Ep. 24: Greg Brown of BENLEE

The Pile of Scrap Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Play. Be sure to Subscribe, Rate, and Review Pile of Scrap. 

Watch this episode of Pile of Scrap here.

Watch Greg Brown's Global Economic, Commodities, Scrap Metal and Recycling Report here. 

John Sacco and Greg Brown

Transcription:

Introduction: The following is an original audio series from Sierra International Machinery Pile of Scrap with your host John Sacco.

John Sacco: Hello. Hello, hello. And, we're back at it for another episode of Pile of Scrap and I am with Greg Brown.

Greg Brown: How ya doin’, John?

John: Great. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it.

Greg: Good to see you.

John: You're kind of a celebrity these days yourself.

Greg: We try, we try. We're trying to communicate.

John: Well and I think that's great. And I, you know, that's the thing I like about doing this podcast is I got a lot of different people, different perspectives. So, Greg, lot of people may know you, may not know you. So, give us a little bit of background, Greg. You're the owner of BENLEE.

Greg: Yeah.

John: And BENLEE does?

Greg: Rebuild roll-off trucks. We do roll-off trailers. We're known for trailer – open the top gondola trailers and lugger trucks.

John: Okay.

Greg: A couple other things.

John: They still use lugger trucks?

Greg: They still use lugger trucks, believe it or not. We bought Huge Hall, which was actually purchased from Heil. So, Load Lugger is actually our trademark name.

John: All right, fantastic.

Greg: So, of anybody’s in the lugger business.

John: All right. So, before you got into that, you were…

Greg: I was the GE corporate guy and a GE corporate guy got me into the automotive business.

John: Okay, what did you do?

Greg: I was the automotive guy for Chrysler, for GE.

John: So, what did –

Greg: I did everything from financial services to – at the time, we did headlights, we did plastic bumpers and fenders, we did the blower motors, and, at the time, semiconductors, and then I ended up in a series of other manufacturing companies and parts companies in automotive after I left GE.

John:So, how'd you get into BENLEE? How all of a sudden you – now, I've got to start making trailers for scrap and for recyclables, waste.... How'd you get into that?

Greg: I was playing investment banker, trying to raise money for a doctor and some guy comes in and says, by the way, I got some company to sell you, maybe you’d be interested. I bought it with a home equity loan. True story.

John: You bought it – you bought it right.

Greg: I bought it right. Yeah, I borrowed some money from the bank.

John: $20 million mansion.

Greg: It was, uh, bought it right.

John: Outside of Detroit, right?

Greg: Outside of Detroit. Right by the airport. Right by the airport. Nice little company.

John: How do you find Detroit today? I mean, I've been there twice in my life and I find it a modern-day Rome.

Greg: Detroit's coming back, but it's still very centralized, John. Still very centralized.

John: How's the labor pool there?

Greg: Terrible. We are struggling. Struggling with getting welders. If anyone is listening, if anyone is listening, we're hiring welders. BENLEE. Give us a call.

John: You know…

Greg:We need welders. Pay good.

John: Well, you’re – you're not alone. I think, you know, that, um, they are, well, all industries, you know, labor is a big issue. Let's talk about this for a –

Greg: It’s a big problem.

John: Okay. And you kind of passionate about this labor thing as well. You're – you're troubled by the lack of economic growth.

Greg: Correct.

John: If we have more economic growth, where are we gonna find the labor for this?

Greg: We should loosen up immigration, John. And, um, immigration, you have to have legal immigration, you have to have security immigration, you have to be safe and who you bring into the country. But we need more immigration to help with growth. And, we need better training, we need training.

John: Well, I'm a son – I'm a son of an immigrant.

Greg: Right.

John: Okay. Um, so I understand that and I agree with, you know, we have to have it, but I'll tell you, with unemployment the way it is now, we're almost at the bottom of the barrel.

Greg: Yes, we are. Correct.

John: The people who aren’t employed, a lot of them aren't very employable.

Greg: Correct. And therefore, they need to be trained. And we have a big problem with early childhood intervention because a lot of these kids getting off on the wrong track and a lot of the labor force is really problematic.

John: And you being so close to Detroit and all that, you've probably seen that.

Greg: Well, not only have I seen it. I started actually more when we owned the scrap yards in North Carolina. I was held up, right? A couple of guys…

John: Okay, well hold on, hold on. Let's not jump ahead of that. This show…

Greg: No, but I'm saying I've seen really tough situations and people, uh, really struggling.

John: So BENLEE, you've grown it.

Greg: Yeah.

John: All over North America. Do you sell into Mexico as well?

Greg: We sell to Mexico, Canada, Ecuador, Aruba, Hawaii…

John: Well, Hawaii’s the United States.

Greg: But, I'm saying you've got to get all the way over there. We’re in Alaska. But, all throughout Canada and Mexico. Yeah.

John: Well, fantastic. So, you decided that you wanted to be in the scrap business. You are selling your equipment to scrap –

Greg: Right.

John: And so you got into ­– tell us a little bit about that. You, you, you went to Carolina, you're in Detroit…

Greg: Right.

John: Now, you're going to go buy a yard in Carolina. How's that going?

Greg: Actually, I bought one of my customers.

John: Did you get a mortgage on your house?

Greg: Actually, I used a mortgage on my house a second time to help buy the scrap yards. True story.

John: Well, see you’re made to be a scrap guy. You're a great buyer.

Greg: I know, I know.

John: The money's always made on the buy, right?

Greg: It was an exciting 11 years.

John: Is that how long you own that?

Greg: 11 years, John.

John: Now, Greg, I've known you and I have a lot of respect for you because I think you're – you're very candid and you're very upfront, but your story about owning a scrap yard is fascinating and you've been wrong.

Greg: Yeah.

John: Now, let's – let's talk about when I say you've been wrong, you were accused of how many felonies and binds?

Greg: Quite a few. Quite a few.

John: 26?

Greg: I think it was 27 to be honest, yeah.

John: And, what were these charges that they…

Greg: My manager’s people had purchased cars with a passport ­­– a valid passport from a non-U.S. person. And, the law in North Carolina that we didn't know was that you can buy scrap with a foreign passport, but you can't buy vehicles. There's two different laws. We didn't know. We actually had a letter saying that we could use foreign passports.

John: Okay. So, what happened?

Greg: Uh, when I sold the company, they dropped all the charges.

John: Yeah, but… well… They charge – tell us about that whole event – what they did. When they – did they arrest you?

Greg: Oh yeah, yeah.

John: Well, tell us about it.

Greg: They, uh, they came in, they handcuffed me and took em away. It was pretty bizarre. It was bizarre for something my manager’s people did that we had a letter saying we could do. It was really weird. It was – it was really –

John: How do you not just…

Greg: Yeah, no, I mean…

John: Pissed off? I mean, you gotta be.

Greg: We – my team was mad and then they went after my team also on – we once had a, uh, a criminal misdemeanor against one of my people for a 27-cent transaction. Let me repeat that. A criminal misdemeanor for a 27-cent transaction.

John: You're not a bad guy, but boy, they sure treated you like one.

Greg: They didn't like us.

John: Okay, so you sell your company –

Greg: Yeah.

John: You got out. Why? ‘Cause you got tired of it? What, what, what ­– You had a good deal? What was it? What did you get out?

Greg: I had a good deal.

John: Okay.

Greg: And it was tough ‘cause we'd moved to New York, my wife and I, and we were going to Michigan, we were going to North Carolina. Enough was enough. Got a good deal, time to get out. Took the money.

John: Okay, so you got your money…

Greg: Got the money.

John: And they dropped the charges.

Greg: And they dropped the charges. Pretty bizarre.

John: Anybody send you a sorry letter?

Greg: No, no, but –

John: No apology?

Greg: No apology. But, it's pretty bizarre that after you get indicted by a grand jury, they drop the charges with one of the reasons you left town. That’s not, that's… Yeah. That’s an issue unto itself.

John: You know, I – sorry. I've known you now…

Greg: Put that in writing, by the way. That – “sold the company when they dropped the charges.”

John: See that? That's not it. Now, while you own this yard, you have a story and I've seen the video where you got robbed.

Greg: Right, right.

John: Uh, tell us a little bit more.

Greg: Yeah.

John: I want you to tell the story because I've seen this video and it… To this day, it – then, it didn't feel real when I watched. I want you to know…

Greg: Yeah, it’s a bad video.

John: But, it was real to you.

Greg: It was real, real to me.

John: So, tell us about that.

Greg: Anyone could see the video. It's, uh, Raleigh Metal Recycling Robbery. Raleigh Metal Recycling Robbery. Uh, ABC news uploaded it.

John: Say that 10 times fast. Bet you can’t do it.

Greg: But what happened was, it was 5:02 in the morning and, um, a car pulls into the parking lot. I'm opening the door. Unfortunately, I was by myself. It was dark and a couple of guys come out in my company uniform. And before I knew what happened, there was a gun on my side. And, um, they had me go into the back room where there's a door and behind the door, there was quite a bit of money.

John: Scrap metal, we pay cash. There’s always cash.

Greg: We had a huge retail business.

John: Sure.

Greg: Huge retail business. So, it was quite a bit of money behind that door.

John: So, somebody knew that.

Greg: Well, it was their job, yeah. They, we know who the inside guy was. It's a long story. Uh, he was never charged. But, um, what happened was they thought I was the manager ‘cause I kind of looked a little bit like him, especially it was dark. And, I was the owner. I had no key. I had no combination. I could not get them to the money, but they didn't believe it. And, uh, what you could see on the video is that trying to convince me to open the door and, uh, I was trying to convince them that they had the wrong guy. And, you see a guy on the phone. At one point, he kicks me and then I see the second guy that's not on the phone, he's actually trying to get a bolt in the chamber. ‘Cause on the first part of the video that's not online, they shot me in the leg but they couldn't shoot me ‘cause the gun jammed.

John: So, they actually took a shot, it fired, but the guy missed –

Greg: The gun jammed. And, you see the guy on the video, John, like this, tryin’ to get a bullet.

John: I saw that video and it's crazy.

Greg: It's crazy. It’s crazy.

John: The fact that you could laugh about it.

Greg: Right.

John: Okay. But so, you're sitting there, well you were on the ground, weren’t you?

Greg: I was on the ground and…

John: And he kicked you?

Greg: I remember he kicked me and then when I see that he can't get a bullet in the chamber, I get up and I kick his buddy. But, his buddy was really strong, grabbed me, throws me into the door, then throws me into the wall and I end up on the ground again. And, you see the guy is still, like this, trying to get a bullet in the chamber. Really crazy. And, uh, they gave up and left and they took my wallet and my cell phone.

John: So, they tried to shoot you in the leg?

Greg: Yeah.

John: After you kicked that guy, and if that round gets chamber, you had no doubt in your mind they were going to kill you?

Greg: The police said I was dead man. You know, they said if the bullet got in the chamber, I was dead man. Yeah.

John: Now, that's divine intervention.

Greg: You know, it was a…

John: I'm sorry, but…

Greg: John, it's… Someone was looking at out for me, yeah. I pictured myself in a pool of blood. I thought it was over. I really, I really did. It was bad. I mean…

John: Okay, so…

Greg: The video is ugly.

John: They leave.

Greg: They left, yeah.

John: And, you're sitting there.

Greg: Yeah.

John: When does it hit you that everything is… ‘Cause the adrenaline during the whole thing… When does it hit you, Greg, and do you have nightmares?

Greg: So, here's the –

John: I’m curious about that.

Greg: Here's the interesting story. To this day, I've never had a nightmare about it, never had a, uh, post traumatic syndrome, nothing. Um, whereas out of mind telling you, ‘cause you brought it up before, the cops coming after us, trying to shut us down, that gave me nightmares. That kept me up. That had me lose weight.

John: Yeah, because you're innocent.

Greg: Yeah, we’re hated, we’re hated. But so, these guys are just a bunch of bumbling idiots. So, to this day, I've never lost a moment of sleep, but it's bad. I mean, it goes back to that we have a problem in this country where there aren't enough good jobs. People aren't trained for the jobs – they're not trained for the jobs and they're out trying to kill people because literally they would've killed me.

John: Yeah.

Greg: It was bad. You know, it really is – it really is all intertwined.

John: I shake my head.

Greg: Yeah. North Carolina is pretty bad. Big drug problem. A number of the guys that work for me to this day are dead. My manager dead.

John: From?

Greg: Drugs. Drugs. Drugs are really bad down there. Really bad.

John: Crystal meth?

Greg: Crystal meth. Big.

John: California... I'm in Kern County. Crystal meth capital – we call it. Yeah.

Greg: Yeah.

John: And, there doesn't seem to be – you know, you and I have talked about this… We're kind of getting a little bit off the subject here, but it is part of our culture and hiring people. Okay. Sierra, we have an amazing safety, a zero tolerance policy. So, when we go to hire somebody, we have, you know, drug testing.

Greg: Yeah.

John: Just trying to find somebody who passes that test –

Greg: I'll tell you something crazy: the only unemployment claim I ever lost, after firing someone – I had to pay him, was in Michigan. The guy had marijuana in his system. He had a medical marijuana card. I was not allowed to fire him. So, here's the guy welding – trailers are flying through the air that we make. We make these big trailers, right? Flying through the air, right? On chains and stuff? You're allowed to have, by law, if a guy is stoned at the place of work, you can't fire him.

John: Let’s not bang the microphone…

Greg: Sorry.

John: Really? See, now that's, that's going to be coming into California. But, see, we do a lot of work in the oil fields with Chevron.

Greg: Yeah, yeah.

John: Okay? You just use any, you know, they're big. And, what was the biggest thing that they want to do? You have to be safe.

Greg: Right.

John: Because the deep pockets.

Greg: Right.

John: I think that's not right.

Greg: So…

John: You should have the ability to say whether or not –

Greg: Absolutely.

John: Your employee can be under the influence.

Greg: Absolutely. But in Michigan, you can't. In Michigan, you literally can't. But, but it gets back to that we need better training. We need better early childhood intervention in schools. Uh, we need, you know, the whole family issue’s a big issue and it's hurting the workforce and it's hurting guys who are trying to hire people, paying good wages, $20, $22 to $24 an hour, 20 bucks an hour for a welder, can't find, can't find him.

John: You know, we – look, we’re at Southern Georgia, at our factory Jesup and, uh, it's not easy to find a quality welder and to keep them right because they’re in high demand.

Greg: Right.

John: Well, good for them and – They're going to earn.

Greg: Right.

John: You know, there are a lot of quality jobs. You know, you pay somebody 25 bucks an hour without overtime. That's over $50,000 a year –

Greg: You pay 16 hours overtime in many weeks.

John: Yeah, so these people – that’s a good paying job.

Greg: They're making a lot of money. We have a good 401k plan, healthcare. Our 401k plan is what – dollar for dollar. You put in a buck, I put in a buck.

John: Good for you.

Greg: Not a bad deal.

John: No, well good for you. Well, you know, that's what's made you successful. You, you're a little bit, you said you were, you've been accused of being a finance guy.

Greg: Right.

John: You ­– numbers have always been very important to you. You know your numbers inside and out.

Greg: I try, I try.

John: Is that a passion? What is it? Is it just, you know…

Greg: My father – my father was an unsuccessful businessman, to be honest with you. He was unsuccessful. So, I've always cared about investing properly, investing in my company, investing in my people and investing in safety. And now, lately, investing in the environment, I said earlier, we just put $500,000 into solar cells on a roof.

John: Okay, so you believe that that investment for you is good for the economy because of the environmental… The positive, uh, environmental impact solar has, right?

Greg: Yes, absolutely.

John: Okay. So, you know, you spent that $600,000, but you're going to save money with that though?

Greg: The payback is not good. The payback makes no sense. There was, while on paper was seven years – No.

John: No?

Greg: Because I could get more of my money than that, so…

John: Sure. Well, okay, so we're –

Greg: It was the right thing to do.

John: Oh, and there's nothing wrong with doing the right thing. And you know, in California we have, uh, Bakersfield, we have 5.8 inches of rain a year. I've said this in a lot of my podcasts: we're spending $600,000 from better filtration for everything, but it's what comes off our parking lot.

Greg: Right.

John: It doesn't ever hit a metal.

Greg: Understand.

John: Okay, but we're spending $600,000.

Greg: That’s a lot.

John: And, you know, you know what the return on the investment is on that?

Greg: No.

John: Not getting fined.

Greg: Correct. I understand.

John: So, you're – you're liable so you're not doing it, but it's the right thing to do. But yet, our industry gets attacked because Walmart doesn't have to do stormwater sampling…

Greg: Right.

John: Home Depot doesn't have to, all the big houses that have their big parking lots with way bigger than Sierra's parking lot – they don't have to do that.

Greg: And, what we don't get credit for is that because we're recycling, which saves energy, which means less oil being burned, less electricity being used, we're actually helping the environment.

John: Well, yeah.

Greg: So, we don’t get enough credit for that.

John: I always said, “We're the original environmentalist.”

Greg: We are, we are.

John: But somehow, the…

Greg: Correct.

John: Communication –

Greg: They call us the bad guys.

John: And, that drives me nuts. Okay. So, speaking, you know, we've talked about employment and economies. You put out a report. What’s the – what's the name of it?

Greg: Global Economic Commodities and Scrap Metal Report.

John: By – I love it. You s–you–you

Greg: By BENLEE.

John: You're good at it, but –

Greg: We try.

John: How many followers do you have on that?

Greg: Uh, well in LinkedIn, I think we have 15,300-something fantastic. We've had as many as about 10,000 people a week watch it. Um, goes out to about 20,000 people.

John: Do – people – can sign up for it, Greg?

Greg: People could sign up for it right from the BENLEE website. Uh, just the bottom of the website. But, I gotta tell you two funny stories.

John: Okay.

Greg: One is: we're at the ISRI show and two women come up to the booth and say, “We want to let you know that we have, we're from New Zealand and you have a big following. People watch your program.”

John: I know who came up – Corina.

Greg: And then another guy comes by the booth and he goes, “Oh my God, you’re Greg Brown.” And he goes, “Hold on a second. And, he gets out his phone, dials, and he goes, “Honey, you're not going to believe who's here.” And, he turns the phone towards me. Some woman is laying in bed and she goes, “Oh my God, it's Greg Brown.”

John: You’re a celebrity.

Greg: It's kind of crazy.

John: Yeah, well, you know what? You put yourself out there. I'm doing this with podcasts.

Greg: You’re doing a great job.

John: Thank you.

Greg: He's doing a great job, doing a great job.

John: You know, but it doesn't hurt your business, does it?

Greg: It doesn't hurt, but it's – it helps our customers. We originally started it because scrap fell in February of five years ago, dropped $90. No one expected it. And, one of my scrap customers got mad at me ‘cause I didn't communicate to him that it had happened. And that's, that was the origin of why we started the report.

John: So, you're out in front of it and for people to know. But I think, you know, I've had Jason Schenker on the podcast twice because I think it's relevant. You know, the Coronavirus… I just had a movie – we did a podcast. We recorded on February 3rd and two days later, we released it because it, it was, you know, news that needed to get out there, I felt.

Greg: Yeah.

John: So, you know, I think it's – it's relevant for people to understand. “Well what's going on?” Why – what's driving prices up, prices down?

Greg: Sure, sure. So, by the way, just for the record, we started out with a steel production in the U.S, then oil price, oil production, iron price. HMS #1 price, copper price, aluminum price, hot roll coil steel price.

John: So, where are you going with it next?

Greg: You know, it's – we're just keeping it –

John: Pork bellies?

Greg: We throw cardboard in, uh, once a month.

John: Okay. That's not good. We had a cardboard at Sierra…

Greg: We’re just up a little bit last month, but a decade low. It's – it's pretty bad.

John: Yeah.

Greg: And it's – and then it's different every week at that. Housing starts and then unemployment index, GDP, budget deficits. So, it starts out the same and then it's a little bit…

John: So, because you're a numbers guy, you're a little – you don't like America's growth right now. Uh, China's, you know, you said 6% growth…

Greg: Right. And, slowing. China is slowing, but they're still 6%.

John: How much is the slowing due to the Coronavirus?

Greg: A lot. The current slowing and they were due to be about five, eight, six this year from six to two years ago. So, they've been slowing for years now.

John: Europe?

Greg: Europe is about 0.1%.

John: Europe’s been in trouble for a long time.

Greg: Germany's been hurt hard by the tariffs that we put on China, hurt China. So, Germany exports a lot to China, and it hurt them hard. They ship a lot – as an example, a lot of Mercedes cars and BMWs go from Germany to China, and that's been hurt dramatically.

John: What do you see in the next, next year? Where do you see later for 2020?

Greg: Well, the U.S. is due to grow it around 2 to 1. Could be 1.8. Um, the administration is saying 3.0, but it is due to be about 2, 1. And um, we'll probably see, you know, another tax cut. Uh, that'll help. The problem is that the debt is enormous.

John: The debt is something that there's, to me, there's almost no fix because there's no program that could ever be cut.

Greg: Right. So, what you need is you do need to grow the economy faster. You do need to invest strategically, but then you need to cut spending. You do need to cut spending.

John: Not to be –

Greg: We really do.

John: Look, we're not going to get political here…

Greg: No, no…

John: But it's –

Greg: It's like it's Democrats and Republicans.

John: Nobody wants to cut anything.

Greg: Correct. That's a problem, that's a problem. But, the answer is growing faster, and –

John: We don't have the employees to grow faster.

Greg: Well –

John: Unemployment – it’s back to unemployment. We can't grow much faster because where are we going to get the workforce?

Greg: And, that’s the problem. You gotta allow them into the country. You got allow them to come in. That'll help add to the workforce. And, you got to train people because only 63.2% of people, 16 years of age that can work – 16 years of age or older that can work, are working. Go to the labor participation rate.

John: Let me ask you this: as far as the workforce, the new millennials, we hear a lot about that. I don't hire a lot of young people.

Greg: Yeah. Um…

John: They don't like manual labor.

Greg: They do not. They do not. They want to work for Facebook or Amazon. Uh, that, that's an issue that we're all struggling with and they, for whatever reason, don't understand that even being a plumber or a truck driver –

John: You make good money.

Greg: Or even being a welder, you can make a lot of money.

John: And, I think more money… It’s just…

Greg: Walmart, last year, was advertising $81,000 a year for a truck driving job on the radio. $81,000 being a truck driver at Walmart.

John: That's good money. Isn't that middle-class?

Greg: That – that's, uh, well, no. It's more than middle class. I think the average family of four makes 50-some-odd thousand dollars. So, it's…

John: I mean, these are good paying jobs.

Greg: Yeah.

John: I think somebody needs to reach these young people to understand, “Look, Amazon, Google and all that. They're not the longterm answer for better – better income. You can actually learn to trade truck driving, welding or what have you, plumbing. You’ll make a lot of money.”

Greg: Right.

John: “Just gotta use your hands.”

Greg: Right. And, some of the top-end jobs at Amazon, uh, trust me – or at Apple, they pay a lot of money at the top jobs. You know, the engineers.

John: True. But, you gotta go to school –

Greg: But, working in a warehouse at Amazon, you know, it's 15 bucks an hour. It's not bad, but it's not – you're not going to have a family of four on that. Uh, you're not going to raise a family.

John: So, are you looking forward to the ISRI convention?

Greg: I am. I am.

John: What do you think? We're going to have a good show?

Greg: I think we'll have a pretty good show. Vegas is a great place. It's a place where if you're a scrap yard, in one day, you could see almost every vendor, whether it be hardware or software. Uh, Sierra is going to be there, BENLEE will be there.

John: Now, are you going to Waste Expo?

Greg: We’re going to Waste in New Orleans. We were just at the WET show, which is the pumper show yesterday. Actually, my team is still there today.

John: You do – do you do Con Expo?

Greg: We don't do Con Expo. We're not big…

John: We’re going to Con Expo.

Greg: Okay, cool.

John: You'd be surprised.

Greg: Yeah, maybe one of these days. But, we have a lot of trailers in the scrap business. A lot of trailers in the environmental business, especially on a two box trailer. Very popular. We have people yesterday just clamor around it. I mean it was…

John: All right, so manufactured – you’re out of the scrap business, you want to have…

Greg: Out of the scrap business.

John: Do you want to get back in it? Do you like it? You love the scrap business, Greg.

Greg: I've been offered a couple of times, I’ve been offered a couple times. I’m not ready, I'm not ready.

John: So, you say you like to travel. So, let's move on from what we do from a day to day ba–You've been traveling a lot.

Greg: Yeah, we were in Paris last week. Uh, Coronavirus. Uh, my wife loves to shop and the high-end stores….

John: Yeah.

Greg: Empty, empty. Uh, they said 40% of the business: gone last few weeks.

John: My daughter was in Paris last weekend.

Greg: Yeah. So, we were there – if she went to the stores…

John: She doesn’t quite have the budget to go into the high-end stores.

Greg: Okay, alright. But, it’s a big issue right now. So, uh, yeah, we were in Paris last weekend. We were in Arctica – Antarctica, I think, uh, New Year's Eve, we went and that was quite the trip. Um, it was really phenomenal, yeah.

John: Egypt, you said, coming up?

Greg: Egypt's coming up, uh, in a few months. Um, been to Costa Rica lately. Actually, London… Paris a couple of times. In Paris three months ago also. So, uh, yeah.

John: Good for you.

Greg: My – my wife's like –

John: Why get back in the scrap business when you can travel?

Greg: Yeah, there you go. Well, I've got a good team at BENLEE.

John: Okay.

Greg: And, um, but I'm still involved with BENLEE…

John: Of course.

Greg: On a daily basis.

John: And, you should be because you're a smart guy.

Greg: Uh, well, I try. Not as smart as you.

John: No. We've argued about it that many times. No, you're a lot smarter than me. Well, listen Greg, I appreciate you spending some time. Good luck to you on BENLEE.

Greg: Thank –

John: Good luck to you on your –

Greg: Keep your guard at Sierra.

John: I got to. I got kids in college and high school.

Greg: I like your electrification, your little electrical handler.

John: Yeah, yeah. Battery-op–

Greg: Very good. Electrification.

John: Well we – we've been successful selling a few of those. I think there's more to come.

Greg: Great. You bring a lot of value to the industry and you are a great Chairman of ISRI. You were great.

John: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. But, you know what? You're a great member of ISRI. You're always here. You're always participating.

Greg: We try.

John: Well, that's why we're friends.

Greg: There you go.

John: We're there, here doing the same – We have the same common goals. But, thank you for coming on.

Greg: All right.

John: I appreciate it.

Greg: Thanks for having us.

John: And that's it for another episode of Pile of Scrap.

Conclusion: This has been a Sierra International Machinery original audio series. Thanks for listening. Please share this podcast and make sure to subscribe.

The Pile of Scrap Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Play. The Podcast episode videos are available on YouTube. Be sure to Subscribe, Rate, and Review Pile of Scrap.