Ep. 5: Like Father, Like Son - Pasco Iron & Metal

Pile of Scrap Ep. 5: Like Father, Like Son - Pasco Iron & Metal

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Mark and Matt Goldman with John Sacco

Transcription

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

John Sacco: Ready? Are we rolling? We're recording? All right. Hello, hello, hello. I'm John Sacco and this is: Pile of Scrap. Matt and his father, Mark.

Mark Goldman: John, nice to see you.

John Sacco: It's been awhile, Mark.

Mark Goldman: It has been.

John Sacco: Too long.

Mark Goldman: Yes.

John Sacco: So, you know, I sit here. And, this is a great story of the Goldman family and two of my dearest friends in this industry. Mark, you and I go back from 1988. You were the number eight customer of Sierra.

Mark Goldman: Yes, I remember that transaction dearly. You were pretty tough to deal with.

John Sacco: My wife tells me that.

Mark Goldman: I can understand that, but we did —we came to a great understanding. We were both happy with the deal and more and above all of that, I was thrilled to death with the performance of the equipment.

John Sacco: Well, you were one of the first people that had it and I can't tell you how many people called you and I know you —you always —you were always for there for Sierra. And, all these years later, you know, we can really call each other friends from the deal back in the 80’s where, really, there were no contracts. It was handshake.

Mark Goldman: It was.

John Sacco: And today —you're one of my only customers, Matt —it's a handshake. People ask me in the office, “Okay, it's a deal. Well, where's the money?” It's a deal. You see, I get to override anything in the office because it’s always, ‘first money’s in, then it’s a sell.’

Mark Goldman: That's right.

John Sacco: But, you and Mike Lewis who, your father and you all know, you're the only two people that their word —that's it. That's a deal. It’s their word. So the tradition, father, you taught your son amazingly well.

Mark Goldman: Absolutely. He learned very, very well.

John Sacco: Well, this is the interesting story. We're not talking about a generational business anymore. You sold out in 2006.

Mark Goldman: That's correct.

John Sacco: You were working with dad.

Matt Goldman: That's correct.

John Sacco: I want your perspective. Dad is now selling your future.

Matt Goldman: Well, it hit me pretty hard, as you can imagine. I had worked there most of my adult life and also as a kid and growing up. But I understood that, the business was owned by a couple of families and had a very large employee base and it was a little more of an undertaking than I could handle or that I would want or that my dad would want for me. It wasn't really an option.

John Sacco: At the time.

Matt Goldman: At the time, it was not an option.

John Sacco: Well, here we are 13 years later and you're running an operation. I don’t know if it's the same size. Or, how close is it, Mark, to where you were?

Mark Goldman: Well, the operation is very similar in a lot of aspects. We did not have a large brokerage division, which Matthew has, and he gets to reap the benefits of that broker's division while he's also in the scrap metal recycling business. But, I would think that the level of responsibility and the exposure to things that go well and things that don't go well are probably equal to what we had experienced back in those days. So, even though he took everything that he learned with him when he started up Pasco Iron and Metal, he knows a lot about what not to do because quite frankly, whenever you start a business from scratch, there's going to be errors. There's going to be mistakes. Well, he had the benefit of learning what not to do at an early age and took that with him. And today is evidence of his learning.

John Sacco: So, Matt, Pasco Iron and Metal. We're outside of Tampa, a few miles. Where Scrap-All, your dad's company, was right in the heart of Tampa, and you're creating this. I'm —I’m not amazed or not shocked that you did this, but now that I look at and walk your yard today, you're a one man show. Your dad had a partner and some teammates that Bob and, you know, and then your head tech mechanic, Hank. You know, I mean, these were critical to the success of Scrap-All. You're a one man show. How do you do this? How are you balancing this? You’re a husband, you’re a father, and you're growing your business and it's growing.

Matt Goldman: Yeah, that's a great question. And that seems to be the biggest task at hand. The simple answer is the employees that we've hired here, we take a great deal and pride in training our employees, hiring the right staff, treating them as a family, and it really pays off. We have unbelievably low turnover, which is very unique for our industry.

John Sacco: How many Scrap-All employees do you have here?

Matt Goldman: We have four or five employees that had worked for my family.

John Sacco: So, do they take your vision because of the culture that Scrap-All was and knowing what you want because it's the same culture? Because that was the thing about Scrap-All. Integrity, honesty. I mean, there was no shenanigans. Never was. And, that's why the reputation exists. So, these people help you. They already know what you're looking for.

Matt Goldman: That's exactly right. And, it's unfortunate that culture didn't exist in the firm that my father sold and we were able to hire them and carry on the tradition that they had learned. And like you said earlier, the knowledge —The knowledge is invaluable. And every day I, I can't thank my father enough for allowing me to work in a place where I could develop this.

John Sacco: How often are you bouncing your future plans —your plans with dad? How often are you guys just, “hey son, what's going on?” “Dad, I'm doing this. What do you think?”

Matt Goldman: Well, I try. We tried to talk once a week. It can get a little challenging. But I would say on a macro level, we discuss pretty much everything. One of the great things about my father is, he's fairly conservative in his business strategies and he always points out the negative side of going into a venture or going into a deal, and he always knows the ramifications before they happen.

John Sacco: So, tell me something that he told you as you started out on this journey by yourself. What words —what were the —that just hold true every single day you come in and go. You know, without that knowledge or that input…

Matt Goldman: I think, as you know, being in the scrap business yourself, there is a lot going on, especially if you're in the ferrous and non-ferrous business. I think one of the most important things that he's ever told me that was pretty simple. It was, ‘success in business is when you have control over your business and it does not have control over you.’ And, I really think about that all the time. That is the definition of success.

John Sacco: I've never heard that. And that's you. Mark?

Mark Goldman: It is. It’s very important because quite frankly, if you have control over your business, you will be successful if you make the right decisions. But if you don't have control over your operation, you don't even get a chance to make a decision. The decisions are made for you because of your inaction. So, he's absolutely right and I never really thought over the years as we were working together that, that was sticking.

John Sacco: He listened to you then.

Mark Goldman: He really did. And so, to all those parents out there who wonder, ‘are the kids really paying attention? Are they going to learn anything at all from this relationship?’ The answer's: yes. And I can tell you, there's nothing more rewarding than to be in my position and get to see the success in an industry that I know is so difficult. And to your point, John, he is on his own and a one man show. Yeah. We talk quite often, especially about big decisions, but how to run the day-to-day operation. That all comes from him.

John Sacco: Well, I knew —hold on. I met you when you were 17 years old. Okay? This was before the pink house. I don't know why I remember the pink house there in Tampa. But, something right when you became full-time is your knowledge of non-ferrous for me was just, “how does he know that much so soon?” You have a gift of knowing your metals. Look, I've been doing this for 30-something years. I don't know the metals like you do. I'm like intimidated to even open my mouth. Yeah, that's aluminum. Yeah, that's stainless. Yeah, it's copper. That's it. Okay. I might, of course, I know a few more grades, but I asked you today, you do 25 different types of aluminum here.

Matt Goldman: Yeah.

John Sacco: And you're comfortable with it all.

Matt Goldman: It’s a lot to manage, but you're exactly right. Non-ferrous —I've seemed to gravitate toward non-ferrous more than ferrous. However, we're doing more ferrous than I would have ever imagined as it has sometimes —it accompanies the non-ferrous. But, one of the things that I like about non-ferrous is that I find it challenging to find a consumer for our products that makes exactly the type of scrap that we're supplying.

John Sacco: They need the chemistry that you’re supplying.

Matt Goldman: They need the chemistry. They need the alloys. So, I find it challenging to dig into the alloys, dig into the chemistries and find a user who needs that product. So instead of selling into a lower market or secondary market, go to the top of the market, analyze your scraps, segregate your scrap, get to the top of the market.

John Sacco: So, is this genetic? It's not generational. This is genetic. He took for —obviously, it's like —you see, musicians, their sons, their musicians, who their daughters —they're musicians. It's something genetic and within families. So as a scrap genetic, did you pass it along with genetically or what's the deal here?

Mark Goldman: Well, I think it is. I think the success you get from being able to identify the components of the metal, which will bring you a greater return is self-fulfilling. So, long time ago we realized that you're buying at one grade and then selling it at a second grade because of your ability to segregate the alloys is extremely profitable. So yes, anyone can buy and sell scrap aluminum, but not everyone can segregate the aluminum by alloys and command a greater price. So, what he's saying is that his ability to understand and his knowledge of the aluminum and the alloys makes him more profitable and there isn't a better reason to gain that knowledge than to be more profitable.

John Sacco: It's always been impressive. I've always been impressed by your knowledge. It shows walking the yard today. All the different little things that you showed me at different grades and how you're doing things. You know, but how much more can you grow until you just —it's too much for you, Matt? You're what, 47?

Matt Goldman: 47. That's a great question. I asked myself that all the time. Yeah, I don't have that answer today. But, I am aggressive by nature. I don't ever want to stay stagnant in this business. We’re continuing to search for new business. We're always investing in equipment. We will never be complacent in this industry, but at a point, it will become the question where many small or medium-sized companies are faced with.

John Sacco: Your children. Any interest in the scrap yard?

Matt Goldman: Absolutely not. They have no interest at all.

John Sacco: See, now he had interest in your operation, but now his kid's done. You know, I don't have that in my daughter. She's 20, going to be a junior at USC, and she wants —she's big city girl, big world. She’s a world traveler. She's in Berlin right now. Part of a course. And she sees the world as her oyster, not Bakersfield, California.

Matt Goldman: Yeah. This business is tough to find the right person to fit into it and I would never force my children into it. They would have to want to come in.

John Sacco: So Mark, let's go back to when you made the decision that it was time to sell Scrap-All You have a son who you know is capable, he has all the characteristics that you want, but you have to make this hard decision. Sell… Am I selling my son out? How much anguish did that cause you when you had to make that decision? Or was it just, “no, this is what needs to happen?”

Mark Goldman: Oh. It was a little bit of both, actually. He made the decision really easy for me.

John Sacco: How so?

Mark Goldman: Well, by knowing that his knowledge base was more than sufficient to ensure that he would have success regardless of whether he stayed with a new company or not. I didn't really expect him to stay with the new company. One of the reasons why Scrap-All was not just passed from one generation to another, as you said, was that, there, I had a partner and he had family in the business as well and those things don't always go well, as you know, over time. People have different characteristics and different personality traits and I didn't want to subject my son to have to not only deal with running a business but have to deal with those differences between the people who are involved in running the business. I felt it was better to get him started on his own somewhere in an area where he could take out all the knowledge he walked away with and implement it and be successful. I don't want to say, “I told you so,” but I was absolutely right and he did exactly as I expected him to do.

John Sacco: So actually, it was that, in the game of chess, you know, life's a chess match sometimes in the business world. So actually, he made the right moves to set you up that, not burden you —anchor you with something that could not be successful and could lead to later discourse or just wasn't going to be your style, Matt.

Matt Goldman: He did. He has great foresight. I can certainly say that now. I was absolutely bitter when he first told me that he was going to sell out. But in hindsight, he knew exactly what he was doing. He said, “work for the new company for a little while. If it doesn't work out, start a place of your own. He was smart enough to craft an agreement where I was able to do that and here we are 13 years later having this podcast in here doing that. And I couldn't thank my dad enough. I mean, it's from going from being bitter and upset to just sitting here and thanking him profusely for the knowledge that he's given me. I wouldn't be where I am today.

John Sacco: It’s a shrewd move, really. And Mark, you were —you know, sometimes people use ‘shrewd’ as a negative connotation, you know. But ‘shrewd’ was you're savvy and you're foresight that, I mean, Scrap-All from 1988 when you took the first baler to Scrap-All the day you sold was a ginormous operation and you went from this little —to this massive 22-acre facility with all of these rails and it's like, you know. You probably didn't think it, but you knew you had the foresight. And I think that, like I say, it was a blessing and it turned out that it could've been a curse. It turned out to be a blessing. And my father, you know, he always wanted me to take over the family business —me and my brother Philip. And, I guess because we had Sierra Recycling and Demolition here and International Machinery, he was able to separate and say, “one runs this, one runs that.” And in the end, you work together, but you let one run it and you really don't have any too many stepping-on-the-feet and that's, I think, the success of my brother and I because we still have the one thing Dad instilled in us: your word. Without your word of honor, you got nothing. So, my brother and I have an amazing relationship of trust amongst the —because I know he's got my back and he knows I have his back. I don't think this new generation, Mark, has that. You were instilled with it with your father. So, you have that characteristic —that gene that understands. But, you know, I don't know about this new world. Everything’s a contract now. Everything's a contract.

Mark Goldman: Yes. The curse of technology is also the blessing of technology and if you don't use it well, you will pay the price. So, I think that the thing I take away from this discussion more than anything else is that: the decision I made apparently seems to have been right, but it only was right because of Matt's ability to be successful. So, it could have gone totally different, but it wasn't. He took what he learned and he never forgot that. And on his own, he made himself extremely successful.

John Sacco: So, let's talk about Tampa for a second and the growth of this area, because, from when we first met Mark, 1988 to 2019. What's the population increase in the 50-mile radius of Tampa? How many more people are we dealing with?

Matt Goldman: Oh. From ‘88 to now, I think we're both —Tampa Bay areas consist of Hillsborough and Pinellas called the ‘bay area.’ I would say it's in the two and a half million-range.

Mark Goldman: Two to three million.

John Sacco: What was it in ‘88?

Mark Goldman: It was probably less than a million.

Matt Goldman: Less than a million.

John Sacco: Okay. In industry now. Now industry, because of the population growth in Florida in general and a lot of factories moving south because of the right-to-work state a little bit more advantageous non-union shops that you were famous for: the northeast Detroit, you know, and all that area. It's a lot of factories and stuff have come down here.

Matt Goldman: That's correct. Most of our suppliers in the machine shop or industrial stampers are from either the Midwest or the Northeast. Very few are original start-ups here in Florida.

John Sacco: How much more room is there for northern Florida for these industries? You think you're at —How much more growth do you really see? Five, 10 years.

Matt Goldman: Oh, absolutely. Unlimited. Our county, in particular, has a marked a corridor for industrial manufacturing, industrial growth. The areas, I would say, we can see double, triple growth in that type of industry. Florida, like you said, is a right-to-work state and the state and the counties are also giving incentives for industries to move down here. We don't —we're not —we’re a tax —state-income tax-free state as well. That makes it encouraging for company's coming out of New York.

John Sacco: You sure you don't want to come to California? It's only 13 and a half percent.

Matt Goldman: Yeah. No, John, I think I will visit at this point.

John Sacco: But it's hot and humid here.

Matt Goldman: Well, you know, you chose to come in August. That was your decision.

John Sacco: Okay. So, well, it wasn’t the best one.

Matt Goldman: Well, I can tell you August —July, August, September are the months that —

John Sacco: We were out in the yard for what? Maybe an hour from 9:00 AM to 10. And when I walked in, I mean, I'm just —my hair's wet, everything. I'm just drenched. Now, Bakersfield, we get hot. We don't have this, so.

Matt Goldman: Yeah. It comes with the territory here in Florida.

John Sacco: I guess because —I guess humidity —because you have to live in humidity, there's no taxing that. So, in California, unless you have to —you have to get a tax. Is that the way it works?

Matt Goldman: Yes. You have better weather and more taxes. We have bad weather and no taxes.

John Sacco: So Mark, you and I have something in common. We have the same anniversary date.

Mark Goldman: Yes, we do.

John Sacco: Our wedding anniversaries, same day.

Mark Goldman: Yes.

John Sacco: But you have an anniversary date on every April 15th that I think the people who are going to listen to this podcast need to know about.

Matt Goldman: And it’s not Tax Day.

Mark Goldman: Yes. It is not Tax Day. Yes. So, in addition to living a dream life —starting my own business, being successful, raising a son and daughter, and having my son take an interest in the business and showing that he learned enough to be successful on his own. I was fortunate enough to make it through a hard, physical time 23 years ago. And I was diagnosed with a heart condition that was a viral thing. No one expected it. And, it left me needing a heart transplant. So, I was in the prime of my career. I was running a company and we were growing and I had to take a detour for awhile. And I did and successfully so, I am still sitting here today in front of you.

John Sacco: Yeah.

Mark Goldman: And very, very blessed that I was given this extended length of time to not only work, but to see my family grow.

John Sacco:  You know, that was —when we talked this morning, we walked in the —our friendship and the part of terror that I was talking about wasn't the markets. It was that was when you were sitting in the hospital day after day because you had to be in the hospital for —if you were going to get a heart transplant. And I remember you bought a baler from me, lying in your hospital bed waiting for your heart, whether we didn't know what was going to come or go. And you bought a baler. And back in the days, we used to just get all excited every time we made a sell, right. And I remember calling your partner, Herb, and tell him, “there doesn't seem to be any joy in this.” And, he told me something. He says, “well,” he goes, “I understand you.” He goes, “but I want you to look at something.” I go, “what's that?” He goes, “Mark is looking forward to living” and it changed the way I looked at that. Because even though you were sitting there in that dire medical situation, you were looking forward to living. So, “hey, I'm buying a baler because I'm going to get my heart. I'm getting out of here and we're getting back to work.”

Mark Goldman: Well, I had to make sure you delivered it on time and that it was a machine we ordered.

John Sacco: Well, it was.

Mark Goldman: Both of those things were met.

John Sacco: But you know, I think that the life lesson of living, no matter what's thrown at you —you know, I've been blessed. Matt, you and I have been blessed. You know, I lost my father to Cancer, but he was 87 years old. He lived an unbelievable full life. And so I take that blessing of knowing that I had all those years. And there, you have this an amazing blessing of all these years, now, with a new heart.

Mark Goldman: Correct.

John Sacco: Still. I don't know, Mark. I think about it and —

Mark Goldman: It is amazing. I think about it every day. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't go, “wow, you are pretty lucky.” And, that's why I have protected it like I have because it was a gift that you could never replace.

John Sacco: I remember that whole thing. You know, from far away.

Matt Goldman: Yeah.

John Sacco: From far away.

Matt Goldman: Yeah. It was amazing that he was able to run the operation out of a hospital bed in another state. As we all know, it’s a hands-on —

John Sacco: You were in Atlanta?

Matt Goldman: It was in Atlanta, yeah.

Mark Goldman: In Atlanta.

John Sacco: Where were you, Emory?

Mark Goldman: Emory University. Yes. Hospital.

Matt Goldman: So, he —his hospital room looked like a war room. He had the fax machine. This is before —this is before black blackberries and way before —

John Sacco: This is before e-mail.

Matt Goldman: Yeah. E-mail was a new thing. But —

John Sacco: You didn't have the sawed-off shotgun in there, did you?

Mark Goldman: No, no. Yes.    

John Sacco: Well that's what I always —At Scrap-All, behind that… I always call it the control —that, you know —the master control room. There was —in the corner, right there —was that sawed-off shotgun.

Mark Goldman: It never had to move. Its presence spoke for itself.

John Sacco: Yeah. Nobody wanted to come in and give you a bad time. So Matt, tell us something. Tell us a story that —a funny story. You know, something that is crazy about —as a kid, watching the whole scrapping because in the scrap business —everything. There's always something crazy going on here.

Matt Goldman: Yeah, I'll tell you funny story. I don't remember when it was, but I remember being a teenager maybe in my early, early twenties, late 18. It was coming to work with my dad on a Saturday afternoon and we caught somebody breaking into our properties and trying to steal scrap metal and my father reacted in a way that I have never seen before and I won't forget to this day. He jumps out of his car and grabs a baseball bat and commences to beat the intruders bicycle up and dented it up. The rims were bent, he couldn't drive away. And as he was swinging the baseball bat, he was telling them that, “you're stealing from my family, you're stealing from my employee's family, you're stealing from everyone here. Hit the road, get out of here.” And, it was just unbelievable the way he said it. He didn't hurt the burglar, but he really sent a message and it was just a funny, great story and I'll never forget it.

John Sacco: What about you? Tell us a story, Mark.

Mark Goldman: There’s one story that is really funny and I'll try to tell it as quickly as I possibly can. So, the way our offices and the scales were set up, our scale-person for the truck scales, was able to see traffic coming into the yard, or from the pay window —actually, able to see the transactions as they were going on. So, the trucks are coming in. Well, one of our drivers, in a large roll-off truck parked on the street and came in to get his next run, the information, or whatever, and we give it to him and we send him on his way. Well a few minutes later, I get a call on the radio that you need to come out to the street. “Okay, now what's wrong?” So I go out to the street and it's apparent what happened was this cashier who had just gotten a new car parked it right in front of the roll-off truck—so close to it that sitting in the driver's seat, you couldn't see this little sports car in front. He jumped back in his truck and took off and drove right over the car —flattened it out.

Matt Goldman: It looked like a crushed car ready for the shredder. Brand new sports car.

Mark Goldman: Right? So, I take a look at what's going on. I just can't believe that he —it was like going to the big truck demolition thing and he just drove right over and flattened it. So, I go back in the office and I pick up the walkie-talkie and I tell the fellow out in the yard, I said, “take a forklift, go out to the front street. You're going to see a flattened car out there. Pick it up, but do not drive through the yard. Bring it in the back gate because I obviously knew that she's sitting in front of the big picture window watching the traffic go by. That would have flipped her out. So, a few minutes later I hear screaming as loud as —I didn’t know what —what was going on and I run out to that area and the fellow with the forklift didn't follow my directions. He drove her flattened vehicle right in front of the picture window in her view. And she was just —

John Sacco: What kind of car was it?

Mark Goldman: It was like a Mustang or something like that. But, I could not calm her down no matter what —no matter what I did. So, finally we said, “we'll take care of this, we'll take care of this.” And we said, “hey, whatever it takes, just go buy yourself a new car and bring us the bill.”

John Sacco: Thank you. So, did that get turned into the insurance or you just paid for it?

Mark Goldman:  No, we did not. I would never have let the insurance know that something like that could have ever happen. So, we got her calmed down and she ended up with a new car.

John Sacco: So, there's a benefit working at Scrap-All back in the day.

Mark Goldman: It was too funny to see how it unfolded.

John Sacco: There's, you know, every day, there's something that comes in from the —

Mark Goldman: Yes. There was —there was one more comical thing. I get a phone call. Guy says, “I have this Volkswagen Beetle and I need to scrap it because it doesn't run anymore, but I want it for a coffee table. Do you have those machines that crush these things up into coffee tables?” So yeah, we can do it. I said, “I have to charge you for the time.” He says, “that's fine.” So, he brings in this —tows in this Volkswagen and it didn't look bad to me, but he said, “blow the motor” or whatever. So we pick it up, we put it in a machine. We turned it into a cube about the size of a coffee table.

Matt Goldman: Is this Sierra?

Mark Goldman: We used the Sierra baler. Obviously. And he says, “now I'm going to go buy a piece of glass and put it on here.” So, I'm asking him, “so, you know, this is very, very odd, you know, that you would make a coffee table out of a car.” He says, “well, it's not exactly the story, but…” I said, “well, exactly what is the story?” He says, “well, I'm getting divorced and the decree came down and I had to give her the Volkswagen. It didn't say what condition it needed to be in, so I'm going to give it to her. I'm taking it to her house today and giving it to her.”

John Sacco: I would have loved to see that. Why didn't you follow that guy? That would would've been worth the price of admission for that one.

Mark Goldman: I was speechless. I didn't know what to say.

John Sacco: We did something similar. We pulled, we used to have auto dismantling and one of our receptionists had the green VW. I said, “we had a green VW in the back of the scrap yard. So, we baled it. We moved her car and put the bale right in her parking spot. And, when she came out to go home and sees a baled Volkswagen, she lost her marbles. I mean, it wasn't a joke that went over very well. Her car was fine, but it —it was —“that's a joke. That's not, it'd be she instantaneously, you saw the wheels come off and just the marbles spilling all over the place.

Mark Goldman: Yeah. So, those are a lot of things like that went on over the years, which kept it light because if you —if you don't keep it light, you get in trouble.

John Sacco: I don't think we have that now, Matt, do we?

Matt Goldman: No, we don’t. We don’t.

John Sacco: I don't think we have the ability to do that.

Matt Goldman: No, no, no.

John Sacco: Somebody is going to be offended.

Mark Goldman: Oh, yes.

John Sacco: And then somebody's going to say, “I'm offended that you're not offended.”

Matt Goldman: Yeah. Yeah.

John Sacco: We live in a world —different worlds these days.

Matt Goldman: You have to think before you speak.

John Sacco: All right, so let's wrap up here a little bit, Matt. Five years from now, 10 years from now, you still in the business?

Matt Goldman: Absolutely. Absolutely.

John Sacco: This is in your blood.

Matt Goldman: It's in my blood. I really don't know anything else. So, I see myself in this in some facet. I'll be in this business.

John Sacco: Dad, what do you think?

Mark Goldman: Over the next five years, I'm going to watch him still be in this business.

John Sacco: Sure you don't want to come back one day?

Mark Goldman: Well, I enjoyed —I enjoy coming back all the time.

John Sacco: You can be a Walmart greeter. Passcode reader.

Mark Goldman: I could be an iron metal greeter.

Matt Goldman: We're not going to allow him to work here. He can observe.

Mark Goldman: I can observe. But believe it or not, during the time I spend here, I see customers that were my customers 25 years ago and they're still peddlers in the scrap business and they're still bringing metal in and they stayed —they stayed extremely dedicated to doing business with our family and they're so happy that Matt was around for them to go to.

John Sacco: It's great to come here. It's great to see this growth and I'm looking in your yard. I'm going, “you're —you're almost too big for this facility if you're not already too big for it.” So, keep up the great work. Mark, my friend. It's always great to be with you.

Mark Goldman: Same here, same here.

John Sacco: And I'm just blessed to have a friend in you and all these years later and to be able to sit here and know the love is right here and I'm —I'm truly blessed to be here and I want to thank both of you for —for being on the podcast today.

Mark Goldman: Well, you're very welcome. I thank you for the relationship for so many years.

Matt Goldman: Yup. John, thank you very much. Sierra has always been great to us. Not only from equipment and service, but to have a relationship with you. If I need anything, I call the owner of the company directly. We text, we talk on the phone, whatever it takes. It's just been a great, great relationship and thank you again for your staff and everyone flying in from California. I know it's been a long journey, but to come to a hot, sweaty Florida in the middle of the summer, it means a lot to me. I'm sorry I put you through it.

John Sacco: No…

Matt Goldman: Next podcast will be in January.

John Sacco: But you know, I —I feel so good about doing this and I'm good. I'm just happy. So gentlemen, thank you. That's it for this episode of Pile of Scrap.

Matt Goldman: Good job.

John Sacco: Thank you.

Matt Goldman: It was good? Okay.

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

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