Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Yo, Keaton.
What's up, brother?
Driving through, the trees here in Minnesota,Lakes Country, Minnesota area.
Beautiful country.
Making deals, pounding the payment as usual.
It's just another typical day, another typicalweek for me.
But what makes the day a little bit morespecial is that I get to listen to Per Diem
(00:20):
podcast.
It's back, baby, and I greatly appreciate youfor bringing it back.
It's it's awesome.
It is, actually a little bit cloudy here,little bit rainy as well.
But, yes, I got my sunglasses on because, thePodcast has brightened up this day
tremendously, and I thank you for what you'redoing.
You got a lot of people rooting for you,waiting for that podcast to drop every single
(00:41):
day.
And I just wanna say thank you for for, beingyou, being genuine, being transparent.
It is amazing, and I appreciate you, brother.
Keep up the good work, and, looking forward toseeing you soon, dude.
Later.
(01:29):
Well, my friends is my favorite wild animal,mister Mike and Tisver.
Micah, thank you so much for the video,brother.
I this is the best part about this podcast is Iget stuff like that from you guys.
Micah is, man, one of one of my best bestfriends that I don't get to see near enough.
(01:54):
Every time I'm with him, I it feels like we, hefeels that we just pick right back up where we
left off.
I've gotten I've I've been blessed to knowMicah just through industry things, industry
events.
You guys have heard me talk about Micah back inseason one.
Love the video, brother.
I love it.
I'll of course, I love all your videos.
(02:15):
Your Monday motivation series is the best.
But when you send me a personalized video,there's some I told you guys this.
There is something about getting a personalizedvideo of a grown man recording himself and
sending it to another grown man for enjoyment.
Call me weird.
Call me freaky.
Call me whatever you want.
(02:36):
I love it.
And and Scott Lidster, when he sends me theshirtless videos, where he's taking selfies,
that's the best.
That's the best.
That's, I think, as close as I can get toheaven here on Earth is when I get videos from
you guys.
So, Micah, thank you, brother.
Loved it.
Loved it.
Loved it.
Welcome back to the Purdue M Podcast.
Pumped to have you back.
(02:57):
Episode two, season two.
We're back at it.
We're live.
I'm pinging at a little different level today,and I'll tell you why.
You're gonna think I'm dumb, but I'm gonna tellyou why I'm pinging at a different level.
Hold on just a second.
I gotta, hold on.
Dang it.
(03:17):
Let me find it.
Let me find it.
I am drinking.
I I shouldn't have just left it at that.
I am I'm drinking.
I'm not drinking.
I am drinking coffee, and I put salt in it.
(03:40):
Here we go.
I found him.
Doctor Hoby, h o b y.
I found this guy this morning on Instagram,doctor Hoby h o b y wedler, w e d l e r, hoby
(04:00):
wedler on Instagram.
He is a blind chemist and creator of tasting inthe dark, which is an educational series he
does, I'm assuming, all over all overInstagram, all over others other socials.
But this guy has 1,300,000 views on his reel,his Instagram reel, and it's all about putting
(04:24):
salt in your coffee.
And and you know me, I I love trying newthings.
I'll try anything twice, sometimes three timesjust just to really make sure I don't like it.
But I saw this this morning.
I'd already drank my first cup of coffee, and Ithought to myself, dang.
This dude, first of all, he's blind.
He really is blind.
He's a blind chemist.
(04:44):
He's he's, you know, a doctor.
He's got his doctorate in something, and,chemistry, I would guess.
He's blind, and he's talking about putting a apinch of salt in his coffee.
And he goes on and on.
Let me see if I can play this audio for youguys.
It might not work.
I might have to actually link the video.
Let me see if this will work.
Hold on one second.
(05:08):
Always salt your coffee.
Y'all are gonna have to trust me on this one.
Hi.
I'm doctor Hobie.
I'm your guide to some of the greatestexperiences life has to offer.
If you like this content, be sure to give me afollow.
And if you wanna get in touch, by all means,reach out in the link on my bio.
So I am drinking an Ethiopia Gucci light tomedium roast.
Woah.
(05:28):
And I brewed it and added it to the specialglass that tulips the aroma right up to my
nose.
This doesn't have salt in it yet, and it smellsdelicious, little fruity.
Flavor's nice, light roast, floral, fruity,touch of bitterness.
But I'm gonna transform this cup of coffee withjust a tiny pinch of salt, just a few grains,
(05:51):
far less than a gram, and a standard cup ofcoffee like this.
You don't need much.
Swirl it around a little bit.
Oh, that's absolutely delicious.
This is mineral sea salt.
So it's got a lot of
And he goes on and on and on.
I'm not gonna bore you guys with it.
His voice is a little quirky.
Love the guy.
Maybe my new favorite follow, for the year.
(06:13):
So I what do I do?
I walk in.
I walk into the kitchen.
I get another cup of coffee.
I open the drawer.
I pull out a bag of this Celtic sea salt withminerals in it my wife got at one point because
she would, you know, bought into the fad thatwe needed to be we needed to be consuming
minerals and and salt in a better way and blahblah blah.
(06:35):
So she buys this $40.43 dollar bag of of salt.
I don't know if it's actually $43, but it feelslike a $43 bag of salt.
I take a pinch of it, and I sprinkle it in mycoffee.
And I do the nose thing.
I smell it.
Doesn't smell any different.
Take a big drink, and I'm like, wow.
(06:56):
This is this is either me buying into the hypeof these Instagram fads and not being able to
emotionally separate my involvement, or thisactually tastes better.
And I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with thelatter.
I think it actually does taste a little bitbetter.
I drink coffee super dark.
(07:18):
I brew espresso and then add some water to it.
So, really, it's just an Americano.
So I and but I drink a very strong Americano.
And, man, I, when I put some salt in it, it didkinda make the flavor pop a little bit.
So so that's what I'm drinking, today, and it'sit's jeez.
It's almost 02:00, and I'm still drinkingcoffee.
(07:39):
So that's a bad thing for me.
I'm gonna pay for that tonight.
What else is going on?
I I wanted to give a tip and trick.
It's it's allergy season.
You have to try this.
If you struggle with seasonal allergies, if ifthe pollen and the trees and the flowers and
all that, if that bothers you, itchy throat,runny nose, sneezing, whatever, I can promise
(08:01):
you no one is more affected by allergies than Ihave been.
It's killed me.
I mean, it absolutely killed me.
Last year, in my search to end my allergies,I've taken Zyrtec, Allegra, the inhaler, the
nose spray.
I've taken the pills.
I've done it all.
Eye drops.
I have an endless supply of all that stuff.
(08:23):
Last year, I talked to some crunchy, hippydippy local person who noticed I was struggling
with allergies, and they were like, oh, well,there's only one thing you can do to actually
cure your allergies.
And at this point, I'm I'm, like, on pins andneedles because I'll do anything to fix my
allergies.
And and this this gal was like, you have toconsume local honey.
(08:48):
It has to be within the thirty, forty fiveminute range of where you live.
And you, if you can, have to get your hands onsome bee pollen, and you have to eat bee
pollen.
And I'm thinking this is the dumbest thing I'veever heard.
What kind of, like, backwoods, you know,homegrown medicine woman thing are we talking
about here?
(09:08):
Lo and behold, I go to my local crunchy groceryright across the street from our office.
Shout out Blooming Foods.
Love Blooming Foods.
I buy a $29 jar of honey that's just you know,the the the honey's made just up the road from
us, not very far away.
And then I buy a, I don't know, probably a $30jar of bee pollen.
(09:31):
And bee pollen, if you don't know what beepollen is, it's not like what you'd think, you
know, the the little yellow dust on the back ofbees' legs.
It it maybe that's how it starts, but they'relike these little granules.
It kinda kinda small, but, like, just littlegranules that, you know, you just get a
(09:52):
spoonful of them.
You pour, you know, pour it out on a spoon.
I pour, you know, half a tablespoon of honeyover the top of the bee pollen, and I put the
whole thing down the hatch into into my mouth,chew it up a little bit, swish it around.
And I'm telling you right now, it cured myallergies.
(10:14):
One hundred percent cured.
I take no allergy meds.
I take no pills, no inhaler.
I only take local honey and local bee pollen,and I do it once in the morning and once at
night, and then you can kind of back off onceyou have actually beat the allergies.
But it's basically microdosing the pollen thatyour allergies are getting inflamed by.
(10:37):
And so when I first started doing this, when Itook the bee pollen, it, like, made my throat
swell up a little bit.
It made my mouth itchy.
It made my skin kind of around my face a littlebit itchy.
After you do it for a week or two, all thatgoes away.
You know?
And this is not health advice.
So please, if you are allergic to bees, do nottake this.
(10:59):
If you're pregnant, you cannot take this.
But this is what worked for me, and and it'scured my allergies.
I haven't had any allergy problems this seasonat all.
And now I'm only taking the bee pollen onceevery couple days.
I'm taking honey once every couple days, and itcured me.
So if you guys struggle with that, maybe thatwill cure you as well.
(11:21):
I wanted to share that because I I feel likethat's super important.
If you struggle with it, you know how painfulthat stuff is.
What else?
I'm trying to keep these short.
I'm already at ten minutes, man.
Time flies when you're when you're having fun.
I had an interview this morning.
My day's kinda been a little bit of a wildmorning so far.
(11:41):
I had an interview with the New York Times thismorning.
That was something that just popped up.
Cade, our new marketing guy.
By the way, if you haven't listened to the newTurner Mining live podcast, go listen to it.
Cade Cade Cuddy, our our new director ofmarketing, he's hosting the podcast now.
He had Jake Hubbell on there, our our, ourasset manager.
(12:06):
He had Joe Lord on there, VP of sales forTurner Staffing Group.
Two big personalities.
Awesome, awesome podcast.
I'm only about halfway through it.
I was just listening to it when I pushedrecord.
So great job, Cade.
Love to see what you're doing with that.
And that's that that podcast is getting a totalmakeover as well.
(12:26):
So if you guys some of you guys used to listento the Turner Mining Live podcast, go listen to
that because he's gonna do a lot of, cool, funthings with that.
But Cade walked in the office yesterday and,walked into my office and said, hey.
There's some lady at the New York Times thatthat wants to chat, wants an interview.
So I did that this morning.
It was fun.
It was I wasn't sure if it was gonna be a hitpiece on Keaton Turner, if it was going to be
(12:52):
someone slandering the mining industry, or ifit was actually going to be, you know, a value
additive piece on the challenges that we facein mining and and how I think as an industry we
can beat them.
And she either did a really good job of foolingme into thinking that it's gonna be a good
(13:14):
article, or she she actually interviewed me ina way that, that that's gonna get a lot of
these industry challenges out front and center.
And so she started off I'll give you guys abrief up, you know, download on what happened.
She started off kind of asking about Trump'sadministration, how it's impacting the
(13:35):
industry, how tariffs are impacting theindustry.
She wanted to focus on coal primarily.
But we then kind of transitioned theconversation because she asked me a question.
She said, why I was talking to a CEO of a coalcompany yesterday, and he said one of the
toughest parts about their business is that,you know, while the four years Trump's in
(13:56):
office might be great for coal, we could haveAOC in office next year.
And and AOC, for those of you that don't know,is is kind of opposite of Trump on this on the
spectrum of politicians and and beliefs.
And so we could have a n c AOC in office infour years and completely destroy our business.
(14:18):
And and the reporter asked me my opinion onthat.
And I said, well, to be honest with you, youknow, a, I love the coal industry.
I think I think there's a lot of new tech outthere that allows us to burn coal much more
efficiently and cleanly and respond you know,environmentally responsibly than in years past,
first and foremost.
But, b, it's one of the reasons why TurnerMining Group has never kinda over indexed in
(14:44):
coal.
We don't go out of our way to go sell into thecoal industry.
All although, you know, there's tons ofopportunity, coal gets a bad rap, for a lot of
reasons, but the primary primarily is becauseit's volatile based on who's in political
office.
You know?
I am a firm believer, and it's one of thereasons why we've we've indexed so hard into
(15:08):
base metals and specialty minerals, andcritical metals is that I think we can and
should get bipartisan support for mining copperin America.
I think we should get bipartisan support formining cobalt and nickel and gold in America.
(15:28):
Like, you know, again, you've you've heardregardless of what side of the aisle you sit
on, you've heard the left talk about this greenenergy transition and everything needs to be
electrified and electric cars and power gridand all these things.
That's great.
I love it.
We need to mine copper, cobalt, nickel, and amillion other metals here in America.
(15:50):
We've got the reserves.
You know?
And and and this reporter kinda asked somequestions around it.
Like, well, you know, why why would AOC oranyone on the left oppose copper mining in
America?
Oppose nickel mining or cobalt mining here inAmerica.
And I said, well, again, this is one guy'sopinion, but my opinion is that the biggest
(16:16):
issue we have in our industry is that mininghas a perception problem.
AOC, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, any of thesefolks who might oppose mining here in The US
probably I'm gonna go out on a limb and sayprobably haven't actually spent any real time
(16:37):
with their boots in the dirt in a mine sitehere in America.
Because I can tell you, if you go visit acopper mine in China or a coal mine in China,
and then you come visit one here in America,there's no reason in the world you shouldn't be
proud of us and the way we produce copper, theway we produce coal, the way we produce
(17:03):
materials here in America.
When you compare us to other parts of theworld, these emerging emerging economies, we
mine safer.
We mine more environmentally responsibly.
Like, we protect human lives.
We do it in a way I mean, a lot a lot of theseplaces, the water leaving the site's cleaner
(17:24):
than the water when it comes into the mine sitehere in America.
They don't have anywhere near the regulation inChina that we do here.
And so I think we have a perception problem.
I think if you asked AOC, Bernie Sanders, anyof these folks I'm I'm talking far left now.
If you ask any of these folks far left, theirtheir kind of opinion or, vision of what mining
(17:54):
and the mining industry his is here in America,most of them are going to picture like the rest
of our society pictures here in America, darkunderground, dangerous coal, low paying, like,
you know, inefficient mining.
(18:15):
Like, the which which, by the way, is notrepresentative of our industry here in America.
And so I think we, as an industry, have aperception problem.
I think the general public perceives mining.
I mean, Cade's a great example, our marketingguy.
He thought we were an underground miningcompany who, like, mined coal underground.
(18:37):
He didn't even know.
Right?
And and so he's just one example of 300,000,000people across our country who probably have the
wrong perception of what our industry reallyis, what kind of jobs our industry has to
offer?
What kind of opportunities?
(18:58):
What you're doing day to day in your role?
How we actually are environmental stewards?
How we do care about nature and preservation ofnature and reclaiming old mine property to be
value additive in the ecosystem again.
I mean, I could go on and on and on.
So I explained all this to this New York Timesreporter.
(19:19):
And by the end, I think she's like, wow.
This is this is a super interestingperspective.
Every time I've tried to get on the phone withsomeone in mining, they're worried that we're
we have a hit piece, and they don't wanna shareanything.
And, you know, I think, again, I think that'sthat's our big opportunity in our industry is
(19:39):
to be loud and proud.
And it's not just mining.
It can be construction.
You know, there's all kinds of blue collarroles out there where I think we just need to
be more loud and proud.
And and so it was a fun it was a fun interview.
It was fun to try to convince someone of, youknow, the positive things our industry is
(19:59):
doing.
You know, we did talk a little bit abouttariffs, and I think you know, and I'll I'll
talk about this here in a second.
But, you know, one of the cool things wasseeing whether you're pro Trump or anti Trump,
you know, some of you guys may be neverTrumpers, and that's fine.
I I don't judge you for that.
One of the cool things was seeing about 10different mining projects that have been
(20:21):
stymied in regulatory approval for years.
They've been added to the fast 41 list.
And, in fast 41, I'm gonna name off some ofthese projects that, because I have a whole
list here.
Some of these projects that, were added to thelist most recently via an executive order are
(20:42):
projects that we're gonna be involved in.
So projects like Resolution copper, whichthat's one of the largest copper deposits on
the planet.
It's been ten years in permitting, and thatproject's down in Arizona.
Stibnite gold, we've been chasing that oneforever, with Perpetua Resources.
That's that's a gold project.
(21:04):
There's the Southwest Arkansas project, whichis which is standard lithium.
Our project that we're involved in with Bayer,their new mine site, Caldwell Canyon, it's been
on mine permitting, the mine permitting trackfor a long time.
They got really close, and then they had toadjust some things.
(21:26):
And so it was added to the fast 41 list.
Libbey, the the Libbey exploration project,which is a Hecla project.
Lives Lisbon Valley.
I mean, there's several.
Abbermoral, which is the Silver Peak lithiummine, you know, several really critical
projects for our industry that make no sense tobe stuck in regulatory approvals because of
(21:54):
politics on Capitol Hill.
This is this is one of the most frustratingparts of our industry is that in The United
States, for some of you that don't know, ittakes two to three times as long to permit a
new mine as it does in other parts of theworld.
When you compare us to Australia, when youcompare us to Canada, when you compare us to
(22:16):
other parts of the world, South America, thatpermit new mines and bring new mine operations
online, The United States is near the bottom interms of speed.
And and I'm not saying we should just bypass,environmental impact studies.
I'm not saying we should just kill all theindigenous animals that are on the endangered
(22:39):
species list.
I'm not saying we just rip all the vegetationout that never grows anywhere else.
I'm not saying any of that.
But it should not take longer to permit a minethan it does to develop a mine from scratch.
Elon most recently said this, and I thought itwas wild.
I think he said this on the All In podcast.
(23:01):
So I saw this somewhere.
He can build a rocket that goes to Mars or themoon because he hasn't hasn't gone he can build
a rocket that goes to the moon faster,physically build it faster than what the
regulators can approve the permitting for.
(23:23):
So I'm gonna say that again.
Elon Musk can build a rocket faster than whatthe Fed can approve the regulations for.
Finish all the paperwork, give him all of hisapprovals.
It it blows me away that that someone canactually build the thing quicker than the
paperwork can get done.
(23:43):
And we have that same challenge in mining.
And so, you know, for me, I get superpassionate not only about mine permitting
reform.
I'd love to see us be more loud and proud aboutdomestic production, not only of metals, but
specialty minerals, specialty materials, coal,so on and so forth.
I also am super passionate about our industrychanging the perception of mining, and I think
(24:09):
that's up to each and every one of us that's inmining.
If you're in the earth moving business, ifyou're even a fringe service to mining
customers, we should be loud and proud.
We should be shouting from every channel wecan, every podcast, every social media channel.
We we should all be super proud about ourindustry and all the good that we're doing when
(24:33):
we compare our industry and the regulations onour industry and the positive things we do in
our industry, comparing those to otherindustries where we buy their materials and we
import them, from third world countries thathave no MSHA.
You know, guys mining with no shoes on.
(24:53):
Literally.
Guys mining in flip flops.
Guys mining that have no PPE on whatsoever.
Countries dumping pollution and toxic wastefrom mining processing facilities back into the
ocean.
This happens.
This is real stuff.
I'm a get off my tangent, because I could go.
I could you you let me cook, and I could cookon this topic for a while.
(25:17):
I got a phone call.
I got a fun phone call.
My buddy, Jared Franklin Franklin Rock andRecycle, just a little bit ago.
He, he came up or or he came up to the officehere a while back, and I love when he comes to
the office because he always drops off severalcases of craft beer.
Jared is one of these guys.
He's an attorney by by trade or by degree.
(25:41):
He then decided to buy a quarry bit you know, arock quarry, so he crushes rock every day of
the year.
He then said, you know what?
We're doing rock quarry.
Let's go ahead and just buy or start.
I don't know if he bought it or started.
He builds crushers now, and he's a crusherdealer, conveyors, screens, crusher, all kinds
(26:04):
of different crushers, sends them all over thecountry, sends them out of the country, or at
least has sent them out of the country.
And then, you know, he got a little bit bored,so he decided to buy a local beer company.
And and this guy is just this guy is thecoolest.
He's he's a lot of fun to talk to.
So we were just talking industry news, what'shappening.
(26:26):
He and I both agreed the industry is a littleslow right now.
I think we are feeling some art of you know,artificial, kinda some artificial slowdown
maybe due to the tariff talks.
You know, several of our customers that I'veasked and talked to, they get a little nervous
with these crazy tariff conversations that arehappening because some of our customers export.
(26:51):
And so that that obviously is gonna changetheir business up.
But I think just industry wide, it's been alittle slower q '1 from from an opportunity
perspective than than probably years past.
But there's just a lot happening.
You know, a new administration, a lot ofexecutive orders signed, you know, of course,
(27:11):
tariffs and what's happened in the markets.
Regardless if tariff's good for your businessor not, when markets do what they've done,
people just kinda tend to sit on their hands alittle bit and not spend as much money.
Obviously, Jared, you know, being in beer salesand everything else, you know, we he and I are
both consumers of a lot of different thingsjust at a high level, and it's it's been
(27:36):
interesting to watch people not spend moneyquite as freely as they usually do.
You know, we've seen equipment prices tick downa little bit.
We've seen used equipment prices come down.
You know, we've seen customers that typicallyspend a lot of money in capital invest
(27:57):
investment projects, CapEx projects.
Those have kind of either been delayed or or ornot awarded, or just scrapped completely.
And so I don't know.
I don't know if it's artificial.
I don't know if it's here to stay.
I know a lot of people, you know, they say,well, you know, man, I can't I can't change my
business.
You know, I can't go build a new productionfacility here in The US when I've typically
(28:21):
outsourced it to China.
I can't go build a new production facility inThe US if this whole tariff thing just goes
away in six months.
Right?
It's you know, I gotta get permits to build thebuilding.
I've then gotta make the investment into thebuilding.
Like, these this stuff needs to be around forfive, ten, fifteen, twenty years for my
investment domestically here to pay off.
(28:44):
And I just don't think many people have theconfidence that this this tariff stuff's here
to stay.
So I don't know.
I I don't I'm not educated enough to reallyhave a a truly strong opinion.
I think, you know, if you're into this topic, Icouldn't recommend enough the all in podcast,
especially the last few weeks.
They've touched on this, you know, in realdetail.
(29:06):
But here's what I will tell you.
I'll tell you the same thing that, WarrenBuffett's always said.
The easiest bet to make in the world is bettingon America long term.
Now I know we have our issues.
Obviously, the the, you know, the national debtand the deficit.
You know, we've got budget issues.
We've got a bunch of infighting.
(29:28):
We are probably further apart politically onboth sides of the aisle than we've ever been.
We have our own issues, but America's anamazing place to be.
It's amazing place to live.
When you compare our issues to other countries'issues, doesn't seem so bad.
And Warren Buffett's always said, you know, abet on America is an easy bet.
(29:50):
You know, there's some billionaires that are onthis all in podcast, and one of them was
talking about investing in India, investing inChina, so on and so forth.
If you wanna invest in China, you have to JVwith the government, and they own 51% of your
company, and they get to control your company.
The investments in India right now aren't aseasy to get done.
Like, we make things so easy here in America.
(30:13):
Liberty and freedom are taken for granted everysingle day.
I'm getting preachy.
I know.
But America's an awesome place to be.
And so I'm pro America.
I'm long term super bullish here.
People ask all the time, when are you guysgonna start mining in other countries, Mexico,
Canada, Chile, South America?
You know, I don't have any plan to leaveAmerica.
(30:39):
I don't have any plan to go focus elsewhere, atleast not now.
I'm super bullish on mining here in America,and you guys will hear more from me on that
subject, you know, over the coming episodes.
But but, yeah, I'm bullish on America ingeneral regardless of who's in office.
If AOC's in office in four years, I'm bullishon America.
(31:03):
You know?
I'm bullish on mining here in America.
I think we need to do our part as an industry,and I'm speaking for the mining industry.
We need to do our part to convince those whootherwise may not be educated on why they
should love mining in America, why they shouldnot plan to outsource everything to China or
everything to these other countries who do notdo mining anywhere near as responsible for our
(31:28):
planet as we do here in America.
So that's, that's a little bit of that.
I am, I'm running out of battery.
I've got thirty minutes in.
I'm trying to keep these short, sweet,punctual.
I appreciate the heck out of the intro frommister Micah Tisver.
I appreciate you guys tuning back in.
I'm praying you're enjoying it.
(31:49):
I'm praying you're getting your.
I've got a bunch of messages.
I'm not gonna read them all because I'm, again,I'm running out of battery on my device here.
I got a ton of messages, and it was fun tolisten to them, fun to read them this morning.
I shared a bunch of them on socials.
Thanks for joining again.
We're gonna keep this thing rolling.
Video's coming soon.
(32:10):
Video's coming soon.
I'm waiting on a camera and an update and anupdate to some software stuff here, but video's
coming soon.
Thanks for joining.
Praying you're killing it.
Praying you're getting your.
See you.