June 16, 2023 • 45 mins
In this episode of Talkin' Tires, Craig Hunter of Tire Reclaim is joined by Brandon Machell and Buck Hill of Setco Tire to talk closed loop recycling systems, how flying compares to running a business and continued innovation.
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(00:03):
Welcome to Talking Tires, the podcastthe delves deep into the world of tires.
Join us as we explore everything fromthe science behind the manufacturing to the
latest innovations in the tire recycling.Our aim is to provide you with a
comprehensive understanding of tires, including howthey work, how to maintain them,
and how to dispose of them responsively. Whether you're a season mechanic, curious
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car enthusiast, or an avid recycler, Talking Tires is the perfect podcast for
anyone who wants to learn about theessential component of the modern vehicle and heavy
equipment. So buckle up and joinus for an informative and engaging journey in
the world of tires. Okay,welcome to another episode of Talking Tires.
I'm your host, Craig Hunter,president of Tire Reclaim, and I've got
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with me Brandon Mitchell, the nationalsales manager for set COO Tires and also
the owner of Setco Tires buck Hill. We're really excited to have you guys,
Thanks for being here. And basically, Talking Tires is about tires and
technology, what's coming down the pike, and this is our first opportunity.
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We've had multiple guests from tire sales, passenger, semi and loader tires,
and we've had crumb rubber facility companiesand owners come in and talk. This
is our first opportunity to have afull blown manufacturer of tires and solid tires,
which solid tires is not something Ihave a lot of knowledge on myself,
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so I'm super excited to learn moreabout that, learn more about you
guys and your company. So let'sgo ahead and get started. So welcome,
and why don't you tell us alittle bit about Setco. You bet,
thanks for having us, Greig soSeco. We are a manufacturer of
solid rubber tires also rubber cutting edges, the only solid rubber tire made in
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the United States. We're actually herein our warehouse in Idabelle, Oklahoma,
Bock here I can tell you alittle bit more about the history of set
Code. But we've been around sincenineteen eighty eight and happy to be here.
Awesome. So I'm a third generationguy. My granddad started in the
thirties retreading repairing. Uh you know, a Model Tour six hundred and sixteens.
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There's a great picture in my officeof my granddad's staying in very proudly
in front of a bunch of presses. Uh. My dad grew up in
the business. Uh, went outto California, taught school a few years,
and came back to it and aboutthe year I was born, probly
around sixty four. It's really theonly business I've I've ever known, even
even when I went to college,I worked for good years. So you
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know, tires is about it forme, right, Yeah, I did.
I was able to find an article. Um it's a few years old,
but you know, congratulations. Obviouslythe business is a booming success if
you have news part newspaper articles thatI can look up and learn a little
bit more about the successes and thebusiness there. And to Belle, Oklahoma,
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which you've stayed local and tell usa little bit about your town and
your your place there. This podcastis really it's about you guys and your
company as well as the products thatyou put out. So you know,
tell me about that. You havea lot of key people there. I'm
sure that you're proud of and yourmanufacturing is it could not run without a
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hitch without some good people around you. What's somewhat challenging being as remotely located
as we are. You look usup and we're about two hour miles from
Tulsa, two ur and miles fromLittle Rock to probably about one hundred eighty
five miles from DFW Airport. Soit's a little bit tough to draw talent
in here. And that's as wecontinue to grow and the quality of our
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manufacturing people become greater and greater,that becomes more and more of the problem.
The one thing, however, isthis is the first mountains that you
get to out of DFW. Sowe actually have probably about forty four thousand
visitors a week in here. WhenI was a kid, you know,
you go up to Lake anytime,which is only about twenty five miles from
here, beautiful, get a boatslip. You can't do that anymore.
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The place has been overran with basicallyTexans, and it all started about ninety
eleven. They realized that the Oklahomahad very cheap property taxes and the interest
rates are low. You got aboutthirty three hundred luxury homes up here that
rent. You know, the averagevalue is north of a million dollars.
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Twenty years ago that the highest pricehouse that had ever sold in the county,
and the county's bigger than Rhode Island. It's about sixty wide ninety long.
The highest price house that had eversold in our county twenty years ago
about three hundred and eighty five thousanddollars. Homes are selling now for well
over a million dollars. It's alsoput a crush on our crunch on general
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labor, general labor here, it'sbecome harder and harder. Fine, but
my dad was a very straightforward guy, and he basically said, if we
if if we can't afford to haveinsurance for our people, we can't afford
to have benefits, we don't needto be in business. And I can
tell you all the way back,and my memory goes back, you know,
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to the early eighties when I cameback and involved myself. We've always
had had had a you know,four or one case health insurance, so
on and so forth. My dadjust basically it's just our responsibility and if
we can't put enough margin in thereto have that, we don't need to
be in the business. So yeah, put down, Yeah, you're tracking
right where I was thinking, thatis. I'd love to have our listeners
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know a little bit more like,what are some of the things you do
to get some of that talent.Are you doing um job fairs in your
in your area and things like that, or you know, like everywhere else
that the pay scale has continued toincrease. The nice thing about that with
that pay scale increasing, you alsoget there there's a delta there to where
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you get to hire quality hand andwe get to hire quality better hands and
we we are automating. You know, we spend a lot of money each
and every year on on CAPEX projects. This year alone, I think we
had three major cafex projects. Oneof them was a new robotic welding seal
because the seal we have now thathas three robots welding um and and picking.
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Uh you know, as uh welooked back, it was OZ seven.
They came into my office one dayand had a thirty five thousand dollars
PO to sign and I said,what's this for? You don't explain this
to me, and uh they said, wells for a wiing harness for the
welding robots. And I said,We're not have any problem with them.
Why aren't we spending this money?And they said, that's why we want
to spend the money, because itruns twenty hours a day, you know,
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So let's see. One of theCafex projects this year was the Welding
Seal. Another one was what areyou looking at? Do you have a
weightboard there? You're pointing? Inan hour, It's just it's just our
manufacturing facilities right across the street over. Oh you can see it, yeah,
yeah, yeah. Our site nowI think it was about one hundred
seventy acres. We actually just soldone hundred and twenty thousand square foot building
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last week, so I think we'redown about a half million square feet under
aod and about a hundred and fortyfive acres. So it's it's kind of
a spread out place. When Istarted here when I was fourteen years old,
my dad borrowed a D six Dodrethat had a pony motor on it.
Brought me out here and showed mehow to start the pony motor and
then start the big motor. Wehad five acres and we had no buildings.
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Over the years, this was anindustrial park, and as businesses ebbed
and flowed and came and went,we simply have bought everything we could possibly
buy it. So it's it's agreat way for an American manufacturer to be
able to stay in business. Thisbuilding right here we're setting, it's forty
thousand square feet. It was partof forty two acres that we bought in
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oh nine for one hundred and seventyfive thousand dollars, So I mean,
we couldn't do the dirt worth forthe building, so we made some very
good byes on some verial large industrialproperty, which keeps our costs down because
although our wages are probably much greaterthan what our competitors have to play in
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Southeast Asia, our productivity is tremendous. So I think the other capex that
we did was a new plasma torch. The plasma torch we had was about,
I don't know, fifteen twenty yearsold. What we want to do
is have the reliability of the equipment, so we're always investing. This company
is my favorite investment that I haveand I give my heart, soul on
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my wallet to it. Well,wasn't that you that was quoted as this.
It's like your erector set and youdon't have to wait around for a
building or for a big meeting.You just go out and do it right.
And we've innovated a lot and tobe a great innovator. You have
to have a great tolerance for failure, and we have had a lot of
failures. We can. But whatwe're very good is is we're very precise.
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My dad was a pilot, mygranddad was a pilot. My son
was a pilot. Brandon's about tobe a pilot. You know, I've
got forty years of flying in tenthousand hours. I think you have when
you when you fly, you haveto be precise. A lot of that
lends itself quite well to being abusinessman. A good pilot is a good
businessman. A good businessman is agood pilot. Some people say, you
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know, a businessman shouldn't be flyingnow, he's got to be able to
put that to the side and gettingthe cockpit. And that's that's what Friday
are. My point of that matteris we document those failures and we analyze
them backwards like a plane crash,and we look at them in pieces.
What did we do good? Whatdid we not do good? What did
we learn? I mean, ifnothing else, you just have an absolute
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catastrophe and everything failed. What didwe learn out of that? And that's
what we have steadily built on offof each other. Slowly and surely,
and and and and so when wego into a customer and we can look
and tell him how much the tarcan can handle, as far as load
speed, we can tell them inwhat ambient temperature, we can tell them
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the deflection, we can tell thema lot a lot of the people because
this is this is kind of alow end industry, and you get a
lot of somewhat uh people that mightnot be as precise as we are,
are are as as concerned, arededicated to it as we are. You
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get people that were selling trailer houseslast year and they're selling cars next year.
Our our whole life and in fact, I'm sitting there looking at it.
Guy walking up here to me,Larry Sergey. Larry came to us
right out of college. He's afew years younger than me. He's dedicated
his life. Between the three ofus are probably not three people in the
world that know more about large authorold solid tires and how to make them
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work and get them out there workingcorrectly the first time. We make the
mistakes here, we don't put themistakes out in the field. And you
know, and and part of thatis is our long term relationship with the
Rdao plant in Middle Othian, whichwas chapparel steel, one of the largest
plants in the world, the mostabusive. They can tear up an anvil
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with a feather, is what mydad used to tell me, you know.
And I mean they're you know,less than two or miles from here.
They're a twenty minute flight for us. We all, we all we
lean on them quite heavily for Rand D. And we have learned a
lot from them because they're Texans,because they do things to the absolute max,
you know, and uh, theystretch us and that stretching makes us
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better. So we never look atit. And I mean you go back
to it biblically in fact, andlook at it in the Bible. You'll
be thankful for your problems, becauseyour problems is what it's what allows you
to see an innovation. It's exactlysee the same way my dad came up
with this whole ideal. And wecan go back to the aviation and the
problems. He left Houston one night, put the flaps down, couldn't get
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the flaps up, landed in alufkin and took a piece of paper out
and drew on a napkin a pieceof paper, came home and visited with
me about it. Eighty nine.I think we built our first tire.
Gerdale, which was Chaprell at thattime, was our first, first and
favorite account that we we just wewe really love them. And uh,
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you can't imagine how an abuse ofthe place of this. Yeah, yeah,
what did he draw on the napkin? He basically just drew the first
design of our tires out and thatwas an expanded rim so that the rim
was bigger, and you bonded therubber to it. Right down the street
here forty miles is is a redribber army depot. They redo all the
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bogy wheels for the tank track.He went down there and got with an
engineer and uh, you know,hired him come up on Fridays. He
worked with us on on quality anduh and and and procedures on how to
do it. And uh, fromthat we've become ISO. That we've been
ISO probably I don't know, fifteenyears or more. Uh. Some people
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looked at it as a hassle.I look at it as an owners as
Uh, checks and balances go backto the fine again. I mean Lindberg
was all about checklist and that's whatISO has done for us. It's made
us accountable and uh, it's it'smade it to where I mean, I
think in our promotional video, Sowhen was the last time you heard of
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a set Co tar failure? Literallywe put it tens of thousands, hundred
thousands of tires out of year fouror five tires. You know, maybe
that wasn't even our fault, butwe're gonna take care of it anyway.
You know, probably wasn't. Ourquality is unbelievable, and that's what I'm
striving for. Well, it makessense. You're you're you know, correlation
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to flying. You want everything perfect, right, I mean, I just
got back from vacation and my entirefamily sitting with me, and we got
back and my dad said, Praisethe Lord. When I saw him,
as like, it doesn't matter,Dad, and he's like, well,
you had everything I love in thatairplane. You know, anything goes wrong,
that's that's terrible. You know,it all happens all at once.
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I lose everybody, and I'm like, oh, Dad, we're here,
da da dah. But it makesperfect sense. And I do like that
correlation. Prior to ninety eleven,the only other mode of transplation that was
safer than the airlines is an elevator. But if you got on a plane
every year, it's prior to ninetyeleven, thirty five thousand years, you
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have to get on a plane beforeyou would you would statistically be in a
plane crash. And I'm talking abouton airlines. Wow. You know.
So it's a very very safe,it's a very mature. It's a very
by the book. Uh. Youknow, they have an ATP standards,
airline transportation standards and type ratings.I've got a couple of type ratings in
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a jet. I know it's heldto study forward and I hate it when
I'm doing it, but I'm veryproud afterwards. And when I get into
some weather, I've got the toolsto fight my way out of it.
Let's see. Okay, yep,here's what we're gonna do. And we
and we get a plan and wego. So I like the analysis of
the crash as well, you know, like we all of us have pitfalls
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and failures and things that we canlearn from, right, and we invest
money and maybe it doesn't pan outthe best way and we end up you
know, retooling or pivoting and goinga different direction. Um, what are
some of the things that you've seenrecently? I mean, I hate doing
this, but I do it everytime post COVID. Um, did you
guys have everything run through okay,through COVID? Did you did your workforce
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I mean disappear on you or didthey come back? Or? Oh no,
I mean our our workforce statements stayedwith us. And we we were
you know there there's there's different peoplethan in COVID and uh for us,
we have a great plant manager.He came from a fortune five hundred company.
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He brought such an incredible culture tothis, this infant business in some
ways that even though you know,we've been doing this for you know,
thirty five plus two years, buthe brought such and and and he's saying,
is we need to put some bookins on it, you know.
And and without becoming uh argan religion, our politics or anything, I actually
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believed what you know, faut hewas saying. And we abided by it
to the best of our ability.And and we tried to state ourselves and
everything else what COVID did for us. And it's the first thing that our
our tremendous plant manager told me whenhe walked in the door, probably two
or three years ago, and heuh said, We've got to get rid
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of the hard labor. Anything thatyou break a sweat on, anything that's
a strain. We have to identifyit, we have to eliminate it.
We have to figure out how toautomate it, streamline it, and get
rid of the labor. When thathappened, when when COVID happened, And
I must tell you that's probably,without a doubt, the most terrified I'd
ever been, because I could actuallysee the whole company getting COVID at one
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time. I could I could envisionthat how it could spread so so rapidly.
And you know, I'm a voraciousuh I wish I could say reader,
I'm not, but I'm I ammarried. My first and favorite wife
h librarian by trade, and sheshe can read a book that thick.
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I can't ask you anything about it. But I like to watch a lot
of like History Channel and stuff.The AIDS epidemic. They couldn't understand the
AIDS epidemic because they were looking atsomething that was so incredible. It went
back to a male steward that wasworking for South African Airlines and so you
know, he's in Joelburg one night, he's in New York. Next night,
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he's in Sydney. And all ofa sudden, within six weeks AIDS
had exploded all over the world,and it came back to this one guy.
You know, I could I startedthinking about that. In fact,
I wrote letters about it. Iwas heavily involved in YPO at the time.
Young Presidents Organization. I used them. They're great minds. We put
a strategy together, but we forthe most part followed the government guidelines because
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we've got just under two hundred peoplehere and it doesn't take long to do
the calculations to think about the huband spoke, you know, if if
I interact with this guy or thatguy. But back to it, COVID
was wonderful for us. It Ispent twelve hours a day on the floor.
I probably lost twenty twenty pounds ofthe fifty I need to lose push
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on. These didn't like it aswell, But at that point we made
some major changes in our operation directlydue to TOVID. That we are reaping
the benefits of today. So Imean a tire likely this with forty point
five sitting behind us plays two thousandpounds, two thousand pounds. We'll build
that tier in four minutes. Now, off the builder and going, I'll
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build you know, four of thosean hour, one with one guy.
We're so much more productive than weever were before. And so the automation,
the automation that was birthed from thisconversation with your plant manager, we're
seeing more and more of that too. You know, it visited the manufacture
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of our crumb rubber facility plant andthey were adding equipment. It sounds a
lot like your as they had CAPEXfor different projects over the next three or
four years that I think each oneof them had some sort of robot or
automation involved in it. Just toclarify, you've got a chrome uh factory.
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So we're coming online in October,UM September October. We're buying a
Joe mar out of Middlebury, Indiana, Indiana. UM. None better than
those guys. Yeah, they arethe best. Thank you for saying that.
Levonne and and and Lamar are thegreatest people, and and and they're
they're they're the only people I've evermet that's quite as crazy as I am
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at at at there there at howu uh integrated that they are. They're
fully integrated, just like we are. They've got the trucks, they've got
the processing, and they make theirthey make their equipment, and when it
breaks, even if they sold somebody, they're very much like us, they
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apologize. We've got another one onthe way. We're not sure. In
fact, I've been trying to buya for shaft of tredder from them for
about two or three years and they'renot just quite ready to to uh to
to to a to share it withus. We want to grind some of
our one inch stuff down to likequarter inch. And I went and looked
up in Pennsylvania at a couple ofthem running, a couple of the raptors,
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and I've been to their place upin Indiana. I gotta tell you,
they're just fantastic people. Yeah,I'm telling you. They've got four
big shredders running down there at thecement plant down in Middle Othian that grind
the tires, you know. Sothey bringing tires in there and grind them,
and then they're they're using them asa as a hog fuel, I
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guess for the cement. But there'snobody else I've ever met in this industry
that is more grounded and straightforward thanthose guys are. And that's amazing to
hear you say that, because that'sactually a connection that did that wasn't brought
about for this meeting. Um So, I got Brandon's number from Brett Eckhart,
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the owner of United Metals Recycling,which is our parent company to TYR
re Claim, and we if havevisited Tom Parker. Out of all American
Tires in Dallas Fort Worth, allAmerican Tire recycling, he told us there's
none better than the Raptor and theLevan and Lamar and those guys. So
we jumped on a plane. Wewent to his facility in Texas, toward
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that, went to another facility inOklahoma and toward that, then we went
up to Indiana and toured those ninemachines running at incoreps or in Tech,
which is Levan's company. So it'sit's a really nice, you know,
full loop circle to come back andhave you a guest on our podcast.
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Is confirming what we saw, whatwe witnessed, which is a true American
company, much like yourself, outthere hitting it hard and taking care of
their customers on a day to daybusiness and we I mean the shop was
perfect. That's the automation. Iwas just referencing. You know, they
have a lot of robots they're usingand doing more and more every day.
So yeah, that's pretty cool thatthat's all come connect to visit. Uh
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is Troy Hess up at Can youpronounce that? On? Tongo Enterprises Tire
Recycling throughout in the middle of Pennsylvania, Liverpool, Pennsylvania. He was very
gracious with me and show and letme look at a couple of these raptors
running. And that was about it. And I mean he has I think
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he's very innovative. It looks likesomething out of one of those mail gifts
in movies. You know, Iwant to see him. He's got he's
got conveyors that are running, youknow, five six hundred feet out there.
I mean, he might be thebest guy I've ever seen as far
as a as a processor. Andhe's very he guards it very closely,
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and I don't blame him. What'sthat name? Can you spell that company
name? Mahn tongo Is? Ibelieve it's how you pronounced it. Yeah,
they're up in Pennsylvania. Troy Hess, that man might actually be his
knowledgeable of the feller that I've evertalked to. When he starts talking about
you've got to be able to dothe airflow and and and you know things
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that he shares with us as faras shredding stuff. You know that the
water is a is a lubricator.He's just I was highly impressed with that.
That's a That's the funnest thing aboutmy job. I get to go
see some real A players, andsome of that rubs off on me and
inspires me. And even though now, you know, let's say I turned
fifty nine at the end of theyear, I've got a bunch of friends.
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I was talking to a girl upthat that U graduated with high school.
She's at Dennis. She said,well, I'm just working two days
a week and everything, and I'mlike, I just don't making sense to
me. I want to work likecrazy because there's not that much left in
me, you know. I mean, you know, ten years from now,
I'm myself's gonna be doing this well. If I can get my health
in a little better shape, maybeyou know. It's like a good friend
that was a number six at Southwest, he said, yeah, I think
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we're gonna hang it up. Youknow. I said, well, you
got another six months. He said, yeah, but you know I'm not
gonna make him more and everything.I said, dude, you're crazy.
I said, seven months from now, you're gonna be wishing. He was
in a seven thirty seven coming outof look Worthy of, you know,
with with all the all the dI's on and saying, yeah, you
know, I mean, I'm gonnaretire like like Paul Smith over Joseph over
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Joseph Smith, Uh, biggery Soccwareover in DC. I love Paul and
that whole bunch there. He said, I'm gonna retire twenty four hours after
they close a coffin on me.And I'm gonna be the same way.
I want to be here as longas I can be a advocate for these
guys. I can't. I'm overwhelmedwith the the the use that we're able
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to pull in, and the andand how I'm excited they are about this.
This is the greatest gift you couldever imagine. You know, Um,
it's just unbelievable. You know.Uh, we're right here on the
Red River, Texas, just rightthere. Uh, We've got a ranch
in Texas, hfense place, youknow, one of our good friends.
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In fact that I noticed last nighthe would have turned a hundred, but
it was Carol Shelby. Carol,Carol Shelby. I probably became close friends
with him in his late eighties.He was so unbelievable, full of of
of optimism and and and we're gonnado this, and we're gonna do this,
and and and so on and soforth. He just was a real
character. That's what. That's theguy I want to be. I want
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to be the cheerleader when I'm eightynine years old and saying I like that,
Guys, I think that's gonna work. Or have you considered what's gonna
happen here? You know? Inever want to be a naysayer. Uh.
And and this company is it's likeon in a ranch in a lot
of ways. It's it's mine forthis time. But this company, we're
designing it to well outlive me.And uh, the people that are that
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are here and and the people thatwere putting in place, we're putting in
place for a long run, youknow. And Uh, Well, I've
heard the future is in your mindsetand there's some things that you're doing with
sustainability now that you're you're getting intosome recycling yourselves. And obviously if you
know Joe mar and you know theRaptor, then you know that we'll be
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recycling one percent of our tires verysoon as well. And what's going on
in that realm for you guys?I think we're particularly blessed and maybe somebody
else is, But um, youknow what talk. I look at my
wife, you know, at adistance or something. I almost have to
(27:33):
pinch myself. How do I getto marry such a wonderful person. I
wouldn't be near that. I wouldn'tbe halfy man I am without her,
you know, I think about howblessed we are we have Basically, our
tires are made mostly out of onecompound, and so it's recyclable. I'm
looking at a freight truck just backedup here, in an old Dominion truck.
It's got some super single what nextienceor fifty five, you know,
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seventy or point five. There's twentydifferent compounds in that tired. There's a
bead compound, there's a sidewalk compound, there's a casing compound, there's an
inner tread and all this. You'vegot so many think different things working here.
It's like a gumbo of of ofcompounds there. Most of them are
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not made for wear, and whenthe tires worn out, most of the
wear compound is gone, you know, it's evaporated into the ozone. I
understand. We're so much more blessedthan that. And we've always built a
pure, high quality tire. Andwe have a lot of competitors that build
a lot of tires with a lotof fillers in them. Those are not
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recyclable. Um, that's something thatgoes to the cement plan. Our tire
from the very top to the verybottom is the same, is the same
compounds, and it's always been alittle more costly to make it that way.
But now we're sitting here looking atyou know, we got fifty million
pounds of rubber sitting here. We'resitting here grinding. We've got one of
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we've got SSI as the largest shredderthat that that they make, sitting there
breaking them down. We break themdown, uh with ex vators and and
uh we get them into mandible sizesand we bring it down to about a
forty mess are smaller. So andwe're doing that cry genically because all of
our compounds are one hundred scent andnatural rubber. So, uh, if
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you're gonna get in the in thein the crum business, you know you're
either gonna be ambient. A areare You're gonna be a cry Jenny from
from the two angles I know ofthe police. If you know something different,
I'm all ears, no, no, no. Ambience is where we're
at. YEA. The problem is, you know the am is gonna get
you down to about ten or fifteen, maybe twenty twenty five. And if
you put in a cracker meal andyou know you'll you'll get on down a
(29:49):
little further. The We've always beentold about everybody I've ever spoken to that
you can't expect to get this thisone hundred percent. Now for rubber down
lower. If we can get itlow enough, we can get it into
the into the product. So let'sjust take a small tiret a Bobcat targets.
If it's the optimum weights to earnpounds, we can actually make that
(30:15):
tart two hundred and two pounds withthe same party line and everything else.
We can make a denser product andit's the exact same compound. We did
this in an effort to compete againstsome of our moral low cost competitors.
But it's come back to be themost unbelievable thing we can ever imagine because
we have a very incredible tracking programthat we can track. We can track
(30:41):
those truck tires, we can trackthe tires on this devote. I'm looking
at this golf guard here. Wecan track anything, but we use it
for our Pacific needs. It's asystem that was designed and built by us.
Brandon joined us a few years agocoming from a GCR, which is
the bricks On firestone company. Theyhad tread stat We're taking the best of
the best of the best and takingit even further. We've actually found it
(31:04):
out that this recycling product is lastinglonger than the original. Now, if
I go in here and just gettruck tires with the BEAT package and and
and and you know, the BEATcompound and everything else, I don't think
I could expect that same results.But because we're using a closed loop recycling
program, we're killing it with soour tire is now one percent recyclable,
(31:29):
the entire wheel, tire, everything. It's the only one that we're aware
of that's one hundred percent recycle inthe world. Ever yet we know of
one somewhat large scale basis well,and the components you're talking about, and
that comparison to you know, oneversus multiple, it makes perfect sense,
right, you would be the mostset up to be able to do a
(31:52):
one hundred percent recycled product, whichthat is um the closed loop you mentioned,
that's these are all keyword right thateverybody likes to throw around. Sustainability.
To me, sustainability is exactly whatyou just said. You found out
it's gonna last longer. And I'llbet there's some probably some pretty good cost
savings involved too in some of theareas. Maybe one day we'll get to
(32:14):
see that. If you know,the entry costs into this into this stuff
is steep, you know, yeah, and there have been some learning curves
in that, and uh, youknow, you buy a lot of nitrogen,
you buy a lot of hammers,and uh, the problem is with
ours, it seemed like we nevercan break it down far enough to where
(32:36):
we can pull the metal out ofit. We do a lot of damage.
Whereas if you had, you know, if you were just recycling factory
ways, you wouldn't expect that.But if you know much about our products
and the places we run, Imean we run in shredder. So you're
gonna get the get the valve outof a fifty eighth Chevy. You know
you're gonna get the spring out ofa you know, twenty twenty three dogs
that got ran over. You knowyou're gonna we get a whole ton of
(33:00):
it. And the non ferrous Isthis challenging for us as anything to remove
out of the script because we ourour any current system does not fully do
a good job there and the magnets. It's just a challenge right. Well,
what I like to look at toosometimes in this and what I was
(33:20):
referencing as well as opportunity costs,So what would be the alternative to recycling
and reusing those products? Is it? You know landfill? Is it?
You know, just getting rid ofit some other way? It's cement kills,
so you know the cost and effectof all of that as well.
It's landfill or are are going tothe to the cement kills? You know
(33:43):
basically what it is. And theb tou value is it extremly high.
We've never actually been involved in inselling any of the product at this time.
We are going to have to getthere as we as we have competitors
tires to dispose of as well.Um understand, that's that's a whole other
little syndicate. Unto itself. Theone person that sells it, you got
to sign in your life. Whilehe wouldn't understand, I don't know much
(34:06):
about that, but I'm curious.But we actually are developing. We've got
a new forty thousand square footfielding overhere about it, I don't know,
probably about a mile across the campushere. And in fact, we just
polished the floors and we brought itup to about a four hundred. So
like if you walk in a homedepot, you see that shine. We
just stuck our head in there.I did that because over you know,
(34:30):
start from the thirties, that's sevenover nine decades. We've had a handful
of fires in my family and Ican't remember any one of them that was
ever pleasant or good. You know. So a great guy that that does
some work with me said, ifyou removed the fuel, you removed the
(34:52):
hazard. Makes sense. So it'sjust like when we when we go to
crane school, you know, uh, the first thing you know, and
we have a great we have agreat team here probably the greatest I could
ever imagine of our journeyman. Andone particular guy in there. It's Gary
(35:14):
Branson, my plant manager before itused to have a bit of history and
rigging or something like that. Garywould come to me. I hope it's
not too public, but he wouldsay, hey, Buck, don't you
Dwayne need to go down down toMiddle Oathian or don't don't you need to
go to Houston or somewhere. Inother words, take the plant manager,
get him out of here, andlet us do it. So basically the
(35:36):
team basically gets together. Everybody kindof has to have a thumbs up that
we're ready to make the pick.And that's kind of the mentality that we
that we like to go with here. Fantastic. Well, we're running out
of time, guys. I've justwanted to if you hear anything else you
wanted to talk about, any plugsfor anybody. You've got some names you
dropped there. I'm I'm sure thoseare some super key people. I know
(36:00):
Brandon didn't get to talk to usa whole lot, but he warned me
of that that wants. But gunin the room, Brandon ought to talk
about our TMS because he's really takingit over and ran with it. I
mean he's done a fantastic job withhim. Yeah, just just quickly craig
our our tire tracking software. It'sbought Seco tms UM. It's very innovative.
It's all done in house. Wehave our own programmers at work on
(36:22):
that and uh, it's the premieretire tracking software in the industry. We
if our customers will follow that,and and it really takes five measurements throughout
the life of the tire. Soif you take a loader tire in in
a shredder, so he gets tenthousand hours. If you'll follow those those
those cues of how to rotate thetires, you will cut your tire coss
(36:45):
twenty percent. How does that benefitus? I like my customers get the
greatest value they possibly can. Sowhat I don't want to do is see
it is see a set of tirescome in and two of them on the
wheel, and two of them gota ton of rubber that they didn't get
more. I want them so towaste nothing but the pluck as a bow
pilgrim. You say, I don'twant to lose anything but the pluck of
(37:07):
the chicken. You know, Iwant them to get all their money's worth,
and we can help them do that, and we can help keep their
their A drive train within um Ase SE specs of American Society of Engineers
specs it. It'll save on planetary'stransmissions things of that nature. Absolutely.
(37:29):
I told you I'm passionate about tires. I'm telling you you could ask me
that, or about my grand kidsor something like that. I can go
on for days. Well, Iwould like I would like to know what
was your wife's name, Natalie firstand favorite. Yeah, so that's the
one that I like to bring thatname up first and foremost. You'd already
given her plugs. But I'm prettysure if you're anything like me, nothing,
(37:51):
I wouldn't be here without a greatwoman in my life. I can
remember being over in Perth, Australiaabout as far are Joe burg in the
mines or something, you know,and thinking to myself, I don't have
to worry about my family. Idon't have to worry about my kids.
You know. She got the homefar going. Yeah. And at the
same time, you know, shehad had had worried about much herself up
(38:15):
having generated every reasonable time. Yeah, And Brandon. You've got Kirby there
at home, right, That's right. Kirby's the same thing. I take
care of my two kids, Whitleyand Walker, and uh yeah, I
can't can't do any of this withouther. Yeah. And Buck, you've
got you've got family there at theplant right. Well. The unfortunate thing
(38:35):
that I mean, we lost ourson about seven years ago on our ranch
in an airplane crash. Oh no, twenty four years old. Just graduated
college about a year after that.Uh. You know, my desire for
this company to to well outlive meis is beyond your imagination. I don't
you know. We get I caneasily sell it out and do up else.
(39:00):
But I mean that seven years Iwouldn't have survived very well without him.
So I will a lot to thiscompany myself, just to have the
sanity to have something to do,to go to work and everything else.
Since then, you know, myson in law was a Dodge dealersh out
in West Texas. Uh, Hamilton'sum Texas. And you know I just
(39:22):
pulled P and L and I said, here's what we do. That's Mitchell,
right, yeah, And and andhis dad owns you know, all
the major dealerships, owns from Cadillac, you know, all the all the
UH dealerships. It's a big organizationthat his dad has. His dad literally
came from nothing. I mean hisdad really didn't grow up with a sure
(39:43):
enough dad. It's an admirable thingthat Chad Bear has done in his lifetime.
Uh. But you know, likeany father and son, you can
have a little bit of of arub or something. And I know my
daughter was happier to be back here. We were happy, happier have her
home. Mitchell came in and joinedus, and you know, doctor bid,
(40:05):
something was happening to my my mydaughter and my son in laws.
I would want to keep Mitchell.You know, he's just he brings a
lot. He's very mild, andhe brings a lot to the to the
company. You know. I'm Brandanis your daughter's name. Yep, I'm
very I'm a very direct person andsometimes that can be offensive to people.
But at least you know what I'mthinking when I leave. But I'm working
(40:25):
on that. I'm you know,my my toolbox started out very very thin.
This great manager that we heard,Tony Cochrane, I'm telling you he
can get more out of people charmingand than I ever could hollered at him.
You know as well. We're alllearning. It's it's basically a big
lesson of life. It is.Yeah, I wish I had this perspective
(40:46):
when I was, you know,twenty twenty five or something. You know,
No, don't look back. Yeah, it's all forward from here.
Well, guys, I sure appreciateyour time. I'm gonna go ahead and
close it up on that. It'sreally nice to meet you, Buck,
and I can't I can't wait tillyou get the raptors in. Yeah.
(41:07):
Yeah, So, I don't knowif y'all been to Idaho. I've been
to Oklahoma and Texas a lot.I've got family all over that area.
Um, But as much as i'dlike to come see you, i'd love
for you guys to come and seeus as well. Up here in Idaho.
Is it northern Idaho, No,We're we're so southwest, central and
eastern Idaho. Yeah. We basicallyrun all along the bottom of the state.
(41:30):
So Boise would be the major city, Twin Falls and Pocatello. Um,
but anyway, we're we're here,and we're we're gonna start putting that
all together I've actually got two menum in Texas right now looking at dust
collection systems as well, you know, compares the all the whole system for
our friends at All American Tire Recycling. And we've got guys over there studying
(41:52):
the plant right now. I'll tellyou the other one who's who's also in
uh the scrap metal business. Butup and uh aunt British Columbia. What's
back Alberta. There's a great familyup in Alberta that has one of the
neatest Glynn Cohen Alberta environmental rubber products. You want to talk about a slick
(42:15):
operation. They take it from trucktires basically is what they're doing, and
they grind them down and get themdown into a powder. And he's got
two dual lines running, so oncase one breaks down, you know,
got two of everything. So he'sgoing through a primary shredders and he's going
(42:35):
through under some sort of a grinder, and then he goes on down and
he ends up at some cracker mealsand that just keeps getting rotated. And
he told me the trick on thecracker meal, you know, because I
had a cracker meal and kind oftried it a little bit you weren't a
successful He's got some of those madedown there in Sarasota, Florida. And
(43:00):
you know it's got two different gearboxeson it, one of the one of
them running nineteen to one. Youknow, so he's really doing something.
But out of all the places I'veever been, it's huge. You ought
to look at this place up andand Glenn is a fantastic guy to deal
with. But their main business,I believe, was scrapped and they got
(43:22):
into the tire recycling business because Ithink the Alberta government kind of said we're
gonna do this. Are you interested? And I'm telling you, and get
a neat rule too, or hismain guy. Cut it in half every
time, every process. After yougo through the primary, cut it in
half again. If it's four inches, cut it too two it's two,
(43:43):
Cut it to one. If it'sone, cut it to half and che
and just keep going down. It'snot rocket science. It's keep breaking that
thing down any daring way that youpossibly can to get it down to the
desired product. You know, we'regetting it down into dust. We're getting
it down to Calcolm Puty. Yeah, that's where we're headed. We got
cracker Mail on order and we'll beyou know, producing the well whatever the
(44:06):
highest bidder is to be honest,so that's what we'll produce. But we
can go all the way down tothe you know, thirty two ninety nine,
or we can come up to hten twenty. You know, we
have the ability to do all blackrubber um. But I don't want to
get off into a deep networking conversation. Well, we'll wrap up this podcast
(44:27):
to me we jump on another calltogether. Sure, I'm curious who you
bought the cracker mail front. It'sall Joe Mark. Oh, it's all
Joe Mark. Okay, yeah,it'll be all one complete unit. We'll
more. Must love you more becauseI tried to send a couple of rolls
up to him. He said,no, no, no, I got
without the right track. I guesswe met the right guys at the right
(44:49):
time. You know, you're probablyspending a lot more with him than either.
So oh, I don't know aboutthat. But you know what's great
about those guys. They sure alltheir technology that they're wide open. And
and when he comes here, I'lllet him look at anything he wants to.
Yeah, I'm seeing that, I'mseeing that more and more. The
Tom at all American and David Rileyin Oklahoma, and I mean everybody,
(45:12):
Lavan and Lamar, they've all justwide open, all of you anything,
honestly, anything we need and tellus the best hotel while we're visiting.
I mean, it's just been fantastic, but all right, anything else,
gentlemen, Thank God, bless you, thanks for being on and enjoy that
nice weather in Oklahoma and we'll talkto you soon, all right, thank
(45:34):
you, thank you,
Welcome to Talking Tires, the podcastthe delves deep into the world of tires.
Join us as we explore everything fromthe science behind the manufacturing to the
latest innovations in the tire recycling.Our aim is to provide you with a
comprehensive understanding of tires, including howthey work, how to maintain them,
and how to dispose of them responsively. Whether you're a season mechanic, curious
(00:26):
car enthusiast, or an avid recycler, Talking Tires is the perfect podcast for
anyone who wants to learn about theessential component of the modern vehicle and heavy
equipment. So buckle up and joinus for an informative and engaging journey in
the world of tires. Okay,welcome to another episode of Talking Tires.
I'm your host, Craig Hunter,president of Tire Reclaim, and I've got
(00:50):
with me Brandon Mitchell, the nationalsales manager for set COO Tires and also
the owner of Setco Tires buck Hill. We're really excited to have you guys,
Thanks for being here. And basically, Talking Tires is about tires and
technology, what's coming down the pike, and this is our first opportunity.
(01:11):
We've had multiple guests from tire sales, passenger, semi and loader tires,
and we've had crumb rubber facility companiesand owners come in and talk. This
is our first opportunity to have afull blown manufacturer of tires and solid tires,
which solid tires is not something Ihave a lot of knowledge on myself,
(01:34):
so I'm super excited to learn moreabout that, learn more about you
guys and your company. So let'sgo ahead and get started. So welcome,
and why don't you tell us alittle bit about Setco. You bet,
thanks for having us, Greig soSeco. We are a manufacturer of
solid rubber tires also rubber cutting edges, the only solid rubber tire made in
(01:55):
the United States. We're actually herein our warehouse in Idabelle, Oklahoma,
Bock here I can tell you alittle bit more about the history of set
Code. But we've been around sincenineteen eighty eight and happy to be here.
Awesome. So I'm a third generationguy. My granddad started in the
thirties retreading repairing. Uh you know, a Model Tour six hundred and sixteens.
(02:16):
There's a great picture in my officeof my granddad's staying in very proudly
in front of a bunch of presses. Uh. My dad grew up in
the business. Uh, went outto California, taught school a few years,
and came back to it and aboutthe year I was born, probly
around sixty four. It's really theonly business I've I've ever known, even
even when I went to college,I worked for good years. So you
(02:38):
know, tires is about it forme, right, Yeah, I did.
I was able to find an article. Um it's a few years old,
but you know, congratulations. Obviouslythe business is a booming success if
you have news part newspaper articles thatI can look up and learn a little
bit more about the successes and thebusiness there. And to Belle, Oklahoma,
(03:00):
which you've stayed local and tell usa little bit about your town and
your your place there. This podcastis really it's about you guys and your
company as well as the products thatyou put out. So you know,
tell me about that. You havea lot of key people there. I'm
sure that you're proud of and yourmanufacturing is it could not run without a
(03:22):
hitch without some good people around you. What's somewhat challenging being as remotely located
as we are. You look usup and we're about two hour miles from
Tulsa, two ur and miles fromLittle Rock to probably about one hundred eighty
five miles from DFW Airport. Soit's a little bit tough to draw talent
in here. And that's as wecontinue to grow and the quality of our
(03:45):
manufacturing people become greater and greater,that becomes more and more of the problem.
The one thing, however, isthis is the first mountains that you
get to out of DFW. Sowe actually have probably about forty four thousand
visitors a week in here. WhenI was a kid, you know,
you go up to Lake anytime,which is only about twenty five miles from
here, beautiful, get a boatslip. You can't do that anymore.
(04:09):
The place has been overran with basicallyTexans, and it all started about ninety
eleven. They realized that the Oklahomahad very cheap property taxes and the interest
rates are low. You got aboutthirty three hundred luxury homes up here that
rent. You know, the averagevalue is north of a million dollars.
(04:30):
Twenty years ago that the highest pricehouse that had ever sold in the county,
and the county's bigger than Rhode Island. It's about sixty wide ninety long.
The highest price house that had eversold in our county twenty years ago
about three hundred and eighty five thousanddollars. Homes are selling now for well
over a million dollars. It's alsoput a crush on our crunch on general
(04:53):
labor, general labor here, it'sbecome harder and harder. Fine, but
my dad was a very straightforward guy, and he basically said, if we
if if we can't afford to haveinsurance for our people, we can't afford
to have benefits, we don't needto be in business. And I can
tell you all the way back,and my memory goes back, you know,
(05:14):
to the early eighties when I cameback and involved myself. We've always
had had had a you know,four or one case health insurance, so
on and so forth. My dadjust basically it's just our responsibility and if
we can't put enough margin in thereto have that, we don't need to
be in the business. So yeah, put down, Yeah, you're tracking
right where I was thinking, thatis. I'd love to have our listeners
(05:38):
know a little bit more like,what are some of the things you do
to get some of that talent.Are you doing um job fairs in your
in your area and things like that, or you know, like everywhere else
that the pay scale has continued toincrease. The nice thing about that with
that pay scale increasing, you alsoget there there's a delta there to where
(06:00):
you get to hire quality hand andwe get to hire quality better hands and
we we are automating. You know, we spend a lot of money each
and every year on on CAPEX projects. This year alone, I think we
had three major cafex projects. Oneof them was a new robotic welding seal
because the seal we have now thathas three robots welding um and and picking.
(06:24):
Uh you know, as uh welooked back, it was OZ seven.
They came into my office one dayand had a thirty five thousand dollars
PO to sign and I said,what's this for? You don't explain this
to me, and uh they said, wells for a wiing harness for the
welding robots. And I said,We're not have any problem with them.
Why aren't we spending this money?And they said, that's why we want
to spend the money, because itruns twenty hours a day, you know,
(06:46):
So let's see. One of theCafex projects this year was the Welding
Seal. Another one was what areyou looking at? Do you have a
weightboard there? You're pointing? Inan hour, It's just it's just our
manufacturing facilities right across the street over. Oh you can see it, yeah,
yeah, yeah. Our site nowI think it was about one hundred
seventy acres. We actually just soldone hundred and twenty thousand square foot building
(07:11):
last week, so I think we'redown about a half million square feet under
aod and about a hundred and fortyfive acres. So it's it's kind of
a spread out place. When Istarted here when I was fourteen years old,
my dad borrowed a D six Dodrethat had a pony motor on it.
Brought me out here and showed mehow to start the pony motor and
then start the big motor. Wehad five acres and we had no buildings.
(07:35):
Over the years, this was anindustrial park, and as businesses ebbed
and flowed and came and went,we simply have bought everything we could possibly
buy it. So it's it's agreat way for an American manufacturer to be
able to stay in business. Thisbuilding right here we're setting, it's forty
thousand square feet. It was partof forty two acres that we bought in
(07:55):
oh nine for one hundred and seventyfive thousand dollars, So I mean,
we couldn't do the dirt worth forthe building, so we made some very
good byes on some verial large industrialproperty, which keeps our costs down because
although our wages are probably much greaterthan what our competitors have to play in
(08:16):
Southeast Asia, our productivity is tremendous. So I think the other capex that
we did was a new plasma torch. The plasma torch we had was about,
I don't know, fifteen twenty yearsold. What we want to do
is have the reliability of the equipment, so we're always investing. This company
is my favorite investment that I haveand I give my heart, soul on
(08:43):
my wallet to it. Well,wasn't that you that was quoted as this.
It's like your erector set and youdon't have to wait around for a
building or for a big meeting.You just go out and do it right.
And we've innovated a lot and tobe a great innovator. You have
to have a great tolerance for failure, and we have had a lot of
failures. We can. But whatwe're very good is is we're very precise.
(09:07):
My dad was a pilot, mygranddad was a pilot. My son
was a pilot. Brandon's about tobe a pilot. You know, I've
got forty years of flying in tenthousand hours. I think you have when
you when you fly, you haveto be precise. A lot of that
lends itself quite well to being abusinessman. A good pilot is a good
businessman. A good businessman is agood pilot. Some people say, you
(09:30):
know, a businessman shouldn't be flyingnow, he's got to be able to
put that to the side and gettingthe cockpit. And that's that's what Friday
are. My point of that matteris we document those failures and we analyze
them backwards like a plane crash,and we look at them in pieces.
What did we do good? Whatdid we not do good? What did
we learn? I mean, ifnothing else, you just have an absolute
(09:54):
catastrophe and everything failed. What didwe learn out of that? And that's
what we have steadily built on offof each other. Slowly and surely,
and and and and so when wego into a customer and we can look
and tell him how much the tarcan can handle, as far as load
speed, we can tell them inwhat ambient temperature, we can tell them
(10:16):
the deflection, we can tell thema lot a lot of the people because
this is this is kind of alow end industry, and you get a
lot of somewhat uh people that mightnot be as precise as we are,
are are as as concerned, arededicated to it as we are. You
(10:37):
get people that were selling trailer houseslast year and they're selling cars next year.
Our our whole life and in fact, I'm sitting there looking at it.
Guy walking up here to me,Larry Sergey. Larry came to us
right out of college. He's afew years younger than me. He's dedicated
his life. Between the three ofus are probably not three people in the
world that know more about large authorold solid tires and how to make them
(11:01):
work and get them out there workingcorrectly the first time. We make the
mistakes here, we don't put themistakes out in the field. And you
know, and and part of thatis is our long term relationship with the
Rdao plant in Middle Othian, whichwas chapparel steel, one of the largest
plants in the world, the mostabusive. They can tear up an anvil
(11:24):
with a feather, is what mydad used to tell me, you know.
And I mean they're you know,less than two or miles from here.
They're a twenty minute flight for us. We all, we all we
lean on them quite heavily for Rand D. And we have learned a
lot from them because they're Texans,because they do things to the absolute max,
you know, and uh, theystretch us and that stretching makes us
(11:46):
better. So we never look atit. And I mean you go back
to it biblically in fact, andlook at it in the Bible. You'll
be thankful for your problems, becauseyour problems is what it's what allows you
to see an innovation. It's exactlysee the same way my dad came up
with this whole ideal. And wecan go back to the aviation and the
problems. He left Houston one night, put the flaps down, couldn't get
(12:07):
the flaps up, landed in alufkin and took a piece of paper out
and drew on a napkin a pieceof paper, came home and visited with
me about it. Eighty nine.I think we built our first tire.
Gerdale, which was Chaprell at thattime, was our first, first and
favorite account that we we just wewe really love them. And uh,
(12:28):
you can't imagine how an abuse ofthe place of this. Yeah, yeah,
what did he draw on the napkin? He basically just drew the first
design of our tires out and thatwas an expanded rim so that the rim
was bigger, and you bonded therubber to it. Right down the street
here forty miles is is a redribber army depot. They redo all the
(12:58):
bogy wheels for the tank track.He went down there and got with an
engineer and uh, you know,hired him come up on Fridays. He
worked with us on on quality anduh and and and procedures on how to
do it. And uh, fromthat we've become ISO. That we've been
ISO probably I don't know, fifteenyears or more. Uh. Some people
(13:18):
looked at it as a hassle.I look at it as an owners as
Uh, checks and balances go backto the fine again. I mean Lindberg
was all about checklist and that's whatISO has done for us. It's made
us accountable and uh, it's it'smade it to where I mean, I
think in our promotional video, Sowhen was the last time you heard of
(13:39):
a set Co tar failure? Literallywe put it tens of thousands, hundred
thousands of tires out of year fouror five tires. You know, maybe
that wasn't even our fault, butwe're gonna take care of it anyway.
You know, probably wasn't. Ourquality is unbelievable, and that's what I'm
striving for. Well, it makessense. You're you're you know, correlation
(14:01):
to flying. You want everything perfect, right, I mean, I just
got back from vacation and my entirefamily sitting with me, and we got
back and my dad said, Praisethe Lord. When I saw him,
as like, it doesn't matter,Dad, and he's like, well,
you had everything I love in thatairplane. You know, anything goes wrong,
that's that's terrible. You know,it all happens all at once.
(14:22):
I lose everybody, and I'm like, oh, Dad, we're here,
da da dah. But it makesperfect sense. And I do like that
correlation. Prior to ninety eleven,the only other mode of transplation that was
safer than the airlines is an elevator. But if you got on a plane
every year, it's prior to ninetyeleven, thirty five thousand years, you
(14:43):
have to get on a plane beforeyou would you would statistically be in a
plane crash. And I'm talking abouton airlines. Wow. You know.
So it's a very very safe,it's a very mature. It's a very
by the book. Uh. Youknow, they have an ATP standards,
airline transportation standards and type ratings.I've got a couple of type ratings in
(15:07):
a jet. I know it's heldto study forward and I hate it when
I'm doing it, but I'm veryproud afterwards. And when I get into
some weather, I've got the toolsto fight my way out of it.
Let's see. Okay, yep,here's what we're gonna do. And we
and we get a plan and wego. So I like the analysis of
the crash as well, you know, like we all of us have pitfalls
(15:30):
and failures and things that we canlearn from, right, and we invest
money and maybe it doesn't pan outthe best way and we end up you
know, retooling or pivoting and goinga different direction. Um, what are
some of the things that you've seenrecently? I mean, I hate doing
this, but I do it everytime post COVID. Um, did you
guys have everything run through okay,through COVID? Did you did your workforce
(15:54):
I mean disappear on you or didthey come back? Or? Oh no,
I mean our our workforce statements stayedwith us. And we we were
you know there there's there's different peoplethan in COVID and uh for us,
we have a great plant manager.He came from a fortune five hundred company.
(16:15):
He brought such an incredible culture tothis, this infant business in some
ways that even though you know,we've been doing this for you know,
thirty five plus two years, buthe brought such and and and he's saying,
is we need to put some bookins on it, you know.
And and without becoming uh argan religion, our politics or anything, I actually
(16:38):
believed what you know, faut hewas saying. And we abided by it
to the best of our ability.And and we tried to state ourselves and
everything else what COVID did for us. And it's the first thing that our
our tremendous plant manager told me whenhe walked in the door, probably two
or three years ago, and heuh said, We've got to get rid
(17:00):
of the hard labor. Anything thatyou break a sweat on, anything that's
a strain. We have to identifyit, we have to eliminate it.
We have to figure out how toautomate it, streamline it, and get
rid of the labor. When thathappened, when when COVID happened, And
I must tell you that's probably,without a doubt, the most terrified I'd
ever been, because I could actuallysee the whole company getting COVID at one
(17:23):
time. I could I could envisionthat how it could spread so so rapidly.
And you know, I'm a voraciousuh I wish I could say reader,
I'm not, but I'm I ammarried. My first and favorite wife
h librarian by trade, and sheshe can read a book that thick.
(17:45):
I can't ask you anything about it. But I like to watch a lot
of like History Channel and stuff.The AIDS epidemic. They couldn't understand the
AIDS epidemic because they were looking atsomething that was so incredible. It went
back to a male steward that wasworking for South African Airlines and so you
know, he's in Joelburg one night, he's in New York. Next night,
(18:07):
he's in Sydney. And all ofa sudden, within six weeks AIDS
had exploded all over the world,and it came back to this one guy.
You know, I could I startedthinking about that. In fact,
I wrote letters about it. Iwas heavily involved in YPO at the time.
Young Presidents Organization. I used them. They're great minds. We put
a strategy together, but we forthe most part followed the government guidelines because
(18:33):
we've got just under two hundred peoplehere and it doesn't take long to do
the calculations to think about the huband spoke, you know, if if
I interact with this guy or thatguy. But back to it, COVID
was wonderful for us. It Ispent twelve hours a day on the floor.
I probably lost twenty twenty pounds ofthe fifty I need to lose push
(18:56):
on. These didn't like it aswell, But at that point we made
some major changes in our operation directlydue to TOVID. That we are reaping
the benefits of today. So Imean a tire likely this with forty point
five sitting behind us plays two thousandpounds, two thousand pounds. We'll build
that tier in four minutes. Now, off the builder and going, I'll
(19:21):
build you know, four of thosean hour, one with one guy.
We're so much more productive than weever were before. And so the automation,
the automation that was birthed from thisconversation with your plant manager, we're
seeing more and more of that too. You know, it visited the manufacture
(19:41):
of our crumb rubber facility plant andthey were adding equipment. It sounds a
lot like your as they had CAPEXfor different projects over the next three or
four years that I think each oneof them had some sort of robot or
automation involved in it. Just toclarify, you've got a chrome uh factory.
(20:02):
So we're coming online in October,UM September October. We're buying a
Joe mar out of Middlebury, Indiana, Indiana. UM. None better than
those guys. Yeah, they arethe best. Thank you for saying that.
Levonne and and and Lamar are thegreatest people, and and and they're
they're they're the only people I've evermet that's quite as crazy as I am
(20:23):
at at at there there at howu uh integrated that they are. They're
fully integrated, just like we are. They've got the trucks, they've got
the processing, and they make theirthey make their equipment, and when it
breaks, even if they sold somebody, they're very much like us, they
(20:44):
apologize. We've got another one onthe way. We're not sure. In
fact, I've been trying to buya for shaft of tredder from them for
about two or three years and they'renot just quite ready to to uh to
to to a to share it withus. We want to grind some of
our one inch stuff down to likequarter inch. And I went and looked
up in Pennsylvania at a couple ofthem running, a couple of the raptors,
(21:07):
and I've been to their place upin Indiana. I gotta tell you,
they're just fantastic people. Yeah,I'm telling you. They've got four
big shredders running down there at thecement plant down in Middle Othian that grind
the tires, you know. Sothey bringing tires in there and grind them,
and then they're they're using them asa as a hog fuel, I
(21:29):
guess for the cement. But there'snobody else I've ever met in this industry
that is more grounded and straightforward thanthose guys are. And that's amazing to
hear you say that, because that'sactually a connection that did that wasn't brought
about for this meeting. Um So, I got Brandon's number from Brett Eckhart,
(21:52):
the owner of United Metals Recycling,which is our parent company to TYR
re Claim, and we if havevisited Tom Parker. Out of all American
Tires in Dallas Fort Worth, allAmerican Tire recycling, he told us there's
none better than the Raptor and theLevan and Lamar and those guys. So
we jumped on a plane. Wewent to his facility in Texas, toward
(22:15):
that, went to another facility inOklahoma and toward that, then we went
up to Indiana and toured those ninemachines running at incoreps or in Tech,
which is Levan's company. So it'sit's a really nice, you know,
full loop circle to come back andhave you a guest on our podcast.
(22:37):
Is confirming what we saw, whatwe witnessed, which is a true American
company, much like yourself, outthere hitting it hard and taking care of
their customers on a day to daybusiness and we I mean the shop was
perfect. That's the automation. Iwas just referencing. You know, they
have a lot of robots they're usingand doing more and more every day.
So yeah, that's pretty cool thatthat's all come connect to visit. Uh
(23:00):
is Troy Hess up at Can youpronounce that? On? Tongo Enterprises Tire
Recycling throughout in the middle of Pennsylvania, Liverpool, Pennsylvania. He was very
gracious with me and show and letme look at a couple of these raptors
running. And that was about it. And I mean he has I think
(23:26):
he's very innovative. It looks likesomething out of one of those mail gifts
in movies. You know, Iwant to see him. He's got he's
got conveyors that are running, youknow, five six hundred feet out there.
I mean, he might be thebest guy I've ever seen as far
as a as a processor. Andhe's very he guards it very closely,
(23:47):
and I don't blame him. What'sthat name? Can you spell that company
name? Mahn tongo Is? Ibelieve it's how you pronounced it. Yeah,
they're up in Pennsylvania. Troy Hess, that man might actually be his
knowledgeable of the feller that I've evertalked to. When he starts talking about
you've got to be able to dothe airflow and and and you know things
(24:07):
that he shares with us as faras shredding stuff. You know that the
water is a is a lubricator.He's just I was highly impressed with that.
That's a That's the funnest thing aboutmy job. I get to go
see some real A players, andsome of that rubs off on me and
inspires me. And even though now, you know, let's say I turned
fifty nine at the end of theyear, I've got a bunch of friends.
(24:30):
I was talking to a girl upthat that U graduated with high school.
She's at Dennis. She said,well, I'm just working two days
a week and everything, and I'mlike, I just don't making sense to
me. I want to work likecrazy because there's not that much left in
me, you know. I mean, you know, ten years from now,
I'm myself's gonna be doing this well. If I can get my health
in a little better shape, maybeyou know. It's like a good friend
that was a number six at Southwest, he said, yeah, I think
(24:52):
we're gonna hang it up. Youknow. I said, well, you
got another six months. He said, yeah, but you know I'm not
gonna make him more and everything.I said, dude, you're crazy.
I said, seven months from now, you're gonna be wishing. He was
in a seven thirty seven coming outof look Worthy of, you know,
with with all the all the dI's on and saying, yeah, you
know, I mean, I'm gonnaretire like like Paul Smith over Joseph over
(25:15):
Joseph Smith, Uh, biggery Soccwareover in DC. I love Paul and
that whole bunch there. He said, I'm gonna retire twenty four hours after
they close a coffin on me.And I'm gonna be the same way.
I want to be here as longas I can be a advocate for these
guys. I can't. I'm overwhelmedwith the the the use that we're able
(25:40):
to pull in, and the andand how I'm excited they are about this.
This is the greatest gift you couldever imagine. You know, Um,
it's just unbelievable. You know.Uh, we're right here on the
Red River, Texas, just rightthere. Uh, We've got a ranch
in Texas, hfense place, youknow, one of our good friends.
(26:03):
In fact that I noticed last nighthe would have turned a hundred, but
it was Carol Shelby. Carol,Carol Shelby. I probably became close friends
with him in his late eighties.He was so unbelievable, full of of
of optimism and and and we're gonnado this, and we're gonna do this,
and and and so on and soforth. He just was a real
character. That's what. That's theguy I want to be. I want
(26:25):
to be the cheerleader when I'm eightynine years old and saying I like that,
Guys, I think that's gonna work. Or have you considered what's gonna
happen here? You know? Inever want to be a naysayer. Uh.
And and this company is it's likeon in a ranch in a lot
of ways. It's it's mine forthis time. But this company, we're
designing it to well outlive me.And uh, the people that are that
(26:47):
are here and and the people thatwere putting in place, we're putting in
place for a long run, youknow. And Uh, Well, I've
heard the future is in your mindsetand there's some things that you're doing with
sustainability now that you're you're getting intosome recycling yourselves. And obviously if you
know Joe mar and you know theRaptor, then you know that we'll be
(27:11):
recycling one percent of our tires verysoon as well. And what's going on
in that realm for you guys?I think we're particularly blessed and maybe somebody
else is, But um, youknow what talk. I look at my
wife, you know, at adistance or something. I almost have to
(27:33):
pinch myself. How do I getto marry such a wonderful person. I
wouldn't be near that. I wouldn'tbe halfy man I am without her,
you know, I think about howblessed we are we have Basically, our
tires are made mostly out of onecompound, and so it's recyclable. I'm
looking at a freight truck just backedup here, in an old Dominion truck.
It's got some super single what nextienceor fifty five, you know,
(27:57):
seventy or point five. There's twentydifferent compounds in that tired. There's a
bead compound, there's a sidewalk compound, there's a casing compound, there's an
inner tread and all this. You'vegot so many think different things working here.
It's like a gumbo of of ofcompounds there. Most of them are
(28:18):
not made for wear, and whenthe tires worn out, most of the
wear compound is gone, you know, it's evaporated into the ozone. I
understand. We're so much more blessedthan that. And we've always built a
pure, high quality tire. Andwe have a lot of competitors that build
a lot of tires with a lotof fillers in them. Those are not
(28:41):
recyclable. Um, that's something thatgoes to the cement plan. Our tire
from the very top to the verybottom is the same, is the same
compounds, and it's always been alittle more costly to make it that way.
But now we're sitting here looking atyou know, we got fifty million
pounds of rubber sitting here. We'resitting here grinding. We've got one of
(29:02):
we've got SSI as the largest shredderthat that that they make, sitting there
breaking them down. We break themdown, uh with ex vators and and
uh we get them into mandible sizesand we bring it down to about a
forty mess are smaller. So andwe're doing that cry genically because all of
our compounds are one hundred scent andnatural rubber. So, uh, if
(29:26):
you're gonna get in the in thein the crum business, you know you're
either gonna be ambient. A areare You're gonna be a cry Jenny from
from the two angles I know ofthe police. If you know something different,
I'm all ears, no, no, no. Ambience is where we're
at. YEA. The problem is, you know the am is gonna get
you down to about ten or fifteen, maybe twenty twenty five. And if
you put in a cracker meal andyou know you'll you'll get on down a
(29:49):
little further. The We've always beentold about everybody I've ever spoken to that
you can't expect to get this thisone hundred percent. Now for rubber down
lower. If we can get itlow enough, we can get it into
the into the product. So let'sjust take a small tiret a Bobcat targets.
If it's the optimum weights to earnpounds, we can actually make that
(30:15):
tart two hundred and two pounds withthe same party line and everything else.
We can make a denser product andit's the exact same compound. We did
this in an effort to compete againstsome of our moral low cost competitors.
But it's come back to be themost unbelievable thing we can ever imagine because
we have a very incredible tracking programthat we can track. We can track
(30:41):
those truck tires, we can trackthe tires on this devote. I'm looking
at this golf guard here. Wecan track anything, but we use it
for our Pacific needs. It's asystem that was designed and built by us.
Brandon joined us a few years agocoming from a GCR, which is
the bricks On firestone company. Theyhad tread stat We're taking the best of
the best of the best and takingit even further. We've actually found it
(31:04):
out that this recycling product is lastinglonger than the original. Now, if
I go in here and just gettruck tires with the BEAT package and and
and and you know, the BEATcompound and everything else, I don't think
I could expect that same results.But because we're using a closed loop recycling
program, we're killing it with soour tire is now one percent recyclable,
(31:29):
the entire wheel, tire, everything. It's the only one that we're aware
of that's one hundred percent recycle inthe world. Ever yet we know of
one somewhat large scale basis well,and the components you're talking about, and
that comparison to you know, oneversus multiple, it makes perfect sense,
right, you would be the mostset up to be able to do a
(31:52):
one hundred percent recycled product, whichthat is um the closed loop you mentioned,
that's these are all keyword right thateverybody likes to throw around. Sustainability.
To me, sustainability is exactly whatyou just said. You found out
it's gonna last longer. And I'llbet there's some probably some pretty good cost
savings involved too in some of theareas. Maybe one day we'll get to
(32:14):
see that. If you know,the entry costs into this into this stuff
is steep, you know, yeah, and there have been some learning curves
in that, and uh, youknow, you buy a lot of nitrogen,
you buy a lot of hammers,and uh, the problem is with
ours, it seemed like we nevercan break it down far enough to where
(32:36):
we can pull the metal out ofit. We do a lot of damage.
Whereas if you had, you know, if you were just recycling factory
ways, you wouldn't expect that.But if you know much about our products
and the places we run, Imean we run in shredder. So you're
gonna get the get the valve outof a fifty eighth Chevy. You know
you're gonna get the spring out ofa you know, twenty twenty three dogs
that got ran over. You knowyou're gonna we get a whole ton of
(33:00):
it. And the non ferrous Isthis challenging for us as anything to remove
out of the script because we ourour any current system does not fully do
a good job there and the magnets. It's just a challenge right. Well,
what I like to look at toosometimes in this and what I was
(33:20):
referencing as well as opportunity costs,So what would be the alternative to recycling
and reusing those products? Is it? You know landfill? Is it?
You know, just getting rid ofit some other way? It's cement kills,
so you know the cost and effectof all of that as well.
It's landfill or are are going tothe to the cement kills? You know
(33:43):
basically what it is. And theb tou value is it extremly high.
We've never actually been involved in inselling any of the product at this time.
We are going to have to getthere as we as we have competitors
tires to dispose of as well.Um understand, that's that's a whole other
little syndicate. Unto itself. Theone person that sells it, you got
to sign in your life. Whilehe wouldn't understand, I don't know much
(34:06):
about that, but I'm curious.But we actually are developing. We've got
a new forty thousand square footfielding overhere about it, I don't know,
probably about a mile across the campushere. And in fact, we just
polished the floors and we brought itup to about a four hundred. So
like if you walk in a homedepot, you see that shine. We
just stuck our head in there.I did that because over you know,
(34:30):
start from the thirties, that's sevenover nine decades. We've had a handful
of fires in my family and Ican't remember any one of them that was
ever pleasant or good. You know. So a great guy that that does
some work with me said, ifyou removed the fuel, you removed the
(34:52):
hazard. Makes sense. So it'sjust like when we when we go to
crane school, you know, uh, the first thing you know, and
we have a great we have agreat team here probably the greatest I could
ever imagine of our journeyman. Andone particular guy in there. It's Gary
(35:14):
Branson, my plant manager before itused to have a bit of history and
rigging or something like that. Garywould come to me. I hope it's
not too public, but he wouldsay, hey, Buck, don't you
Dwayne need to go down down toMiddle Oathian or don't don't you need to
go to Houston or somewhere. Inother words, take the plant manager,
get him out of here, andlet us do it. So basically the
(35:36):
team basically gets together. Everybody kindof has to have a thumbs up that
we're ready to make the pick.And that's kind of the mentality that we
that we like to go with here. Fantastic. Well, we're running out
of time, guys. I've justwanted to if you hear anything else you
wanted to talk about, any plugsfor anybody. You've got some names you
dropped there. I'm I'm sure thoseare some super key people. I know
(36:00):
Brandon didn't get to talk to usa whole lot, but he warned me
of that that wants. But gunin the room, Brandon ought to talk
about our TMS because he's really takingit over and ran with it. I
mean he's done a fantastic job withhim. Yeah, just just quickly craig
our our tire tracking software. It'sbought Seco tms UM. It's very innovative.
It's all done in house. Wehave our own programmers at work on
(36:22):
that and uh, it's the premieretire tracking software in the industry. We
if our customers will follow that,and and it really takes five measurements throughout
the life of the tire. Soif you take a loader tire in in
a shredder, so he gets tenthousand hours. If you'll follow those those
those cues of how to rotate thetires, you will cut your tire coss
(36:45):
twenty percent. How does that benefitus? I like my customers get the
greatest value they possibly can. Sowhat I don't want to do is see
it is see a set of tirescome in and two of them on the
wheel, and two of them gota ton of rubber that they didn't get
more. I want them so towaste nothing but the pluck as a bow
pilgrim. You say, I don'twant to lose anything but the pluck of
(37:07):
the chicken. You know, Iwant them to get all their money's worth,
and we can help them do that, and we can help keep their
their A drive train within um Ase SE specs of American Society of Engineers
specs it. It'll save on planetary'stransmissions things of that nature. Absolutely.
(37:29):
I told you I'm passionate about tires. I'm telling you you could ask me
that, or about my grand kidsor something like that. I can go
on for days. Well, Iwould like I would like to know what
was your wife's name, Natalie firstand favorite. Yeah, so that's the
one that I like to bring thatname up first and foremost. You'd already
given her plugs. But I'm prettysure if you're anything like me, nothing,
(37:51):
I wouldn't be here without a greatwoman in my life. I can
remember being over in Perth, Australiaabout as far are Joe burg in the
mines or something, you know,and thinking to myself, I don't have
to worry about my family. Idon't have to worry about my kids.
You know. She got the homefar going. Yeah. And at the
same time, you know, shehad had had worried about much herself up
(38:15):
having generated every reasonable time. Yeah, And Brandon. You've got Kirby there
at home, right, That's right. Kirby's the same thing. I take
care of my two kids, Whitleyand Walker, and uh yeah, I
can't can't do any of this withouther. Yeah. And Buck, you've
got you've got family there at theplant right. Well. The unfortunate thing
(38:35):
that I mean, we lost ourson about seven years ago on our ranch
in an airplane crash. Oh no, twenty four years old. Just graduated
college about a year after that.Uh. You know, my desire for
this company to to well outlive meis is beyond your imagination. I don't
you know. We get I caneasily sell it out and do up else.
(39:00):
But I mean that seven years Iwouldn't have survived very well without him.
So I will a lot to thiscompany myself, just to have the
sanity to have something to do,to go to work and everything else.
Since then, you know, myson in law was a Dodge dealersh out
in West Texas. Uh, Hamilton'sum Texas. And you know I just
(39:22):
pulled P and L and I said, here's what we do. That's Mitchell,
right, yeah, And and andhis dad owns you know, all
the major dealerships, owns from Cadillac, you know, all the all the
UH dealerships. It's a big organizationthat his dad has. His dad literally
came from nothing. I mean hisdad really didn't grow up with a sure
(39:43):
enough dad. It's an admirable thingthat Chad Bear has done in his lifetime.
Uh. But you know, likeany father and son, you can
have a little bit of of arub or something. And I know my
daughter was happier to be back here. We were happy, happier have her
home. Mitchell came in and joinedus, and you know, doctor bid,
(40:05):
something was happening to my my mydaughter and my son in laws.
I would want to keep Mitchell.You know, he's just he brings a
lot. He's very mild, andhe brings a lot to the to the
company. You know. I'm Brandanis your daughter's name. Yep, I'm
very I'm a very direct person andsometimes that can be offensive to people.
But at least you know what I'mthinking when I leave. But I'm working
(40:25):
on that. I'm you know,my my toolbox started out very very thin.
This great manager that we heard,Tony Cochrane, I'm telling you he
can get more out of people charmingand than I ever could hollered at him.
You know as well. We're alllearning. It's it's basically a big
lesson of life. It is.Yeah, I wish I had this perspective
(40:46):
when I was, you know,twenty twenty five or something. You know,
No, don't look back. Yeah, it's all forward from here.
Well, guys, I sure appreciateyour time. I'm gonna go ahead and
close it up on that. It'sreally nice to meet you, Buck,
and I can't I can't wait tillyou get the raptors in. Yeah.
(41:07):
Yeah, So, I don't knowif y'all been to Idaho. I've been
to Oklahoma and Texas a lot.I've got family all over that area.
Um, But as much as i'dlike to come see you, i'd love
for you guys to come and seeus as well. Up here in Idaho.
Is it northern Idaho, No,We're we're so southwest, central and
eastern Idaho. Yeah. We basicallyrun all along the bottom of the state.
(41:30):
So Boise would be the major city, Twin Falls and Pocatello. Um,
but anyway, we're we're here,and we're we're gonna start putting that
all together I've actually got two menum in Texas right now looking at dust
collection systems as well, you know, compares the all the whole system for
our friends at All American Tire Recycling. And we've got guys over there studying
(41:52):
the plant right now. I'll tellyou the other one who's who's also in
uh the scrap metal business. Butup and uh aunt British Columbia. What's
back Alberta. There's a great familyup in Alberta that has one of the
neatest Glynn Cohen Alberta environmental rubber products. You want to talk about a slick
(42:15):
operation. They take it from trucktires basically is what they're doing, and
they grind them down and get themdown into a powder. And he's got
two dual lines running, so oncase one breaks down, you know,
got two of everything. So he'sgoing through a primary shredders and he's going
(42:35):
through under some sort of a grinder, and then he goes on down and
he ends up at some cracker mealsand that just keeps getting rotated. And
he told me the trick on thecracker meal, you know, because I
had a cracker meal and kind oftried it a little bit you weren't a
successful He's got some of those madedown there in Sarasota, Florida. And
(43:00):
you know it's got two different gearboxeson it, one of the one of
them running nineteen to one. Youknow, so he's really doing something.
But out of all the places I'veever been, it's huge. You ought
to look at this place up andand Glenn is a fantastic guy to deal
with. But their main business,I believe, was scrapped and they got
(43:22):
into the tire recycling business because Ithink the Alberta government kind of said we're
gonna do this. Are you interested? And I'm telling you, and get
a neat rule too, or hismain guy. Cut it in half every
time, every process. After yougo through the primary, cut it in
half again. If it's four inches, cut it too two it's two,
(43:43):
Cut it to one. If it'sone, cut it to half and che
and just keep going down. It'snot rocket science. It's keep breaking that
thing down any daring way that youpossibly can to get it down to the
desired product. You know, we'regetting it down into dust. We're getting
it down to Calcolm Puty. Yeah, that's where we're headed. We got
cracker Mail on order and we'll beyou know, producing the well whatever the
(44:06):
highest bidder is to be honest,so that's what we'll produce. But we
can go all the way down tothe you know, thirty two ninety nine,
or we can come up to hten twenty. You know, we
have the ability to do all blackrubber um. But I don't want to
get off into a deep networking conversation. Well, we'll wrap up this podcast
(44:27):
to me we jump on another calltogether. Sure, I'm curious who you
bought the cracker mail front. It'sall Joe Mark. Oh, it's all
Joe Mark. Okay, yeah,it'll be all one complete unit. We'll
more. Must love you more becauseI tried to send a couple of rolls
up to him. He said,no, no, no, I got
without the right track. I guesswe met the right guys at the right
(44:49):
time. You know, you're probablyspending a lot more with him than either.
So oh, I don't know aboutthat. But you know what's great
about those guys. They sure alltheir technology that they're wide open. And
and when he comes here, I'lllet him look at anything he wants to.
Yeah, I'm seeing that, I'mseeing that more and more. The
Tom at all American and David Rileyin Oklahoma, and I mean everybody,
(45:12):
Lavan and Lamar, they've all justwide open, all of you anything,
honestly, anything we need and tellus the best hotel while we're visiting.
I mean, it's just been fantastic, but all right, anything else,
gentlemen, Thank God, bless you, thanks for being on and enjoy that
nice weather in Oklahoma and we'll talkto you soon, all right, thank
(45:34):
you, thank you,
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