CEOs You Should Know: Gary Schuler CEO of GTF Technologies

Gary Schuler, Founder & President of GTF Technologies

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, and welcome in. I'myour host, Phil Tower, and this
is CEOs. You should know fromiHeartMedia. It's a part of our commitment
to the communities we serve and westarted this program about a year and a
half ago. It's both a podcastand a broadcast feature that profiles the businesses
that drive our regional economy. CEOsintroduced in these episodes represent all kinds of

(00:24):
companies, small, large, local, and even some international firms and really
interesting firms too. And our guesttoday and the company we'll be talking about
is no exception to that introduction.I'm pleased to be in our iHeartRadio studios
here in Grand Rapids with Gary Schuler. He's the founder and president of GTF

(00:45):
Technologies. We're going to tease you, not tell you what GTF means for
a while here, and I hadto pay Gary to make sure he didn't
give that away early right up front. Welcome to the program. I'm so
glad you're here. Hey, ThanksPhil, pleasure to be here. Yeah,
so we are. We're going tounpack the story of GTF. But
I told you Gary, as wetypically do in this podcast, and will

(01:06):
also be playing this back on iHeartRadioacross West Michigan. But we like to
kind of talk about you and yourbackground. I like our listening audience hearing
this conversation. I don't know muchabout your background. Where where is home
for you? Where were born andraised? I was originally born and raised
in Aurora, Indiana, which isin southern Indiana. And I was the

(01:30):
youngest of eight kids in southern Indianaon a rural farm. So my parents
had eight kids by the time theywere twenty seven, and great upbringing,
but I learned a lot. Reallythe basis for this company was inspiration from
my father and my mother just theway that we grew up. So basically
your family had your mom and dadhad eight farm hands, is what you're

(01:53):
saying. Yes, that's how thatall worked out. Where did you fall
in that order? I was thebaby, you were the I was okay,
yeah, okay. And it's interestingyou said that whole experience really kind
of inspiration that eventually would lead toyou to start GTF Technologies. Well,
you know, growing up in southernIndiana, the core of the Great Generation,

(02:16):
my parents just went through the depressionas kids World War two, and
we never looked at anything as waste. Everything had a value everything. I
kind of joked because I think ofme being the baby and being the youngest.
I literally thought that hand me Downwas a brand name until I was

(02:38):
about ten years old, and sowe just didn't throw things away. And
even later in life, my dadalways saw value in something, so he
would keep it, and you know, we would stockpile in a shed out
back. But he was always lookingfor a need and if he had something
that he could fill a need witheither church or somebody in community, he

(03:00):
would He was always there for themand taking something of that you would just
typically maybe throw away, he wouldhe would keep because he always thought,
boy, somebody could use this someday. Well, and you have a long
career. You had a long career. Gary was sintas big uniform commercial uniform

(03:22):
business. He had a very successfulcareer there. I'm curious, at what
point do you decide, Okay,I've had a great run here. I
want to start my own business.I want to do something different. But
I happen to know from a littleresearch, it's a backstory there how that
all happened. Uh. Yeah,I look at this and I didn't intend

(03:42):
to start this business. I kindof thinking a little bit. It found
me and was felt called to dosomething. Not exactly certain that it was
going to get into food in ourtechnology that we have today, but at
the time Bait, back in thelate nineties, when I worked at our
corporate headquarters, it was also oneof our main distribution centers. So even

(04:06):
back in the late nineties, Sintasmade more pants. We actually manufactured the
pants that went into the various businesses, but we made more pants than Levi
Strauss. We were Carhart's largest customerby far. And if you can imagine,
if you're putting a brand on aon a shirt, could say Joe's
Autobody, for example, and thatshirt got returned to our distribution center,

(04:30):
it could be a brand new garment. But back then the typical way of
disposing was landfill, and that isnot uncommon even today in the retail industry.
The things that we take back tothe to the as a return even
on Amazon, twenty nine percent ofthe time that gets landfilled. Close to
a Yeah, it's it's a realshame. It could be up to or

(04:53):
five hundred billion dollars is the estimate, you know, And I want to
stop you what you said about disposingof that Joe's a body shirt, because
we don't think about clothing going ina landfill. It's either you know,
you take it to Goodwill, oryou sell it a garage sale, or
you know, I guess if it'sthat favorite pair of genes that now have
more holes than fabric, you dothrow it away. But that's kind of

(05:15):
an interesting thing. It could createa lot of waste in a landfill.
Well, if you think about it, we have options. So you have
Salvation Army or Goodwill, great organizationsthat we can take our materials to.
But you have business considerations. Whatabout the channel channel conflict with the marketing?
Does will Joe have some heartburn aboutthe vcs? Sure at Goodwill?

(05:39):
And imagine if it's a national brand. So if it's a let's say a
Verizon Wireless or Marriott Hotels, thatcould be problematic. Sure, And so
there's also an issue with just froma company standpoint, what do we do
with all that possibly side streams andwhen they're in a company, is a
billion dollar company eight percent let's saygoing to waste, It usually doesn't hit

(06:02):
the P and L for that organization. But when we look at the actual
tonnage. It is a big,big number, sure, And that was
really what it happened that really stoppedme in my tracks. Back in the
late nineties. I went into ourdistribution center and saw pallettes, pallettes full
of clothing stacked up and they wereall brand new, but they did they

(06:24):
had a logo or maybe the pantswere hemmed. We couldn't restock that garment,
and I asked the question, Isaid, what are we going to
do with those garments? And theresponse back is We're going to landfill it.
And I said, well, wewe should do something about that.
And did you ever ask yourself aquestion? Did you realize that maybe you
are the answer to that question?So there was a nonprofit organization down in

(06:47):
Cincinnati called Matthew twenty five, stillin existence today, and they were taking
full containers full of humanitarian goods toreally areas with extreme poverty around the world.
They have had the channels to getthose products like old wheelchairs or medicine,
food writing materials for the orphanages,but they also had clothing. So

(07:11):
we worked a program out with thenonprofit to make sure that the logos were
removed or you had a patch thatcould go over let's say Joe's autobody.
But that was then when instead ofgoing to the landfill those garments, we
donated them to the nonprofit organization.And there was also a nice tax incentive.
There's a tax provisions sure one seventythree. I do believe it's still

(07:34):
in place. That was really anincentive to these corporations that hey, don't
landfill it, don't waste it.If you can donate it, there's an
additional incentive. But oftentimes the mostcorporations aren't even aware of that provision.
You know, I just want tostop and congratulate you or just point out
that mindset. Did you know youwere not a normal thinker in terms of

(07:56):
thinking that way, because most peopledon't even think about this stuff, and
thankfully your parents shared that with you. I mean, which ends, of
course leading to GTF. If westop and ponder that you have to probably
not. I think my parents reallyinstalled instilled in me and in the rest
of my brothers and sisters that youdo the right thing because it's the right

(08:20):
thing to do. You don't needa parade, you don't need a banner
or pat on the back. It'sreally it's the core of who you should
be. My dad would have beendisappointed enough. I didn't take that action.
And it was really, as youknow, that's that's who we were
supposed to be. We're supposed tolook out for our neighbors. I mean,
that should be the core of whowe are. And for some reason,

(08:43):
you know that's we don't need aparade. I don't need to do
a post the selfie about it.It's just do the right thing. So
it's twenty fourteen. You decide tostart GTF Technologies, which is all about
specializing and creating secondary applications for unusedplant based materials and in essence, and

(09:07):
this is this is audio and radio. So we can't show you these these
post I guess processed materials that comeout of GFTF, but it's fascinating.
It's essentially turning food waste and itjust microscopic powder, is what it is,
which a lot of that can bereused and we're gonna talk about that.
But so there are a lot ofentrepreneurs Gary, But to start this,

(09:33):
you got to sell this business planto something, to somebody, to
some financial backers. What did theysay first? Well, when I first
started it, it was when Iwas sharing what we did at CentOS and
just kind of just naturally when Ihad clients. I was in sales for
Centas and but I was in chargeof our largest customers, and I would

(09:56):
just have a conversation like we're havingtoday with the CFO, a food company
or another company, and they werejust they never really knew how much waste
they had. It just never gotto their desk. And so when I
was sharing this these stories, Iwould get calls like a couple of months
later, and they would say,Hey, I've got you know. I

(10:16):
heard your name from our CFO.We have a manufacturing plant and we have
some pancake mix that the label makerwent haywire on our packaging line and we're
about ready to landfill this these thispancake mix, but we heard about you
that you may be able to getit donated to maybe an area offshore that
doesn't have our retail brand. It'snot that much. It's only twenty six

(10:39):
semis and that's a true story.Wow. And so I was getting those
types of calls, and then finallymy wife back in two fourteen, said
why don't you do what God's callingyou to do? And not to over
spiritualize things. But sometimes that's whatit takes. It takes a little bit
of a kick in a butt.Absolutely absolutely, and so I said,

(11:00):
okay, I'll help this with retail, but I'm not going to get into
food and again, so we startedin twenty fourteen. I was primarily working
with other hard goood materials and thenback in twenty fifteen, the state of
California made it illegal. It wasgoing to make it illegal with the governmental

(11:22):
laws that you couldn't landfill food waste. So if you're a brewer food processing
company that's creating this food waste,you couldn't landfill it because it's a contributor
of greenhouse gases. As a matterof fact, it's the number second largest
contributor of greenhouse gases food waste goinginto a landfills. And so that's when
the technology it's kind of was notbeing fully utilized for food. That that's

(11:48):
when we looked at if we couldstop the rot for some way that I
can take a product and stabilize itto get a longer shelf life retained the
nutrients. That's where GTF technology isin our technology to design and manufacture these
equipments really started back in the twentyeighteen for us to really look at the

(12:11):
problem set is that this is notonly a food waste that companies were having
problems. So I could have thegreatest technology in the world, but unless
I can help a company make moneyor save money, it's really not going
to bring value. But if wecan help that company save money, help
them with their problem, keep itout of the landfill, which is going
to help our environment, and alsohopefully then help somebody in need down the

(12:35):
road. So there's a big hungerproblem around the world right now. No
brainer, a win on multiple levels. Gary Schuler's with us on CEOs.
You should know here at iHeartRadio.He's founder and president GTF Technologies. As
we are kind of unpacking the storyof how GTF got started right here in
West Michigan, located in Ada,by the way, we don't want to

(12:58):
miss that. You can learn moreonline if you're curious as you're listening to
this podcast or hearing another radio.Gtfash Technologies dot com is the website.
Got a great website, GTF Technologiesdot com with a dash in the middle.
So you were telling me and manoh Man, you know we've got

(13:18):
a time limit. I have somany questions. Now I knew this was
going to happen. I was goingto get into this. This is such
a cool story. I've got allthese questions, but you were telling me
one of the really to localize thisproblem. Founder is Brewing has eight hundred
thousand pounds of byproduct when they,you know, use hops to make their

(13:39):
great tasting beer. But those hopshad to go somewhere. So talk about
that in terms of your where yourequipment, your technology could come in.
Yeah, in the beer industry ingeneral, I think the average for every
six pack of beer, it producesabout a pound brewerspent grain waste product or

(14:00):
sidestream. And in the brewing processthey're basically taking the sugars out of that
grain material to make the beer.So right now, most of that goes
to animal feeds. That's what feedsthe cows and the pigs in the areas.
And when it needs to be removedfrom the brewing facility, if we

(14:20):
can take that product though it hasand powderize it, so our technologies we're
able to take something that looks maybelike the in the brewer spent grain look
like an oatmeal. If you canimagine, and we turn that into a
powder in less than a second,and we're using electricity not natural gas,
so much more energy efficient, betterfor the environment with eliminate the emissions that

(14:43):
comes from natural gas, and wedo it so quickly that it retains the
nutrient value of that powder. Sothe in the industry itself, if you
can imagine, it's not only inthe brewers. Spent grain is one area
that conversion. We could make abouttwo hundred one thousand pounds of powder or
flour that could be made with breadand even other sustainable packaging materials out of

(15:07):
that material, and it has adirect offset from a carbon standpoint. So
certainly, for every million pounds ofbrewer spent grain that is converted into like
a food up cycled ingredient that couldbe made into a pretzel or a pizza
dough, there's about sixteen hundred tonstons of carbon that could be offset.

(15:28):
So that's every week. So imaginethe beer industry in general worldwide what that
could could do, not only fromproducing a food product but also a direct
carbon offset for that waste conversion.I think people are hearing you tell about
that story of taking that spent grainthat byproduct from making beer, and literally,

(15:52):
you know it kind of is anoatmeal technology in a matter of seconds,
it's in this powder. It almostsounds like it's a hyper powered microwave
of using electricity. I don't Imean, I'm not going to get into
physics here, but is that essentiallywhat it is. It's like super cooking
it real quickly that you retain theproducts or no, we're not cooking the

(16:15):
water out of it, which isvery unique. And so the there's basically
the technology inside where we're spinning aturbine of let's say five thousand times per
second, and if I can imaginethe outer edge of that is making an
impact around fifty seven hundred times persecond. So imagine if I took a

(16:40):
walnut, a regular walnut, andI packed it in a snowball. So
if I took this snowball with awalnut inside, and I threw it at
a brick wall just shy of thespeed of sound, and I did that
fifty seven hundred times in less thana second, Yeah, we wouldn't see
there wouldn't mean be auch less.There's a de bonding of the water molecules

(17:02):
and the water from the food product. And because we're doing that so rapidly
that we're not cooking out the nutrients. It's chemical free and so the water
goes one way and the water vaporand then the food product is powderies comes
out in a very very compact way. So that's what's really allowing I would

(17:23):
say these companies like a brewer spentgrain are brewing company juicing operation. You
can imagine the orange juice, theorange peels, it comes off. Before
it really wasn't economical to put ina big gas dryer to try to dry
these. But now if we've gotit very compact and a lower cost to
drying it, there's new emerging markets. Because that is the biggest challenge we

(17:45):
have for a lot of these companies. They say, Okay, I can
I can create let's say Founders twohundred thousand pounds of flour. What do
I do with all that? Who'sgoing to buy that? And so that's
what we're trying to do is develophomes for this powder, whether that's utilized
for a food ingredient, sustainable packaging. So that's really the catch up part

(18:07):
of this is that as consumers,we're trying to deliver what I call carbon
negative ingredients. Right, So imagineyour kind bar or some other package goods
could be made with a product that'sone hundred percent nutritious, actually could be
more nutritious than the juice that's comingoff as mostly sugar, that could be
used for our every day products.Then that really could move the needle on

(18:33):
eliminating food waste for industrial uses.You showed me Gary a pouch of essentially
cranberries that have been processed into apowder, a beautiful red powder, and
I looked at that and I thought, the nutrients in that powder have got
to be off the charts first andforemost. You're thinking about a place to

(18:53):
find that. But I want toback up to what you were saying,
just sounds like a lot of whatyou're doing at GTA Technologies now is finding
people to marry this process with becauseit's a brilliant idea. Are you afraid
of competitors? I mean, ishelp us understand in terms of how this

(19:14):
process will work and what you're workingon right now. Well, our goal
and media goal right now is toget more of the equipment out to companies
like a Founder's or the larger foodprocessing locations. I would say probably about
ninety five percent of our work rightnow is being done in California, mostly
because the governmental pressures that are onthese big food processing companies and a lot

(19:37):
of the fruit and vegetables has grownout in California. So that's kind of
our primary focus right now for twentytwenty four is again being able to get
awareness to the technology and the solutionsthat offers. So that's really our main
focus. Ideally in the future,what we love is the the business partnerships

(20:02):
to be able to really help dowin win scenarios for companies who maybe are
potential buyers for that product, aswell as the other uses of let's say
sustainable packaging for let's say pineapple skins. You can imagine if you wore out
of pineapple, what happens to thepineapple skins. Well, if it goes
into the landfill, it's going tocreate carbon. But if we now have

(20:23):
that as a packaged material, becauseit's very high in fibris, it's it's
a it's a really great business solutionand an environmental solid. Well, I'm
thinking here in Michigan apples and allthe by products and all the waste and
apple skins and so on and soforth. I mean there's a gold mine
that there in that whole process.This year, I think that fifty percent

(20:45):
of the apple harvest could not goto market. The supply was that great
that there's not enough demand. Andyou have right now with any type of
apple or strawberries that you buy ina grocery store, time is ticking,
so you don't have limited time.If we could powderize that apple, keep

(21:07):
all the nutrients in there. Onceit's in a powder of let's say less
than five percent moisture, it's gota shelf life potentially of three to five
years. The crazy part of thatfield is that as a country we import
apple powder from overseas. A lotof our food ingredients that come into this
country is actually coming from parts ofthe world that we aren't on the best

(21:30):
terms with politically. So there isa risk factor there. And so what
if we did take the apples thatexcess apples we turned it into powder.
I know it was a small companycalled McDonald's that has apple apple pies every
day. Well, if you lookat the ingredients, guess what they don't

(21:51):
have apple powder. It's white bleachedflour with a lot of other stuff going
in there. Imagine if that couldbe made with apple powder. Yeah,
and imagine how much hell here itwould be and better tasting as well too,
not that i've had McDonald's apple piein a while. Gary Schuler is
with us, founder and president ofGTF Technologies on CEOs you should know here

(22:11):
on iHeartRadio gtfdash Technologies dot com.As we continue to talk about this long
term, where do you hope tobe maybe in five or ten years.
You know, I think that notonly do we want to bring solutions immediately,
obviously if we can start that herein Michigan and here in the United

(22:32):
States, but there's so many otheropportunities worldwide. It's crazy, half of
all the fruits and vegetables grown worldwideit gets wasted. That's you know,
one point three trillion tons or excuseme, billion tons of food waste,
just enough to feed about two billionpeople around the world just on the waste

(22:52):
product. But there's also I wouldlike you to see us more in terms
of an international presence, especially withcertain areas of the world with sixty percent
of the crop goes wasted just becausethey can't get it to market fast enough.
Think about the coffee industry. There'sfarmers that are really there's not a
lot of margin for them. Butthe outside of the coffee it looks like

(23:15):
a cherry, and the outside it'scalled a casava. It's a coffee cherry
is what they call it. Highand anti oxiden materials. It could be
used as a food ingredient. Butagain, how do you stabilize that powder
so that it could be turned intoa new revenue source that could totally transform
some of these really poor communities inLatin America and other places of the world.

(23:37):
Absolutely, I would also like asa company, our mission is really
how do we provide nutrient powders tomaybe some people who are malnutrition So I
know Amway has a program nonprofits calledthe Power Five. They recognize that forty
percent of kids under the age offive die because they don't get enough of

(23:57):
the right nutrient powders or not powders. But like your vegetables, sure,
so I've got one company that hasjust one of their processing line creates twenty
million pounds of broccoli waste every year. That could equate into about three million
pounds of broccoli powder. Well,imagine when you know that we could actually

(24:18):
use that powder, that you turnthat into a supplement that's then given to
the kids with malnutrition. That thatreally is I think for the mission of
everybody who works at GTF, iswe realize that this is a purpose in
what we're trying to do. Yeah, there's I mean, it's just mind
blowing the potential that exists there.And I think it all comes down to

(24:42):
connections. And you know, we'rehaving this conversation in this podcast. It
will also play in all the iHeartRadiostations here across West Michigan. You never
know who's going to hear this,Gary and go Gary, we should talk
And I certainly hope maybe we atleast serve as a catalyst for a couple
of those conversations. I've got toask in our final couple of moments,

(25:03):
what's the best thing about being theboss? Being the president? I know
you've got a CEO as well,so you've gotta be careful because he'll hear
this. But what gets you outof bed every morning and you're like,
I can't wait to get to work? Yeah, Phil, I was a
dirty laundry salesman. Pretty good one, I thought, And I did not

(25:27):
create the technology and again the technologyis it's really about what you do with
the technology and helping people. Ithink what gets me up as the phenomenal
team that we have that I can'teven who are passionate at GTF, for
our engineers and even Jim Weaver,our CEO who's come along, and including

(25:53):
the investors. We've got a familywho are passionate about what we're doing.
And so what gets me up isto realize that, uh, the Good
Lord has blessed me with coworkers anduh, really people with a vision.
Uh and uh uh and also mymy wife Kristen, who's been very patient
for ten years. Yeah. Imean that that is hard because when you

(26:17):
when you start something you have avision, it never goes the way you
planned and it's taken a long longtime. But yet the more that we
go along and the more we developh and see the needs, we we
also realize that this is much biggerthan anyone individual. And uh, that's
what gets me excited is our suppliershere in West Michigan where we're making the

(26:38):
equipment. Uh, everybody's really passionateabout Boy, this could really help people,
and that and that that that reallygets me fired up every day.
It's just an amazing story. Andby the way, g t F Technologies
Gary Schuler, founder and President GTFTechnologies based here in West Michigan, stands

(26:59):
for and there's a biblical reference,yes, Phil it's gleaning the fields GTF,
which you'll see various references in Leviticus. Sure, and their whole premise
was that the outer edge, youweren't supposed to go back and reap a
second time. That the outer edgewas for the widow, the orphan,
the alien, those in need.And so if you look at that field,

(27:22):
which is really God's field, thebusinesses is the same way. If
there's products that we have that isan excess or side stream, if we
can revalue those, I hate tocall it waste, it's a food asset.
We just need to stabilize it.And if we can do that,
it could really really help a lotof people less fortunate. And that's our

(27:44):
passion and that's what we try tolive up to, is that biblical standard.
Incredible story. I am just soblown away by this. I had
about another half dozen questions, butwe are, we are at the end
of our time, and thank youso much for the generosity of your time
to have this conversation with us,very inspirational. Gary Schuler is the founder

(28:06):
and president of GTF Technologies. It'sGTF dash Technologies dot com with us on
CEOs you should know from iHeartRadio.Thank you so much for listening. We'll
catch you again real soon with iHeartRadio.