates even a little friction on there. It warms the ice up just slightly. Mm-hmm. You know, so that the rock can carry's a tiny bit closer to the melting point Yeah. Before the rock gets there and the pressure of the rock probably. Yeah. All of that, all those physics things. Okay. That, you know, I slipped and it doesn't turn it, the, the, the correct actually, by sweeping it, it can slow it down. It can slow it down. Slow the turn down or slow. Slow the, slow the turn down. Yeah. Slow the curl. Right. You know, the curling comes from because there's less friction. Uh, so that the, like a pool ball. Yeah. It can't turn without friction and sort the same with a stone. Okay. Yep. All of that. All of that. So, um, but that is part of the throwing technique, right? Like you can kind of spin it and you get it tucked in behind somewhere. Hide it. Yep, yep. You have to put a spin on it. You have to put a spin just like shuffleboard kind of to do it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And so, um, what to what you alluded to earlier, you know, it's, it's one of those sports where it's like, The average white guy, you know, could maybe have a shot at the Olympics. Yeah. Or black guy. Yeah. Or, or anybody. Yeah. Lady. Absolutely. Even like Absolutely. There isn't really any physical prowess necessarily. No, no. There's some endurance. There's definitely to get Oh.'cause do a 42 pound thing, you gotta be able to carry it around and launch it. You don't carry'em. Yeah. Okay. You just slide it on the ice. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And the rocks always stay like the bowling alley, you know, the rocks are there, just like the bowling balls are, are always there. Yeah. Well, yeah, but you, you slide it right from the ice though. You what I mean from the ice, actually.'cause of the bowling ball. You gotta pick it up out of the true, true. And then you whatever, throw it down the lane. Yep. Interesting. Okay. Well, so, well you, you look like a, you know, very capable of a, of a more athletically required support should you have chosen. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, so I, I did junior curling. I finished up college at the same time. I, I graduated college on a Wednesday, moved to Colorado on a Friday and started working for my uncle on Monday. Good morning. You know, and no, no real plan except for I'm gonna learn enough about this that Kent feels comfortable to sell me or me and Marty. Right, right. So I moved out in 2003 and it, it, it was just me at that point. Um, Kent had bought the business in 1995 Okay. From a, a family friend of his, his name was Scott Nelson. Scott was originally from Minnesota also. Oh. Um, so even rewinding all the way back to the seventies, Scott was a friend of my grandfather. Oh, wow. Kent's dad. My grandfather, Kent's dad owned a beer distributor ship in Mankato, sold Ham's beer, Garvin Distributing, had Ham's beer. They had a couple other, um, smaller labels, but Ham Hams was the flagship. The beer refreshing. Yeah. Yeah. The land of the sky Blue waters and the Hams Bear and, and all that good stuff. My dad's still got some old neon signs that are, you know, pretty cool and worth a couple bucks too. Yeah. Yeah. My grandfather unexpectedly dies. He's 51 years old, he unexpectedly dies. Um, my grandmother is more or less forced to sell the, the beer distributorship. But in that, before he died, Scott wanted my grandfather to move to Colorado here, um, specifically Northern Colorado and getting to the, get into the vending machine business. Okay, so Scott, Scott, my grandfather dies, and then Scott sells his beer distribu ship and says, I'm gonna do this. Life is short. I'm moving to Colorado. Wow. I'm moving my family out here. Scott puts the first Pac-Man machine in a bar in Fort Collins. Oh, wow. I don't know what bar it was back then. Uh, you know, this is mid to late seventies here. So not vending machines per se, but the video games, all the above. He was doing candy machines, pop machines, cigarette, cigarette machines, probably back then. Yeah. If you put a Exactly. Probably, yeah. You put a quarter in it, you know, that's what he's interested in. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's interested in the quarter business. Right, right. And so, um, so he puts the first Pacman machine in a bar in Fort Collins. The owner of the bar calls him an hour later, says, come get it. It's broken. So Scott goes down there, checks it out and everything. Scott opens it up and he says, Hey, this isn't broken. It's full of quarters. You gotta empty this thing out. Yeah. So funny story. Um, Scott was a, do you know where it was? I don't know. I don't know. I, I'll have to ask Scott. Um, I still know Scott and, and, uh, he lives in Las Vegas now. Um, but, um, I can only imagine having, like, I remember when I was in say, junior high, you know, before I could really drive a lot or have much to do, we would go play video games a lot, you know? Oh yeah. You know, sometimes I'd spend five, 10 bucks at the arcade or more, and, and they were full. Like if you were the owner of those things in the days when they were busy, Yeah. And that had to have been a pretty sweet business, actually. Right? Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, um, so Scott was an entrepreneur. He, um, he sold that vending machine. He owned a couple different other businesses, came across as metals business. Okay. Um, the, the business originally started off as Liss Metals, Irv Liss Metals, um, and he was back here near the Air Park at that time. Um, Irv moved the business up to Mulberry 1400 East Mulberry, which is right between supermarket liquors. Oh yeah. And Link Lane. Yeah. Um, and, and that's where he, um, uh, he changed the name to Nelson Metals. He sold new steel. He had, uh, the scrap metal recycling, but then he was also in the, the document destruction, paper shredding business. Oh yeah. Actually, uh, in my banking career I was with, uh, uh, professional document management was one of my customers, so Sure. I've Larry and those guys and grinding papers up and whatever. Right, right. Yeah. Not quite 5,000 horsepower, but pretty high horsepower rig. Yeah. Yeah, still pretty cool. Um, and, and so, um, my uncle at that time, uh, wanted to get out of Minnesota and um, Scott was moving on to Vegas. Okay. He was moving even, even farther west onto the new frontier for him. And, um, called up, my uncle said, Hey, come buy this thing from me. You know, it wasn't much, it came with like one and a half employees, right. Like a broken down truck. Um, you know, we do more today than he did, you know, in that, uh, we do more every week, every day, almost every week than he did in that first year. Sure. So, so, uh, my uncle bought out Nelson Metals in, in June of 95, changed it to Colorado iron and metal, and 1995 was a good time to get into the commodities business. Mm-hmm. Um, copper was making a, um, well, and the stock markets were crushing about then in the late nineties and stuff. Values of commodities were all growing up, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, really the thing specifically for, for our industry was China was coming of age. Oh, yes. And so, um, in the early two thousands when I entered the business, you know, the, the whole business plan for our industry was just put it in a container and export it to China and they'll pay you top dollar. Right? Yeah. And, and so slam dunk, well that carried on until, you know, like 20 11, 20 12, and China said, Hey, wait a minute. We've got some bad players here. We're cutting off and making, you know, imports more restrictive and everything. But, uh, you know, from, from 2003 when I started till, um, 20, Um, 2014 when we, we bought, uh, Kent. I mean, it was, it was great. Um, really, really good commodity crisis. Straightforward. Yeah. So I moved out in 2003, Memorial Weekend of 2003. Um, the business was growing like crazy, but that also coincided with the growth of Fort Collins. I mean Sure. Nineties and early, there was more stuff happening. Absolutely, absolutely. So, I mean, the town was taking off. It's not so much that, oh, the Garvins and Colorado Iron, the metal, you know, are such gr great business people. We've just grown with the town. Yeah. Well and like Aragon had been around for 50 years already and stuff. Mm-hmm. Like, do you attribute like your location or visibility or even the name and brand as being part of that contributor to growth? Yeah. Yeah. I think all of that or all the above? All the above. All the above. I think also hustling. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Just getting out there and shaking the bushes, um, calling people back, you know. Yeah. How many times have people ask you, what's this, the secret, you know, to your business? You know what? I call my customers back, you know, the phone rings. I answer it. Yeah. You know, and I do what I say I'm gonna do. You know, people can really make business out to be really complicated. Yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes just start with the basics, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's good advice actually. Yeah. Yeah. So what were you doing for Kent? Were you still doing tearing things apart and stuff? I was mostly, yeah, I was mostly working in the yard learning a lot of the different aspects of the business. Um, so when Kent took over, he had really three primary divisions. He had new steel sales. Mm-hmm. Which, um, do you still do that? We don't. I'll, I'll finish the, the three divisions. Yeah. Yeah. So new steel sales fabrication, and then scrap metal recycling. Oh. Um, my heart was always in the, the scrap metal recycling. Yeah. Um, so come 2008, Kent actually spins off the new steel sales division. Oh. And that becomes metal distributors. And that is still at 1400 e small bear. Yeah. Yeah. He changed the color of the sign out front, but still left the iron and metal up there. Yeah. It's still kind of, it's a little confusing to, you know, customers come by. And that's not your business. That is not our business. Ken. He sold it to somebody else, or Ken? Yep. Kent sold that off to the, the guy that was running it for him. Okay. That division. So what was three divisions to Colorado? Iron and Metal became three different businesses. And what was the fabrication business? Yes. So that is now called Colorado Metal Manufacturing. Oh. We actually share the building with them on Buckingham. I see. But we are separate businesses. Interesting. Mm-hmm. It's kind of convoluted. And is that contract manufacturing or do they They're a lot one-off. They're a lot of one-off specialty little custom things. Mm-hmm. Exactly. And weld this, fix this. Yeah. Yeah. So much. Um, less of the fix this, but hey, you know, I need to, you know, you need to make this for me. Yeah. Interesting. So one-off like industrial manufacturing. Okay. Interesting. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Are you glad you don't have to deal with new steel sales and other, or, I am, I am. I never had the heart for the new steel. Uh, it wasn't exciting to me in fabrication. I don't know how to weld, so, you know, therefore I should not be in the fabrication business. I'm confident you could figure it out, but perhaps, perhaps if you wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. That's the challenge. So, so, you know, um, the scrap, scrap metal businesses was always way cooler than me.'cause we get to use big toys, you know. Fair. We got big Caterpillar grapples in there. We own six semi trucks. You know, we got a bunch of trucks, um, you know, containers and we're wrecking and breaking stuff, you know, fabrication, you mess up halfway through the projects and that whole thing could just be shocked. Yeah. You know, on the scrap side, it's my job to wreck it. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. So, um, What was like the evolution of your jobs along this way? When did you start getting into the office with Kent? When did you start talking? What did you say You acquired in 2014? So this is 11 years, right? Yeah, 11 years. And it was mostly 11 years, you know, out in the yard learning the actual physical, you know, side of the business, the operation side of it, working with the guys. I also have my Class A driver's license. Okay. So I did a lot of trucks, running trucks. I was running trucks, hauling loads to Denver myself. Um, I haven't been in the semi-truck, you know, I get in the truck maybe once every three or four months. Yeah. You know, and just do a quick little run. Well, I got that, uh, uh, especially as you're like this relatively young kid taking the reins of this relatively well evolved or long evolved business that you'd been there in the trenches with those guys probably made a big difference. For sure. For sure. And of the 20 guys, there's four or five of'em. They're still today that were with me back then. Yeah. You know, there's 20 plus year employees in there, so Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, so I mean, I've grown up with those guys and, you know, worked their hand in hand with them, but as, as far as like, you know, what, um, the, um, the mentoring that, that Kent did, you know, it was, um, it was a, it was a long leash. I mean, he, you know, had his thumb on, you know, some of the financial aspects of it, but as far as what the operations were, you know, I mean, like, he let me run with it, do whatever he wanted. Absolutely. I mean, absolutely, absolutely. As long as you can make it better, faster, smarter. Yeah. And, and getting involved with the trade association, meeting new people. I said, Hey Ken, I think we need to start selling to this guy, you know? Or, or sell this product to this person over here and ship it over there. Yeah. Or there's a whole new product we can start taking in here.'cause this company and this company both create that waste stream that we could move. Right. Whatever that is. Right, right. Interesting. So, so, you know, doing the operations, the, the business is growing. We're having, we're having a hard time finding, you know, good help and everything. Um, and uh, I said to Ken, I said, I need some help. I need, I need some help up here on the top end. Um, and uh, at that same time, my brother Marty was looking to change careers as well. He was still back in, in Minnesota. Okay. And, uh, he had two young children at that time and I said, you know what, let's bring him out here. And, you know, Kent made the call and, and uh, in 2007, Marty moved his, his family out here and Okay. Joined the operations again, just on trust. Like there was no promise. Yeah. No contract, no option to buy. Nothing like that yet. No, not then. Not then, you know, so he moved up. But an idea of it sounds like Sure, sure. Yeah. In, in theory, um, Yes, in, in theory, you know, it was there in in place and yeah, I guess Marty and I had had nothing. But, you know, Kent's just verbal trust that yeah, you know, hey, we're gonna do this. So Marty moves out in 2007, then 2008 comes around. Oh, right. And uh, was that hard? It was hard. It was hard. But you know, the thing about the metal recycling industry is that, um, Yeah. Even right now, present day occurred is like, we felt the crunch on commodity prices a couple months ago. You know, so we're a, we're an early indicator mm-hmm. Of perhaps at a recession to come. Yeah. You know, here we are in, in 2023 and, and the fed's raising rates. Yeah. I've been shocked to see like fertilizer prices and steel prices and stuff coming down like it has Right. Everything has come down. Yes. Everything has come down, which tells me that demand must be off from expectations. Correct. Correct. You know, the steel mills, you know, they wanna publish that. They're six to seven weeks out on delivery, but the truth is, you know, they're like three or four weeks out Right. On their lead times. That's not, that's not a great order book. Right, right. Yeah. They don't have a lot of orders if they're pumping it out that quickly. And so again, we are really an early indicator of, you know, uh, perhaps a recession on, on the future. But we've also been dealing with this, you know, since, um, the beginning of Q three. Um, Well, that's not very long. Um, all year we've been watching commodity prices come down. Yeah. I, I should say it that way. You know, all of 2023 commodity prices have slowly been, been trickling down. So, I mean, that tells me, Hey, we might even be halfway through this, whatever recession we have, you know? Right, right. On the horizon. Whether it's a soft landing or, or just, you know, some kind of blurp or whatever. In comparison, what's 2008 look like? 2008 we got hit hard and we got hit hard quickly. Mm. You know, September, everything started unraveling. Yeah. No construction. Yeah. Yeah. Happening only if the, only, if the shovels were already in the ground. Right. Yeah. Um, no new projects rather. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, q we had a great first half of 2008. Great. First half. Mm-hmm. Um, Q three things started to slow. Q four. There was nothing. There was nothing going on. Uh, in Q four Q one, it slowly picked up by Q two, we were really coming out of it. Hmm. And, and mostly because China was hosting the Summer Olympics. Mm. Um, you know, in 2010. Yeah. And they needed all the steel they could get to build all the infrastructure that they needed. All those new stadiums, the, the Bird's Nest. Isn't that where Michael Phelps won all those medals? Right. Yep. You know, they still had to build that. So, so we came out of it, you know, second half of 2009 we were back in the black. Huh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So we came out of it really quickly and, and that's really what happens with commodities. You know, I've gone through a couple of these cycles and that we get hit hard in the beginning and then, you know, we're coming out of it. Whereas some other sectors may just be going into a Yep. That makes sense. Yeah. Well, I was lucky for you. I mean, uh, that kind of off the. Off the cuff demand because the other things that, I hear you talking about the construction industries of various types and copper stripping and,'cause there wasn't hardly anybody laying copper wire, you know, and having leftovers or things like that around here. Not a ton of it. Yeah, not a ton of it. So, yeah, so, you know, shortly after the, you know, the 2008, the Great Recession, you know, we had a couple good years, you know, right after that. But then we had another lag in the commodities, you know? Yeah. From like 14, you know, 14 through 17, you know, was a couple of years of. And so when you started talking seriously about buying the business from Kent, uh, when was that and Yeah. What did that look like? So, in 2009, um, he, he sold us on, on, he carried it for us. Um, but Marty and I each bought in 10%. Oh, okay. From him in 2009. Yep. You know, through, through his accountant, you know, he said, Hey, if you're gonna do this, yeah. This now's a good time, right. Sales are off, you know? Yep. We can lower that number. Yeah. This will look good. Make it affordable for Dan and Marty. Yep. Um, so he had enough wealth accrued, kind of, it was more about avoiding taxation Exactly. For you guys then it was about maximizing his sale value. Yep. Yep. You know, the game, you know the game. So then, um, so from oh nine to, you know, 2013, you know, we just, Marty and I each had that 10% and, you know, minority, um, no, no. Say it all, but skin in the game. But some skin in the game. Exactly, exactly. Those first, those years where I. Where I own 10% of the company. You know what I learned, Kurt? I just paid a lot more in taxes. Right. Yeah. That was the benefit. I wasn't taking any more money home. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's kind of the name of the game in your business, I imagine, is. Like the more working capital you can have at play, the more product you can take in and stuff. But that also means not distributing every dollar of profit. For sure. For sure. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, Marty and I still aren't at the point where we're taking it all home. Right. Yeah. I don't know if that day will ever come. I mean, long as you're still growing, maybe not. Right. We just bought a new Caterpillar grapple to the tune of a half a million dollars. Right. You know, I mean like that's a lot of cash. Right? That's a lot of cash. Well, and that asset will probably stay that value forever virtually, as long as you maintain it and you'll get to write off that half million dollars in depreciation over time. The depreciation is nice. So that's the tax benefit of actually investing. Right. And we're gonna get a good 10 years out of this machine, so, right. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I'm probably not wear proof, but No, no, not at all. But it's funny, like my dad's a farmer and like tractors that he bought in like, I guess my early college years. So like the, the mid nineties? Mm-hmm. For 30 grand. Yeah. Worth like 50 grand a day.'cause the, the alternative of a new tractor is like 130 Correct. Or whatever. And so well-functioning older rigs, you know, they're just crazy. Absolutely. And the same can be said about our semi-truck. You know, there's so many emissions on these new right, on these new diesel engines that the new ones, people one, are scrambling to buy. The old ones that don't have that required, they're, they are, these new ones are not fun to operate. And the same thing goes with these caterpillar grapples that we're operating now. You know, they have a diesel engine in there. Yeah. The depth, those depth things and stuff. Yeah. And you're on tier four emissions and Yeah. It's, they're, it's a lot of headaches. How much do you think that kind of regulatory rectangles, uh, costs you or changes the way you. Do operations, is it just constricted to like the semis and stuff like that? Or are there a lot of things for your industry? Yeah. So if we don't have that heavy equipment, we can't operate. Right. You know, so when one machine goes down and we're using the backup, you know, our operations are gonna suffer. Um hmm. So it's not really about the cost as much as it is about the, uh, functionality and just Yeah, dependability. Lost time. Lost time, yeah. Um, we are at the point now where we need to start looking for our full-time in-house diesel mechanic, you know, to try and lower those costs. I mean, we've got, uh, a couple mechanics that we use around, um, around town and, you know, we've got, I shouldn't even say it, but I think our, I think our maintenance. Uh, our little category on our p and l last month was, you know, well over 50 grand. Whew. Yeah. And just, you know, maintenance repair costs. Wow. Yeah. So you run the snot out of those things. We run the snot outta him. That was a special product. And when we bought the business from Kent in, in 2014, we bought a lot of old equipment from him and from 2014 to present, day 2023, we are working on. We're working on aging, that stuff freshening up the lineup. Absolutely. Yeah. In that time though, we did buy some other used equipment. Well, this year we had finally had enough and we said, no more used equipment if we need it. We are buying new, you know, I mean, why is someone else selling used equipment? It's because they have a problem with it. I don't want to buy anyone else's problems anymore. Yeah. Yeah. It happens. Yeah. So you guys own this 20% for a few years, and then was it, was it clean slate? Did you get a, did Kent carry the whole big purchase or did you get an s b a loan or how did you No, he carried us. He still carried us. And then, um, still paying it a little bit, right. From 14 to 18, we, um, Marty and I each owned 40%, and then Kent owned 20%. Okay. Um, and, and really it, it came to the point where like, hey, He realized that he was holding us back and, and growing the business. We've got different goals than you do. Absolutely. He wants to be super safe. Yeah. Because that's a big, you know, a chunk of his wealth. Yep, yep. And then, and then, um, you know, 2018, he, he wanted to go do something else entirely even. And, um, you know, he came to us and says, Hey, you bring me this, I'll lower the note and, you know, we'll part ways and, you know, YouTube will be 50 50 and I'll be outta here. And, and so that happened in 2018 and, and um, you know, it was a good time. And how is he keeping himself busy these days? He's really just retired. Yeah. Yeah. He's just retired so. Yeah. He still looks after his grand golf grandkids? No, no, no, no. Grandkids.'cause he didn't have any kids. Oh yeah, he does. Yep. But he still looks after his mother. His mother. My grandmother is Oh wow. 94 years old. Oh wow. And he still looks after her and Yeah. Yeah. He's involved with this church and he does some things. Plenty of things. Keeping him busy. Yeah. So, um, how's that 50 50 thing, uh, you and Marty? Is that, uh, it works out well. Marty and I work together well. Um, so there's three boys in our family. Marty and I are more alike than the middle brother. Sure. Um, Joe. Joe, exactly. Good memory. Yeah, so, so, you know, Joe, he, he does his thing and, and then Marty and I are more aligned in, in how we think. Here's the complicated part though, Kurt, is that Marty's nine years older than me, right? I'm 41. He just turned 50. You know, he's at the point where like, hey, kids are in college, right? You know, I wanna start taking some money out. Which he, which he's earned reasonable, he, he deserves, is reasonable, right? I want to keep the money in the business, you know? Right. I, I want to grow the footprint, you know, expand north and do some other things, right? And he's just like, Hey, wait a minute, pump the brake. So we have to massage that and, and figure out where we really want to go. What's our five year, what's our 10 year plan look like? Well, and you know, not offering solutions yet, but potentially that could look like you becoming an increasing level of ownership because perhaps some part of his cash flow comes from selling interest. Uh, which is good for him and good for you, kind of, and allows you still that opportunity to grow. Right. Right. So he's his youngest son. Um, Luke, um, may or may not be interested in the business. Mm. Um, if he is. Great. So that's a, that's a complication. It could be. Yeah, it could be. Yeah. I don't think, I don't know if Marty and Luke have ever even talked about it. Right. Yeah. Um, so, and how about you? Do you have kids? I've got a daughter. Okay. Yeah, she's seven Blake. Okay. Yep. And who knows? We'll see more potentials. You're not resisting it, but we'll see. No, no, no, no. There's more and more women in our industry all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and you know, that's a, that's a great thing. Um, we'll see, you know, she's seven. That's a long ways away. You can't really hit her up yet. Yeah. Yeah. But the way I feel right now is like, I don't wanna sell, you know? Right. It sounds like you got at least 10, maybe 15 year more, more years of growing it at minimum in your mind. At minimum. I mean, I can't golf every day. Right. You know? What would you like if you were going to have a steady growth pace for,'cause I, you made like a Mercury 100 list or something like that. Right. We've been on the Mercury list a couple of times. Yeah. You know the funny thing about our business though is hey, We do this, it's a roller coaster for us. You know what our gross sales look like, um, because it's commodity based. Right. And I can't control that. Right. You know, copper could be$4 a pound this year. It could be two 50 next year. You know, I just have to, I just have to go with the flow. But yes, we had, uh, we were on the Mercury 100, I think we grew it like a hundred percent or something like that. Oh, wow. So it was a big jump, which is like 40% real growth and 60%. Like prices were just higher Inated Yeah. Of stuff. Yeah. We, we, we, we get that nice whip, right. You know, from, from commodity prices. Right. It's just like when, you know, corn was brief like$7. Mm-hmm. Uh, back in like the 2012 when it's normally three bucks or two 50 or two 12. Exactly. You know, and then all of a sudden boom, you know? Yes. I, yeah. Made a lot of revenues, but my costs were also super high'cause fertilizer was this and all that. Yeah. And, and diesel fuel was, you know, five bucks a gallon. Right. Yeah. Same thing. Same thing. Yeah. That's probably a thorn in your side. I mean, historically diesel was always cheaper than gasoline. Is it refining capacity? Do you know about that story? Well, what's the big refinery down in here in Denver and conversation. Yeah. Sunco or something like that. Yes. Yep. You know, they were shut down all winter. Oh yeah. Yeah. So they were shut down. So, I mean, Diesel fuel here in the Rocky Mountains was way more expensive, way higher than that, than the national average. I was just back in the Midwest and it was actually, there was some places where the diesel was cheaper, right, yeah. Than the, the mid grade, at least. So the refinery down there in Commerce City has been shut down. And, you know, that has been a wrench in our site for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like our diesel fuel, you know, on our p and l I mean, that's, it's almost 20 grand a month and just diesel fuel, right? Yeah. So tell me about the, the, the, like what's it take to really run, aside from just the volume of materials, but what are the things, the controllables, if you will, not the market factors, but the controllables with staff or with efficiencies, like what makes it really work good? Right, so, Knock on wood. We've got a great staff with us. Um, as I mentioned earlier, we've got a handful of people that have been with us for like 20 plus years. Yeah. You know, and so don't have to do much training there. No, no. So, well, everyone else is talking about, you know, workforce issues that they have. Colorado Iron Metal really does not have that issue. Exactly. We've got a couple of multi-generational families and their Oh, cool. You know, father Sons that, that work for us, and that's pretty special. Um, so yeah, our day is coming though, where we are gonna have those workforce issues. Uh, each year. Our staff's getting one year older. Right. Um, you know, these guys started with us, you know, in, in their prime and you know, now they're, yeah. You know, maybe in the fall that dedicated, loyal. 22 year old worker is gonna eventually transition to a fresh-faced guy that doesn't know us much, but thinks you need to pay him more. Uh huh Yeah. That day is coming. That day is coming. You know, and along with that too is our insurance premium keeps going up. Mm. You know, when we hired these guys, they were young, healthy guys. Well, as you get older things happen. Sure, yeah. You know, things outside of your control happen and, and so then that health insurance premium keeps going up on us too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well then that's kind of a, I mean, that, that kind of ageism element, uh, you know, Mr. Market kind of decides and, and in that circumstance, you know, if you've got that 55 year old that brings the same skillset but needs more paycheck because they've been there for a long time and their insurance costs twice or three or four times as much as that youngster, it starts to, you know, you, you can say all you want about. A age shouldn't be a factor in this employment, but if it costs me a lot more Right. I have to. Right. You know? Right. And, and hopefully they make that decision, uh, for me as to whether or not they can get up. They still wanna go. Yeah. And they can get up every day and, you know, continue to do this job.'cause it's hot. I mean, it's, you know, a hundred degrees out there today. Yeah. You know, and, and these guys are, are working hard out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, the operations game is, um, um, you gotta be present. Mm. You gotta be present there with them, as you said, return the calls. Yeah. Interact for the customers. Yeah. Yeah. They're, but, but also working side by side with, with everybody at the shop too. Um, you've never been to our offices before. You'll have to come check'em out. I've dropped off some metal actually at your Buckingham place. Perfect. Next time, you know, say hi and you know, we'll let you behind the scenes. But anyway. Uh, I work in a cubicle right on the floor with everybody else. Oh, wow. Yeah. Marty and I are in a cubicle space. We're right next to each other. We got another guy in a cubicle from, uh, across from us. We got our, our, our bookkeeper controller. She's in an office, but her doors are always open. She hears every phone call. Yeah. You know, conversation that we make. Yeah. Yeah. And then our scale, uh, our, our, our, our scale master slash cashier, she's within an earshot of us all, and so we are all right there, right on the floor. Yeah. You know, we hear every single conversation so that, hey, some, we may pick something up that. I know about that, you know, let me chime in on that. Yeah. You know, so it's interesting. Again, reminds me of like a grain elevator in my, you know, home Midwest region of just, you know, there's people that do this and that, but the scale's right there. That's the kind of center of activity. Yep, yep. You know, so, so, uh, I, I carry the title of, of president. I'm certain I'm no, c e o, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm one of them as well. Yeah. Fair enough. Uh, how do you guys structure your, like hierarchy? Do you have like an operations manager then that reports to you and people report to that person or No? The, the third person that shares the cubicles with, with Marty and I. Um, we call him like a, a supervisor. Okay. Uh, type of role. Um, but Marty and I are still handed on the operation side of it. Gotcha. You know? Gotcha. He or I are there almost every single day. Kind of the HQ functions kind of report to you guys. Absolutely. And then that field man is a bit of a buffer, but anybody come and talk to you whenever. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Marty and I divvy up our responsibilities in that. He's more on the maintenance side. He's got a very mechanical aptitude to him. Mm-hmm. Um, he's really good with the maintenance and, you know, um, when equipment goes down, um, he handles a handful of accounts. Um, he handles some really big ones. Um, I mentioned earlier Anheuser-Busch, you know. Sure. He, he handles them, you know, he's on the phone with somebody out there at the brewery, you know, four days a week, I'm sure. Yep. Um, I, I probably handle, um, a, a greater. Um, mass of number of accounts, number of the accounts. Um, but you know, there isn't a whole lot of checking in that goes on with them. Um, I sell a lot of the material, you know, I'll set the prices at the scale, so I'll buy and sell. Mm-hmm. A lot of the material. Oh, I suppose that's part of, it's an arbitrage game ultimately. Right? Right, right. Exactly. I dunno how much you can sell it for before you know how much you can pay for it. Monday mornings, you know, the mills start, you know, sending their pricing in and um, you know, I'm adjusting prices and you know, oh shit, we're way too high in aluminum right now, or whatever. Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, so that's how we tell. I work a lot, you know, with our bookkeeper controller, um, on the back house, you know, responsibilities. Um, but yeah, Marty and I both know of 99% of everything going on around the yard. Yeah. Do you keep track of things like, oh, our gross margin on copper this year is lousy compared to tin or iron or whatever, and like manage it in that fashion as well? A little bit. Somewhat. Somewhat. So, so we, we, we really break the categories down into two categories. You got Ferris, which is gonna be your iron Mm. Your iron side and, and steel side versus non Ferris, which is gonna be your copper aluminums brass, yeah. Um, stainlesses. So yeah, we're, we're, we keep an eye on the margin of the Ferris versus non Ferris. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. And they kind of run in packs together otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. More or less. Um, we don't really break it down like, you know, copper versus aluminum. We probably work on a tighter margin on copper. Um,'cause copper's the sexy metal, right? Yeah. That's the attractive one. You know, like we will, we will get our customers that call around, what are you paying on copper? Well, Denver's paying this. Okay, well I, maybe I can come up to this. I can't match what Denver's gonna pay you, but neither do you wanna haul it all the way down to Denver and they don't. Yeah. And, and for the guy that says, well yeah, I am gonna haul my a hundred pounds of, of copper down to Denver for an extra 10 cents. I tell'em, enjoy the ride. Right. Because you're crazy. Because you're crazy. Time is money and it, not everybody understands that. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Not everybody understands that. Yeah. So if you keep growing, what, like you mentioned, the north facility, like, like Wellington or something to try to capture Wyoming market or what are you talking? I would like to go directly into Wyoming. Oh, yeah, yeah. Go right into Cheyenne. Yeah. Maybe someday, Laramie. I just don't know if the population or the industry is in Laramie Right. To make that. Well, and with all the airbase stuff going on in Cheyenne, there's probably gonna be a lot of metal waste created and stuff like that. Or maybe, I don't know, the airb base and the, the military, they do things a little bit differently. Oh, yeah. There's like, yeah. You have to be like an approved contractor and different things and whatever. They love to auction stuff off. Right. And then you got the guy that you know, that, you know, bids on the stuff across the country and, right. Yeah. There is a lot of that stuff. Yeah. Fair. So they do it a little bit. So that isn't, it's more of a, more of a long-term investment, long term desire, but there's, there's some really good industry in China. Is that because you don't think that there's a good provider of service up there yet? Or one that you can beat up? In comparison, it would be an acquisition. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We already have a handful of accounts in Cheyenne. We may even have some of the better accounts that already exist in Cheyenne. Gotcha. Um, but it's just expanding that footprint. Um, you know, the saying, if you're not growing, you're dying. Right? Sure. Yeah. I never loved that saying, you know, my Uncle Kent used to throw that out there. We gotta do this, we gotta grow. Um, but his idea of growing was, we're gonna grow by 10%. I'm gonna write it on the, on the whiteboard. And so that means that we're gonna do it'cause it's on the whiteboard. Right. Well, no. How are we actually going to do it? You know, we can't, through his tenure at Colorado Iron and Meadow, commodity prices really only went up. You know, he had the, he had the benefit of riding that China wave that we already talked about. Um, well, Marty and I take control and that China wave is kind of over with. Right. You know, and so like, well, okay, now we gotta figure this thing out for real. We gotta work a lot harder now we gotta work harder. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, um, uh, going back to the, if you're not. Growing. Yeah, you're dying. Again, I don't love it, but hey, we're at the point now where we're seeing some stagnation, you know, in the business, and it's just like, well, what are we gonna do? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you know, I think for like, for your key employees and things like that, if you're not growing, you're not really creating a, a next step up for anybody potentially. You know, one of percent your key guys should probably be the manager of the Cheyenne facility. A hundred percent. Yeah. When you have that, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Yes, exactly. What kind of opportunities are we creating? Yeah. You know, and this is even farther down the road, but I would love to get to a point where, like, where I've already made my money, now it's about you guys. Yeah. I wanna make money for you guys, you know, for those key employees. Yeah, so, so potentially becoming like at least a employee o, or not an employee owned necessarily, but profit sharing and or definitely profit sharing. ESOP alongside you guys as ownership or something like that. Yeah. I don't know if we're big enough. I don't know how ESOPs work. I don't know if you have to have like a. Like a headcount to like qualify for Visa. Yeah. Not clear. Don't, I don't, don't think so. Yeah. I don't know. Check like the state of Colorado.'cause they've got a lot of programs to like subsidize the cost of checking that stuff out and making it easier. Yeah. But like our two neighbors, odell and New Belgium, new Belgium's, not anymore, but you know, Odell is a ESOP and Yeah. Yeah. And sold it to kind of key employees plus kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Larger headcount at those breweries than Right, right. Than at Colorado Iron. So you would see kind of the growth path beyond Cheyenne might be by acquisition of kind of smaller folks that you could bring kind of systems process and, and maybe aggregated buying and selling power to Yeah, for sure. More volume. Yeah. More volume. Yeah. And, and, and spread over the same amount of general administrative overhead. Yeah. Yeah. We've got room, we've got horsepower at Colorado iron to, to facilitate a lot of that. Yeah. Your home office could kind of cover a lot of the stuff that way. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. And, and I, I think that's really how, you know, you justify it. Um, Uh, you've, you've probably seen this'cause you know, a whole bunch of different industries, a whole different businesses, but like how many, how many people do you know, um, that are baby boomers or maybe even the next generation, past baby boomers that don't have someone lined up to take over the business? You know, I probably know 50. Right? What are they gonna do? Right. Uh, well I hopefully find a, that's, I was just talking to Evan that conversation today about how right now Loco Think Tank has a lot of founders and not as many people have bought their businesses. Interesting. But that will probably be changing because there's so many businesses that need to be sold by a 60 something to a. 30 or 40 something over the next 10 or 20 years for sure. That, that we need to provide a, a training ground for those folks as well that didn't just start theirs.'cause frankly, it's a, I think it's harder to start something now than it was 20 or 30 years ago too. Definitely. Definitely. So anyway, we gotta be, you know, ready to aware of that mm-hmm. Dynamic and, and really do the best we can, I think of preparing key employees. Preparing would be entrepreneurs to actually be successful at it. Yeah. You know, and not, yeah. You had a, you had a 12 year kind of training Yeah. Season, but in most situations it's gonna have to be a faster skill development than that. Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. I wouldn't recommend the 12 year route for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well thankfully you had a lot of trust in the situation there, so. Yeah. Yeah. Well I think we should take a short break and then, uh, come back and do the closing segments. Sounds good. Alright. Thanks. So, uh, we're gonna jump onto the closing segments here. Bring that just a little closer. Uh, so we're gonna jump onto the closing segments here momentarily. But, uh, wanted to ask you, you, you're in a, a forum, uh, a peer advisory group, kind of a self-organized one that I've known a number of your fellow members, and probably even how we got acquainted. Is that true? Yes. I don't remember exactly how you and I met, I'm not sure. Yeah. But, uh, I am in a, a, a group, a peer advisor group. We call it forum. Um, we really couldn't come up with anything. Oh, just forum? Not the forum or, yeah, just forum. I don't think there's a, the or the in front of it. Yeah, just for'em. There's no website. No, no. Nothing like that. No, no. Nothing. Nothing like that. Um, yes. In a peer advisory group, and it's, it's been fantastic. Yeah. Um, in 2016, I was approached by an individual who said, uh, Hey, you're a young guy. You, uh, you're, you, you're a, a. Own your own business. And, um, I'm starting this group. Uh, there's a couple of us, there's like four or five of us already and we're looking for like a total of 10. And we just wanna meet on a, a monthly basis and, and just, you know, shoot ideas off each other. Hey, what's working, what's not working? You know, get to know each other and, um, is that something you might be interested in? And this was, um, like June or July of 2016 and you'd been navigating this whole, like, China isn't buying stuff anymore. We gotta find better and different outlets for our products. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So there was some changes, you know, in our business for sure. Um, we took over in 14. Um, my daughter was born in April of 2016. I also became chapter president of my trade association, um, like two days. Yeah, that's all I did is one more thing. Yeah. Two, two days before, um, two days before, um, my daughter was born, I became chapter president. And, you know, then, um, two, three months later, you know, this, this group is, uh, it, it was just a random chance, you know, that I ran into this person. And, um, uh, we met a couple of times at the boot grill down in Loveland. Um, uh, I was like the fifth or sixth person, you know, to, to come and, and join. And, you know, a lot of those meetings were um, like, well, who else do you know who might be a good fit? Well, this guy, what about that guy? Nah, he's busy and no, this guy doesn't, uh, that guy's a jerk. Whatever. Something, yeah. No one was ever turned down. Yeah, no one, no one was ever, you know, no one was ever interviewed and no one was ever turned down. But, um, getting, uh, invited to be part of this group, getting to know these people has been probably one of, um, the absolute best professional experiences that I've had in my life. Um, and it's not so much that it's, um, well, yes it is these guys specifically, but I feel like I would've had the same. Feelings, thoughts, uh, successes, had it been in any group? You know? Sure. Yeah. Your groups included. I'm confident we could've found you a local chapter if I had been. For sure. For sure. There at the right time. Yes. So, so, so anyone that's out there listening to this podcast, um, you know, if Kurt approaches you about being in a group, just say yes. Just do it. You know? Um, because endorsement it is, it has absolutely been worth it. Uh, we got a couple of guys in our group that, um, in their early careers worked for Deloitte. Um, oh, wow. You know, the huge consulting firms. Sure. Yeah. And, and, uh, these two particular gentlemen are just a wealth of knowledge. I mean, and the way that they look, you know, from, from different perspectives. Sure. At, you know, any given scenario, whether it's operations, hr, finance, whatever. I mean, like, these two individuals are just, you know, head and shoulders above, you know, anyone else that I've ever met in my life. Yeah. That's not to discredit, and you have your own special sauces that you bring. I suspect Not much Kurt. Not much. You know, to me, I, where I excel in the group is offering, you know, the, the whole, did that really happen, you know, conversation or like, you know, or, or we, we, we have, we have some crazy instances in, in our industry. You know, we see some weird stuff in, in our industry. But, um, really everybody in the group, there's 10 of us. We, we all bring a very certain perspective, um, and a unique style. And, um, you know, some, some, um, Um, assets Yeah. To the group. Yeah. That's, you know, that's to the group and that's really what you want. Right. I tell folks that everybody's gotta bring something to the sauce Yes. To make the sauce richer. Not more diluted or bitter. Yeah. Yeah. Or whatever. Yeah. So, um, in, in our group specifically, no way am I, you know, um, any kind of economist or anything, but I try to bring like that macro aspect. Right. Well, and you're a bellwether. Mm-hmm. Your industry knows Yes. Smells a recession before other ones Yes. And things like that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I imagine even just staying aware of the macro situation. Like what do you, well, we can get into this in the politics segment actually.'cause I I was gonna ask about like heavy metals and electric motors and sourcing all of that stuff and plutonium and palladium and all that. Right, right. A lot of stuff. Well, I don't trade any plutonium. No. Um, no, not yet. No. But some titanium, yeah. Yeah. A little bit of titanium and, you know, some other cool metals. Yeah. Well, um, what else about, oh yeah, I was gonna ask you one more thing on the business front before we transition, and that is, What would your key staff say are your particular strengths in that role of, of president of color, iron and metal? Yeah. I'm, this is kind of, this is kind of cheesy, kind of corny, but I think they know that I care. Hmm. They, I think they know that I love the industry that I'm in. Hmm. And like, this is, I, I, I live it, breathe it, eat it. Yeah. Every single day, you know, and, and that matters. I, I feel like it does, it allows, it gives them license to mm-hmm. Like it too. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, like, they see me at my desk reading the, the trade journals, you know, the trade magazines. When I'm done with it, I'm putting it on the break table and I'm asking them about it. I'm like, are you reading this? Are you keeping up on this as well? Yeah. You know, and again, I already said it, but like, the industry just gets in your blood. Yeah. Um, and, and, uh, you, I, I can't get enough of it. Yeah. Well, you know, that's one of the, one of the elements I put into the facilitator list of characteristics after a, a few years, and, and one facilitator left me and he was like, you know, When I sit around with the other facilitators and compare myself to them, I just don't have the same passion for business that they do. Like he had created a, a, a, a marketing agency and he had 10 or 15 employees and stuff, but it was a necessary thing to create the business to so that he could do the production of documentaries and advertising and different things like that. He was a creative Right. Right. He wasn't in love. But you, like, from the time of 16, 18 years old, you're like, I want to be a business operator. Yeah. And you know, ultimately in the metals world is where you found a lot of your love. Right? Right. I I had no idea it was gonna be in the metals business. Um, kind of a funny story real quick. Um, my grandfather passed away, um, Thanksgiving last year. Mm-hmm. And, you know, um, he's a farmer in northern Iowa, um, 120 year old family farm. My uncle's running it now. Um, so we have that in common. Um, our family farm is much smaller than your family farm up in North Dakota. Um, but um, you know, just, uh, reminiscing on, you know, the good thoughts and, and good memories I had of my grandfather. But when I was a youngster, I don't remember the exact age, probably right around 10 years old. I went with him on a Saturday, uh, afternoon, morning, something to the scrapyard. We hauled in some iron, some old, some old equipment. Yeah. Um, you know, to the, the scrapyard in Mason City, Iowa. And, um, it didn't even dawn on me. I completely forgot about that story, you know, until I was thinking about him reminiscing, you know, after his, his passing on Thanksgiving and just like, wow. You know, like, I didn't know it then. That was deeper than I thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, maybe I do have some, you know, roots in this industry. Yeah. I love, but that was a, a good thought. And um, you know, it's funny where life takes you. Yeah, sure is. Sure is. Okay. So now it's time for the closing segments, which many of our guests. Fearful of, but I don't think you have to be bring it faith, family, politics. Uh, we, we take them in any order and in any amount of sharing you'd like to do. Um, hey, let's start with family. Family. So, gosh, I just forgot your daughter's name. Blake. Blake. Call Blakes Blaker. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. Um, one place we like to travel is we always do a one word description of the children. Mm-hmm. Have you already prepared for that? Uh, everything. She's your everything. She's everything. Yep. Yep. Definitely. Uh, the cutest little girl. Uh, little blonde toe head. Um, just funny. Um, she's an only child. Yeah. Um, I say everything, um, we had a miscarriage with a second. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, around that eight, nine weeks, um, you know, pretty common. Yeah. At the same time as my wife and I mis period twice. Right, right, right. Exactly. Exactly. So as I share our story and, and we've been open about it, you know, we don't. You don't put it on a bumper sticker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not on the back of my truck, you know, but, you know, we are open about it. As we have shared our story, we have found that many people, you know, have had, um, same scenario. Yeah. And so, um, you know, my wife and I were approaching 40 years old at the, the time and it's like, you know what, maybe God's just telling us we're only gonna have the one. Yeah. Um, and we got a really good one. Yeah. We got a really good one. Well, that's a bonus thing. Yes, absolutely. You to try to fix it with the next one that way. Yeah. And of course I'm a parent, so I mean, you know, every parent's gonna say we got a good one. Um, but, uh, uh, yeah, she's, she is our, everything sounds pretty special. Yeah, she is. She really is to us. Um, you know, she makes friends with everybody. Um, she's an only child, so she spends a lot of time with adults. Right. Um, I There's some advantage to that. I think so. Yeah. I think so. I, I. I was kind of in the same way in that I was the youngest of three boys, right? In that I was always hanging out with the older kids. Um, you know, and, and, and so mahi I may have matured, you know, faster, you know, emotionally than you know, a lot of my peers, you know, at that time. Um, and, and I think she's in that boat for sure. Um, you know, she's at camp all summer long, you know, between C S U and some other camps and, you know, all the counselors send home like a thing on, you know, the, the end of the week or something like that. And, and they all say, oh, she just, you know, she just loves to hang out with the counselor so much. I'm like, well, yeah, she's an only child and Right. Yeah. But, you know, we take her to these trade association meetings, you know, um, I became chapter president two days later. She's born, you know, she's, she's been to every summer we go to Washington DC for, for trade meetings and, you know, fly-ins and she's always right there. And so, you know, she knows half the people in the industry. Funny story. There's a guy by the name of, uh, George Adams in our industry. He owns a company called SA Recycling. Okay. Um, they're probably a four or$5 billion company. Oh, wow. Yeah. They're a top three recycler in the country. Yeah. They're a top three metal recycler in the country. Um, George is big and the trade association. Also, George and Joan have no idea. What my name is, right. They only know me as Blake's dad. Yeah. They know Blake's awesome. They know Blake. And then they just know me as Blake's dad. There's only so many five or six year old blonde girls running around the trade association meetings, so, exactly. Exactly. But all their kids grew up in the trade association and you know, now that are leaders in the company. Yeah. That's, and just great people. And he's, you know, George will say all like, oh, we just love seeing your daughter here. She's next generation. And maybe, yeah. You know, that'd be pretty cool. Sure. Seems possible. That'd be pretty cool. But she's our everything. We went through kind of your journey, but without even, uh, stumbling upon this person that you fell in love with along the way. Uh, what's your wife's name? Her, her name is Susan. Hi Susan. Yep. Yep. We call her Suze. Um, funny story about, uh, that name is, uh, one of her friends, her aunt, you know, heard the name said, what are you calling her? And then, um, her friend says to her, to the aunt, she says, her name's Suze, you know, with a z. Zeus. And so every once in a while, we'll, we'll throw the Jesus Zeus out there. And if, you know, my wife, she's petite, she's five foot four. She's not a Zeus. Right. So it makes it more fun, nor is she a Jesus. Yeah. Or, or a Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, Susan is her name and um, and where did you stumble upon her, right? Yeah. So, um, we were like 30 years old. Curling association. No, no, not yet. No. Um, Cheyenne Frontier Days actually. Oh. Yes. And so, uh, we were just up there over the weekend. Um, we went on Friday to the rodeo. Yep. And that was, um, we met at a Zach Brown Band concert in 2011. Um, her and I had a bunch of mutual friends. She went to C S U, she moved here in 1999, so she was at C S U 99 to 2003. Um, and she met a bunch of local kids. Yeah. I moved, I moved here, you know, in 2003 as she was moving to Denver. Yeah. She lived down in Denver for a couple of years. So, you know, we didn't meet until much later in life, but we met the same group of friends. Yeah. So, fast forward to 20 11, 1 of those mutual friends organized a limo for, you know, like 15 people to go to the, the concert and try, and you're like, why haven't I met this girl? I'm like, who is this girl? And you know, like I said, we're approaching 30. Right. And, uh, I'm looking at her left hand to see if there's a ring on it. And there, there wasn't a ring on it. So I'm like, okay, that's a good sign. But, um, Kurt, I have no game. And, and so like that whole first night I didn't even talk to her. Um, but, uh, the, the next day I, I thought note to self, ask Mindy about Susan. Right? Right. And so, uh, so the next day I, I find her online and, uh, send her a message. I'm like, Hey, what's your phone number? I'd really like to ask? I'd like to call you and ask you out on a date. And Oh, that's cool. And she forked it over. So Nice. Um, yeah. And then, and it was just, Boom. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. I mean, we had met and were engaged and year and married within like a year and a half, 18, 20 months. Yeah. That's pretty, yeah, that's pretty quick rapid fire. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So then did you have any false starts before that or things or, um, with previous girls, yeah. Uh, I, I dated of course. Nothing serious though. Nothing, nothing serious. Never, never met that girl that you thought might've been the one. No. That there's not the one that's out there. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Definitely not. That's a blessing probably so. Yeah. You know, and then we did couples counseling before marriage and, you know, we'd take the test and everything like that. And I like to joke and kid that, you know, we aced it, you know, the counselor came back. You were very, very well fitted for each other. Yes. Yeah. Very compatible, you know. But one thing that stands out, and the only reason I bring it up is'cause the counselor also asked like, did you guys ever break up and then get back together? And it's no. You know, we didn't, yeah. We don't, we don't, we really don't fight. Yeah. You know, we are very much on the same page. Save same wavelength. Um, I'm a scrap guy. She's a, a mental health therapist. Oh. Uh, yeah. Works for banner. Works predominantly with, with kids and everything. I never, I took, I took Psychology 1 0 1 in college. I hated it. I'm like, this is terrible. And what do I do? I ended up marrying one. Um, but, uh, it would be a case study for her. Yeah. Oh, she works on me for sure. What, uh, what would she say was the main reason she gave you her number? Way back when? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe her parents, um, you know, saying, Hey, you need to find someone to get married. You're 30. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, uh, you know, one of those things where like, um, I, I think the best part a about it for her was that her friends weren't setting us up. Yeah. Um, you know, I mean, so many of her friends set her up on dates with just loser dudes and she's like, screw that. I mean, these my friends. Right. Try again. Yeah. I thought they had better taste. Were friends. Yeah. I thought you were my friend. Exactly. Exactly. Yep. But, um, yeah, A week later we go on our first date and then, uh, my brother Marty and his wife Kelly. Um, come and crash our first date, uh, because it was their wedding anniversary that same weekend. And, um, we were at, uh, at Wash Bar Dominic's. Okay, that's much nicer. Dominic's at lame in harmony. And, and I said, Hey, you wanna meet for a drink? Let's, you know we're not doing, we don't have to have dinner. Let's just meet at the bar. Let's have love commitment. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. Um, and um, I told Marty, my brother that, um, this is what we're doing. And, uh, they had gone out for dinner in Old Town somewhere. And he's not in the same group or anything? No, not at all. No, not at all. He's just your party. Yeah. Yeah. But they live, they live over there, um, down near South Ridge, Miramont or South Ridge. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so he said, Hey, you know what? Let's, uh, let's just swing by. Oh, yeah. Dan's truck. It's still in the parking lot. Dan's, Dan's super excited about this girl. Let's go harass him. Yeah. So Dan, there's this truck in the parking lot there, so let's go in there and have a drink. And so Marty and Kelly, uh, crashed our first day. That's awesome. And we still laugh about that one. Well, it sounds like you've got a great relationship with your brother and extended family as well. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the family's good while we're still here. Anything else on the, on the topic of family? I mean, it's pretty interesting to me the level of, I guess it's both, right? It's trust and opportunity. Like you could have done other things and stuff, but you didn't really want to, but it was a, a pretty long time between first Sn F and Okay, you can have the chance to buy my business, right? Yes. It, it was a long time and I don't know, it never dawned on me that to give him an ultimatum, you know, like, you better sell this or else, I love what I do. It's all I wanted. It's all I wanted to do. What's my backup plan? Starting a pizzeria, you know, on a lake. On a lake? Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, uh, I don't want to offend anyone in the pizza business, but I don't think there's that much money in the pizza business, you know? Or the restaurant industry in in general. Yeah. No, no. You know, and it's, it's a lot of hard work. Those guys work hard. Mm-hmm. And, um, and a lot of competition. And a lot of competition. You're like poking along with like, some competition in Greeley, some competition in Denver. Right. We don't have a whole lot of other competition in Fort Collins here. Yeah, yeah. For the, for the metal recycling. And so, and I don't know anything else, you know, Kurt, I don't know what I would do. Yeah. You know, if, if, if Marty's nine years old, older than me, and if he said we're gonna sell, um, I'm either gonna buy his shares or. Or I'm gonna retire. I don't know what else I would do. Move to St. George, Utah and buy the metal recycling business that's for sale down there. I already, I know the guy that owns, I already know the guy that owns Course You do. Yeah. They're based out of Salt Lake City and they got a second feeder yard down there. Um, so yeah. And I don't want to go work for anyone. I mean Right. You're unemployable probably. Yeah. I don't, I I really am. Um, I don't want to go sell real estate. Well, maybe commercial real estate. Yeah. You know, it seems like it could be a talent of yours. I, I don't wanna go sell homes, you know? Right. So, yeah. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I guess just keep growing Colorado iron a mill and figuring out, I think that is the plan. Yeah. Yeah. Um, faith or politics. We talk faith. Okay. Yeah, I don't think we've talked about that much, if anything at all yet. No. Um, um, yeah. What, take me back to Minnesota. You're Lutheran Iwo because everybody's good. Guess some Catholics, but mostly, yeah. Yeah. Good guess. Uh, Lutheran? Yes. Grew up in the Lutheran church. Um, yeah. Funny. Both my parents were Lutherans, so that was never an issue when they got married. Right, right. Um, yeah, growing up in the Lutheran church is, is what we know. Um, you know, going to Sunday school, grew up there and, and still there. Not still there anymore. Okay. Uh, we attend Timberline. My wife is a, a member of Timberline. I say that she is, and I am not a member of Timberline because in order to be a member at Timberline, you actually have to be baptized as an adult. Oh. I was baptized as a child. Right. Yeah. And I don't really want to go to just horse tooth and get dunked in the water, you know, and be baptized Now if we're gonna go to the river, Jordan, you know, and get baptized you down. Yeah. I, I would be baptized again as an adult, but, um, you know, you feel like that first one worked. It isn't, I feel like the first one worked. I feel like it stuck, you know, I never had a come to Jesus moment. Okay. Um, I was just always a believer. It's just I've always, I've always felt baked in. It was baked in, never had even a season of significant doubt or anything like that to speak of. No, definitely not. What, uh, like there's a lot of people that have never had a, a moment of doubt that there isn't a God. Uh, in contrast, how would you interact with somebody like that? You know, first of all, you can believe whatever you want, but I think on the day of reckoning, you know, I'm feeling, you know, better, better about my situation. I am, I am is fair, and if there is no God, what harm have I caused Fair. You know? So that's kind of my thought on that one. But, um, we don't attend a, a Lutheran church, you know, I really miss some things about it. Did you grow up Lutheran? Um, no, but Lutheran adjacent, and I've been to many, many Lutheran church services. You know, the Lutherans say the Apostle Creed, you know, the Yeah. The recite the Apostle Creed. I really liked that formality of it. Yeah. But I'll tell you, you know, I, I really liked Timberline Church. It's, it's, you know, the, the pastors, the leadership over there, I mean, they're absolutely stunning. I for sure. I mean, dairy goes a great sermon. Dick Eth, I mean, the dude is absolutely incredible. Yeah. You know, with his. Speech, God-given talents. Yeah. What, uh, so this is getting a little bit maybe edgy current events, but like this kind of social justice wilm kind of movement has been described by some as quasi-religious, uh, it's their religion. Right. And the, and the, the central tenet of the religion is kind of, there is no God. Okay. It seems Yeah. At least from my observation. Yeah. And so we have to force humans, not their own consciousness, but our power of sorts to act rightly. Right. Right. Uh, you know, and, but in their own mind, you know, they think that they are acting. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, and same as, you know, arguably same as ours, right? Mm-hmm. Kind of. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So who is Right? Yeah. Tough call. Yeah. And is there, you know, that's, uh, oh, I'm trying to, there's some, some quote around the Holy Spirit and the notion of that kind of the conscience is, The Holy Spirit talking to you, but obviously it's, it's not speaking the same language to everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And it's only, I guess, if you receive the spirit that you can really understand, I suppose. Yeah. You know, and I, I really can't speak to the other side, you know? Yeah. And, and how they feel, how they act. Um, you know, I don't necessarily agree with it. Yeah. Um, but, um, you know, if, if that's what they really feel is right, you know. Great. So outside of the fear of going to hell in a hand basket, if you will, like, what makes you convinced or convicted? Like what are your data bits or predispositions in that regard? Yeah. I really truly feel that the Holy Spirit is inside of me. Huh. Yeah. Fair. Yeah. I mean, even from a personal object or a subjective level. Yeah, yeah. Is what you're saying. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I, I have feelings, you know, um, that, um, that I, I can't explain that I, I can't, uh, argue against. It's like I don't think, um, I. I feel like they, they come from a power above. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not a superpower that I'm carrying. I'm not better than, yeah. It's not making you put the hammer down instead of lacking that guy with it. I'm, yeah. Yeah. I'm no better than the next person, you know? Right, right. But, but I, I truly feel that, you know, that, um, you know, the Holy Spirit is inside of me. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. Um, politics. Politics. I started asking about, uh, kind of, and you may or may not know a lot, but you, you sound like you know a lot about the macro level, but one of my big concerns about like mandating every vehicle's gotta be electric by 2030 or 2035 or whatever. Europe and California could competing to be the biggest dummy there is, there just might not be enough access to the available materials to make all those sons of guns. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's like the first and easy, not to mention the grid challenge. Absolutely. Coming home from work and wanting to plug in their car and turn their air conditioner. For sure. For sure. For sure. No, um, I've, I've heard economists say that even by the year 2050, 80% of the cars on the road are still gonna be, uh, internal combustion engine. Really? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm a firm believer in that too. You believe so? I I do. I I, I believe that it's just the pipe dream. The, and California's gonna be the home for all the electric shit, and I think buy their used crap from there, the rest of the country. Yeah. Honestly, honestly, I mean, at what point does California just fall off into the water? And I mean, I'm, I'm saying that, you know, very tongue and cheek people were calling for California's economic disruption for a long time. Yeah, yeah. But maybe it's there. I mean, yeah. Obviously the, the LA and, and San Francisco, their, their pillar cities are both rotten on the core. They are. They are. And, and how long can that continue before like, Hey, wait a minute, you know, this new progressiveness is not working. Yeah. You guys have just gone too far. You know, I, I feel like that has to come eventually. Yeah. Um, going back to like the mineral side, there's only so many elements in the world, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah. We, we can't make new commodities, you know? So, uh, one, I feel very good about the industry that I'm in. Right. Because of that. Reusing that stuff, reusing that too. But also because of the industry and that I am in, I, I know and understand how to recycle an internal combustion engine. Mm. I know how to recycle a conventional car that's very easy. These new hybrids, these new EVs that are coming out is a serious threat to my industry. One because of the battery in it, it, it, it is just a harmful threat to us. Right. These things are dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I follow the Pooter Fire Authority on Instagram. There was a fire last night because of lithium ion batteries. Hmm. We have a, a very large steel pile, um, in our yard. Um, that, that we all dump our, our steel into, compile it. Lithium ion batteries make their way into that pile. And then my heavy equipment crushes that battery and before you know it, a fire has broke out. Wow. And that whole, that whole pile could be up in flames, burned up Absolutely. A pile of iron. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it's because that lithium can create such a hot fire that it actually can spark the reaction that creates fire. Well, yeah, but there's, there's other combustible elements Oh, right in that pile. Yeah. Duh. Yeah. I mean, you got a water heater in there that's gonna have insulation on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's no cars in it, but you know, it's just, you know, accumulation of a lot of Sure. Different appliances and other like items. Well, I know they're sure paying a lot of attention to it at the airports and stuff now. Sure. About like screening for those batteries and things like that, making sure, yeah. Southwest Airlines, you know, comes on and says, Hey, no smoking and also no batteries. Right. You know, in here. Yeah. Yeah. So, so batteries are a big issue. It's a big threat to, well, in China, controlling so much of that supply chain for sure. On batteries for sure. And it seems like China and Russia have pretty much decided Africa is their, I guess, frontier now, I guess. Uh, who, who hasn't battled for Africa, right. You know, so Yeah, yeah, yeah. Africa yeah. Themselves, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, they, they get manipulated to doing things. I mean, did you see that stadium, uh, full of the opposition party in South Africa was chanting death to the white man, death to the white farmer? I have not heard this. A stadium full of, yeah. That's pretty scary. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and South Africa's already had a real challenge, obviously with, you know, Posta apartheid. Yeah. Yeah. Violence and theft and, and economic degradation. I mean, they were a right, a star farming country that now barely exports if they do it all. It's crazy. You know, Venezuela and South Africa are like, The two poster tiles for how not to do your economy. You would think people would take lessons from that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So talk to me about politics in general, where it sounds like you're lean conservative. I lean conservative. Yeah, absolutely. I'm, I'm really very moderate. You know, my wife and I, we cancel out each other's votes, but you know, we're both, we're both very moderate. Yeah. Yeah. When it comes down to it, I don't know. These last couple years I've probably gone further. Right. Yeah. You know, I feel like you're either going further right or further left. I guess I've taken path to go further, right? I'm reminded of that meme of that Elon Musk shares where like, I'm in the same place and I was in the left, but now I'm in the right, apparently. Because you thought crazy stuff because everyone's moved, right? Yeah. Everyone's go gone. So far. Extreme. Yeah. But no, there's, this country has to find some middle ground. Has to find some well, and some allowance for people to be different from each other. Absolutely. And be okay with that. Absolutely. That's my opinion anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Like I just shared that, you know, like, Hey, because I feel like I carry the Holy Spirit, I understand that you may not. Right. You know? And does that make me better than you? No, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that's a part of my kind of philosophy. Like for example, uh, when we add a new member to Loco, uh, I'll make more money. And I introduced that new prospect to the facilitator that we think will fit. And then they're the ones that issues the invite and they'll make more money if we add a new member. But then we give our chapter a third thumbs up because they only, they don't have a financial interest in that person. They just want a smarter chapter overall. Right. And more smart people in it. Right. And so, like, recognizing those conflicts of interest. Acknowledging it, you know, like, like frankly, this whole Hunter Biden thing and being on boards of directors for 80,000 a month without qualification and huge wire transfers and shell corporations and overseas bank accounts and like, give me a freaking break. Power corrupts money corrupts. Mm-hmm. And like acknowledging that should almost be step one, right? For our systems. Mm-hmm. And, and putting in like legitimate checks and balances. Transparency. Transparency. Mm-hmm. Period. Mm-hmm. Yep. So absolutely. I guess that's my, my biggest call in politics is, you know, it's funny when Trump got accused of using the levers of, of power kind of to, to do some stuff with Ukraine mm-hmm. Way back when or whatever. Yep. It was like, well, I want you to do this and I'm gonna withhold this aid. If, if you don't, you gotta teach for a phone call. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, well, that's what foreign aid is for. Basically, the fact that he is doing it relatively transparently actually increases my confidence in him, because he isn't trying to do backdoor. Isn't the definition of business really a quid proco? You know, like, like, I need you to do this, so you're gonna pay me. Right. That's commerce. Totally. You know, and, and, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, any last things on that topic at large? No, no, not so much. How do you feel about Colorado's transition from. Long time. Purple to bright ass blue. Right? Yeah. So funny. Um, going back to, um, a previous, uh, previous guest that you had on, on this, this podcast, someone that's in the forum group with me. Um, you know, they, um, they share a good story about where they grew up in upstate New York. Mm mm-hmm. In that there was a lot of industry there and those towns were, were very successful in big industry. And then they became progressive. Yeah. And then they drove business out of town. And those towns now today are. Well, they're doing better today than they have in the last, you know, 20, 25 years. Right. You know, partly because they finally threw the progressive side. Right, right. Exactly. A little bit. Exactly. And, and, and these two people are way more, uh, left, uh, than, than what I am. Um, but you know, if they can share that story, if they can see that writing on the wall mm-hmm. And if they can tell, you know, leadership in Colorado, whether it's in, you know, here at the, the city level Yeah. You know, in Fort Collins or, you know, at the state level down in Denver. I mean, like, if they can shout out like, Hey, do you guys realize what you're doing here? Getting a little past the point of Absolutely. Good work. Absolutely. Just the regulation that has come on to business owners here, you know? Oh yeah. Since Covid has been absolutely ridiculous. Um, in, in my job. Um, and this is outside of Forum, but just speaking to other business owners that come into the shop. Yeah. You know, oftentimes I'm there at the counter and talking to people, helping out, and I'll see the repeat customers coming in. Being in business for yourself today is not that much fun. It's not as much fun as it used to be. For sure. Yeah. With, with all the heavy regulation that's coming down, all the rights, you know, business owners, owners can't do this or that. Yeah. And even the, the notion that a lot of employees were paid more to be unemployed than they were to go back to work For sure. Things like that, you know, that that it, it's a culture bending kind of decision. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. Don't do that anymore. Yeah. So I think Colorado is, is headed in a way too progressive. Um, state we'll chase business out. We're, we're, I think, so we're basically at the inflection point of our culture and our, uh, climate mm-hmm. Attracting people, but our regulatory state and frankly the, the directed economy Yeah. Kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. Chasing more people out than come in. Yeah, absolutely. And Colorado's still a pretty low. Taxed state relatively. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like grown up. They got a long ways to go. Yeah. They got a long ways to go. It's gonna be great. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna, yeah. I mean, growing up in Minnesota and the tax rate up there is, you know, seven point a half percent. Right. Seven plus, you know, here we're at four plus and, and, um, yeah. So I mean, just think about, you know, what that tells you for the future. Well, and, and they've hidden most of the taxes as fees instead, you know, car registration fees mm-hmm. And this and that, and da da da da. Uh, so let's transition mm-hmm. To the loco experience. Do you have a crazy experience that you would like to share? Crazy experience. So, um, the industry that I'm in, people oftentimes ask me what's the weirdest thing that has ever come in. Okay. And I've got a couple answers for that. Um, There is a company down in Bertha that would make carrying cases for the US Air Force, um, military in general. They, these carrying cases had missiles in them. Oh, right. Yeah. So they'd make this big aluminum case that carried a missile inside of it fully of some disassembled missile. Absolutely. And there was a suspension in there and it was packed with foam and everything. Right. Because obviously don't want the warhead to go off while Yes, exactly. Carry around. So, so, um, this is in the early days of my career that, um, I was actually the truck driver that went down there and grabbed the roll-off container, brought it back to the shop, I dumped it, and, uh, me and the other guys, we start digging through it, start sorting it, sorting out the aluminum in there. And, um, what, it wasn't uncommon to get a full case in there that, you know, didn't pass. Their test got rejected, so they threw it in the, in the scrap bin. The guys are like, whoa, this one's really heavy. They crack it open, Kurt, there's a missile in there. And the thing is like six foot long. Something like that. Did you put it together? Oh, no, no, no. It was assembled. I mean, it, it, it was, you think of a missile in your mind. You think of a missile in your mind, and it was exactly that. Obviously it's not real. It was a dummy, you know. Oh, well, that's good. Yeah. Just, just for, you know, the, you know, just for the use of kind of a mockup almost. It was a mockup a hundred percent. But I really wanted to, to hang that on my, on my wall in my office and, you know, put it like, you know, next number. I think mounting it on your Jeep Cherokee thought was like the right answer, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, but like an hour after dumping it, the company is like, Hey, you still got that bin? Yeah. Um, I'm like, yeah, why do you want your missile back? I should have said if I, had I been a little older, a little wiser. I, I, I should have said, Nope, I haven't seen it. Right. Yeah. Don't know where it is. Then it would be hanging on the wall office, then it would be hanging on my wall. Um, the other crazy thing that, uh, that we get in, it's kind of a funny story, is that, um, from time to time we will get a coffin in the pile. Yeah, yeah. They're made outta steel. Uh, the first one happened many years ago, and, um, the reason we got it in is that the family exhumed the body and brought it closer to other family, you know? Yeah. Grandpa was buried over here, or dad was buried over here. Right. And we wanna move the body over here to the rest of the family. Yeah, yeah. You know, so they exhume it and, you know, extract the body and then they're left with the coffin. What are we gonna do there? Right. Why don't you recycle it? That's what you do with it. Um, so the first one came in years and years ago, and I posted a picture about it and it just blew up on Facebook. Everyone's like, no way. That's crazy. Well, um, during Covid, so this was like April or or May of 2021. We got the second one in. I got C O V I D in February of 2021, and I lost my smell. Um, oh. Even to this day, I, I really can't smell a lot. It hasn't come back a lot. Oh, well, that's a bummer. It's actually not that bad, you know? Yeah. There's some smells that you really don't want to smell. Yeah. So it's not the worst thing. Can you smell your own farts? No, I'm, I haven't been able to do that for years. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm pretty pleasant in that during, but, um, my wife might say different, but, um, uh, I lost my taste for a couple days. My taste has come back, but my smell really hasn't come back completely. Yeah. Right. I think I know where this is going. Yeah. Yeah. So, so this coffin comes in and I'm like, what, 30, 60 days out of Covid, something like that. And I've got like, no smell like whatsoever. Um, the coffin comes in and so like, there's still some linens hanging out over the edge. So me and one of the guys in the yard, I hear that it comes in, I walk out, I'm like, I gotta go see this. I gotta get a picture of it. I gotta post it, you know, um, you know, make for, for good stories. So we kick it open. Kurt, the smell that came out of that, the formaldehyde that hit me right in the face. I could smell every bit of that. Yeah. I couldn't smell anything else. I could smell that coffin. I gag. I'm, uh, yeah, yeah. I, I gag and I'm just like, close that, close that. Um, but uh, you know, those are, those are some of the great stories from, from the scrap yard. Rogan has been doing, uh, like some kind of smelling salts thing with his guests recently. Occasionally. Really? And I was listening to one a few weeks ago and. Apparently it was like 10 times the magnitude of the previous samples of smelling salts. And so both guys were like, I just touched my nose and I can't believe that there's not like blood on my finger. Whoa. Yeah. There's different, different strokes for different people. So I haven't picked up on that from Rio Grande, but uh, recently I've been doing ice baths. Oh yeah. He's a big ice bath guy. I've been doing shi showers. Actually. I, I usually about twice a week at least, do like a one minute turn all the hot water off kind of thing at the end. Well, yeah. And, and that has led to just like colder showers in general? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like all showers, like not it's, you know, been so hot lately that I haven't even taken a hot shower. Interesting. All but, uh, enjoying the ice baths. Um, I'm looking for that mental edge, that sharpness, you know, that they claim that, you know, comes with it. And I think it's slightly there. Yeah. I get a good buzz. It's a good buzz coming out of it for sure. I wish it would last longer. Yeah. Agreed. No, I, I, it, it sucks while you're doing it, at least at the first few especially, but it does like, Sharpen you up like a good run or something? That the thing Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. I don't know why, but as I'm lowering myself into this little, you know, bath tube tub type thing that I have, I bought it online for like a hundred bucks. It works just fine. I don't know why, but I plug my nose. I'm not sub You don't even submerge your head. I don't submerge my head. But, but takes I have to do something anxiety away. It does, it does. It helps me. I don't know why, but I plug my nose and Yeah, it works. That's a pretty local experience in itself. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Well, uh, this has been a fun conversation, Dan. Good. Likewise. Thanks for, uh, being here and spending time. Yes. And, uh, oh, if people wanna look up Colorado Iron and Metal, bring you some aluminum cans or whatever. Right, right. So, uh, in Fort Collins we're at 9 0 3 Buckingham, right behind Odell Brewery. Um, in Loveland we're at 29th and Garfield. Um, and the website's, Colorado iron metal.com look for us on Instagram. Cool. I'm on there as well. Uh, I personally, I do Instagram and Facebook, so look me up. Hey, appreciate it. Thanks for Cut. Speed.