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Everybody Else is a podcast about the invisible people who make life happen. What began as conversations with behind-the-scenes builders in the music industry has grown into a broader exploration of how people think, work, and carry responsibility across industries and across disciplines. Hosted by Wes Luttrell, the show centers on thoughtful dialogue with creatives, leaders, and operators whose work often goes unseen but shapes the world we live in. New episodes streaming every Tuesday.
speaker-0 (00:01.292)
This is the Everybody Else Podcast.
speaker-1 (00:10.39)
Most of the authors of the human story are unnamed. Invisible contributors to the greatest story ever written. So who are the invisible people writing our chapter today? Because behind every great city, industry, movement, and way of thinking are people who dedicate their entire lives to work that'll go virtually unnoticed. Work that builds on where we've been, shapes where we are, and points us towards where we're going.
There are those in the spotlight, and then there's everybody else.
speaker-0 (00:56.558)
grew up on a farm. All of our family owned farms. So we didn't necessarily grow up on a farm, but grew up out in Working on farms. Working on farms out in the middle of nowhere. And so thankful that I was raised to have a good work ethic. So I started a lawn care business in high school. And then once I graduated high school,
I was going to Ivy Tech. I loved working on cars at the time. I don't so much anymore, too many electronics, I loved working on cars. So was going to Ivy Tech in the evenings for automotive classes. I was a, I would get up, if I remember right, it was early, five o'clock in the morning, 435 o'clock in the morning. I was the opening manager at Arby's on First Avenue.
speaker-1 (01:55.438)
Mmm.
speaker-0 (01:56.526)
And so I worked there until one o'clock, I believe, right after the lunch hour. And then I would go out and I would work on my lawn care business, weather permitting. then I, I think if it was two or three nights a week, I was, I had class, automotive class at IB Tech from six until 10 PM. And then the next day just start all over. And so I did that for a while.
speaker-1 (02:25.806)
Do remember at that time if you were building towards anything in your mind, were you headed towards a career? Were you just trying things out?
speaker-0 (02:34.328)
that at that point, young, ambitious, and probably pretty stupid. just did whatever, you know, made money and so yeah, so I can't say at that point. At that point, my goals were probably more towards the automotive field. But it quickly shifted once I
once my lawn care business continued to grow. so, somewhere in that period of time, I also, I met my wife, well, Amanda and her family at church. When I turned, when I was 17, I started going to this church right down the road here from here. So, I met them there and at some point in time, I don't know how it happened, but
I was best friends with Justin and who is my wife's brother. He's since passed away, but we were, we were best friends. And so I spent a lot of time out there and they lived out on the boondocks out in the middle of nowhere, you know, and so Larry had the Larry and Marilyn had the trash business. And so a couple of nights a week I would go out there and I would grease the trash trucks for him and install cameras just.
light stuff, you know, at that point there was only either three or four trash trucks whenever I was doing that. And so, was able to learn some things about the garbage industry at that time. And so I had my morning, Monday through Friday morning at Arby's and then afternoon with long hair. And then I think it was three nights a week, I was at IBTEC and the two nights a week I was
out there greasing trash trucks and spending time with the family, Marshall family. And then on Saturdays, I would tackle landscape jobs or catch up on mowing if the weather wasn't cooperating. So I was very busy at the time and extremely busy. And then Sunday, obviously taking up all day with church projects and church in the morning and the evening. So I was just go, go, go, go, go.
speaker-0 (04:59.276)
I don't really know when that changed. I do know after a while I gave up on schooling. I'm not condoning that. But I was trying to build the lawn care business, gave up on Ivy Tech, and really hit the lawn care business hard. And then as I was working out there on the garbage trucks and best friends with Justin, there was one day where it just kind of clicked and I was like, hey,
Justin's sister is really cute. And so, yeah, we started, over time we started dating and at that point in time, once we started getting serious, was, we felt like it was time to separate business and family. And so I sold my lawn care business, changed careers and started working for
speaker-1 (05:32.543)
You
speaker-0 (05:59.118)
some other small businesses around town. so anyway, not with Marshall, no. And so then Amanda and I married in 2010 and started growing a family. then in 2000, I'm going to get in trouble here. I think it was 2014.
speaker-1 (06:06.122)
Marshal yet
speaker-0 (06:29.55)
maybe 2013, I think it was 2014, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer and went through some major, major health struggles there and just sent the family reeling. And so I came on board into the trash business back to Marshall Disposal and started learning.
the ins and outs of it and with the intention of over a short period of time be running the day-to-day operations.
speaker-1 (07:09.518)
Was that an explicit conversation or was that more just like they were their time and their attention was now on health and family preservation so we need somebody to capable trustworthy person to step in?
speaker-0 (07:23.182)
It did kind of shift. we had the intentions of coming on board when I turned 30. But then when this, when the cancer got involved, was Larry and Marilyn kind of said, either you come on board now or we're going to sell. You know, we can't do, we can't juggle all of this. right now, Marilyn's health is the most important thing, which is completely understandable. And so we,
discussed it and decided that that was the, I was ready and that was the time to go ahead and do it. so, yeah, sometimes through horrible situations, the best things come about. so, yeah, so then the rest is, as they say, history.
speaker-1 (08:13.358)
What do you remember about those early days of coming on board as I guess you were immediately sort of thrust into a leadership position, right?
speaker-0 (08:24.974)
In a way, yes. So that part was difficult. And I had seen that in other areas. There was another small business in town that I went to work for. And very quickly, they wanted to move me into a management position. And there were people that had been employed there for a very long time that did not want to see this young kid be a manager over them.
And so there was an uproar, you know. And I was younger and more stupid than I am now, you know, and more arrogant as young men are. so that probably didn't help anything, but it definitely was a challenge coming on board. The team was small, but there was...
I think it was three or four drivers at the time. And it was a challenge because they, in the industry, knew a lot more than me. They had been doing it lot longer. And so some of them looked for me to fail. They wanted me to fail. Failure is not an option. And so we had...
One or two quit pretty quickly within just a short period of time. I'd a short period of time, I'd say less than a year. then we had, so anyway, we did have one stick around for a pretty long time.
speaker-1 (10:15.254)
Was your father-in-law
speaker-0 (10:20.384)
Yeah, he was. He was still on the day-to-day in a truck a lot of times as well. And so at that point it was our office staff consisted of one person. And so our mechanic staff consisted of one person. And so the rest was just all hands on deck. We went out, Larry and I would be driving trucks and then
once we finished on either route or roll off, whatever we were doing, we'd come and work in the office and get our work done in there. And so it was definitely challenging in the early days of, again, you're wearing so many hats in a small business. now we've been able to build a fantastic team and leadership team that I can, there's still many different hats and it grows and it changes.
you know, as we grow, my hat looks different, much different now than it did last year. And obviously, the change of ownership in 2025, it looked much different in 2025 than it did in 2024. so, there's this constant shifting and changing, which is good. It means we're growing and we're not stuck in a rut.
speaker-1 (11:39.554)
Yeah, at what point do you remember working on, if you can think back, going from being a small team working just in the business all the time to really starting to think about what are we doing here, what are we building here, and then starting to think about a company? Do you remember that shift? Was it a personal decision or was it a collective?
speaker-0 (11:59.502)
Yes, I do remember that shift. And the reason I remember is because it coincided with my leadership shift, changing leadership. so, and actually, I just went over this last week. I think it was last week. Ted Dickel had me on at U of E for the leadership boot camp. And I spoke about this over there.
It was about four years ago when I had a kind of an awakening, if you will. And I realized I was a terrible leader. And I remember we used to, at the time we were having Friday morning staff meetings with the office staff. And I remember going into one of those meetings and I had just seen a post on LinkedIn that showed an empty picture and a glass beside it.
And it said, you can't pour from what you don't have. can't pour from, you can't get from what you don't possess. And I realized I had just been going and going and going and in a rut. And I wasn't leading. We were just there. We were doing what we knew to do. And we were succeeding and the business was growing. But there was no leadership. It was just, we're just here.
We're Marshall Disposal, we're here. And so I apologized to them and I said, I'm going to start digging into leadership and I'm going to start challenging myself and getting out of my comfort zone. so what I think what triggered it, not only that LinkedIn post, but also I've always been a fan of Dave Ramsey. And so I know to some people he's a cuss word, Dave Ramsey is a cuss word, but others, you anyway.
speaker-1 (13:55.544)
I like Dave Ramsey's tough love.
speaker-0 (13:57.949)
Exactly. And he was discussing with the business owner and he said, you are at the bottleneck to your business. He said, as the owner and as the leader, if you don't grow, wherever you cap out, wherever you top off, everyone else is going to do the same. And I realized that I wasn't the owner at the time, but I was the leader or was the...
should have been a leader. I was the leader figure. And I was operating the day to day, you know, and so I realized that if I don't stretch myself and I don't grow, this business and my team is not going to grow. And so I started stretching myself. I said this last week standing in front of a group of people, I don't like public speaking. I don't like standing up in front of people.
speaker-1 (14:28.353)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (14:55.512)
To be completely honest, I don't even like podcasts. I don't like speaking into a microphone, so no offense. We have our own You have a podcast. So don't take that wrong way. So I joined a B &I group. I don't know if you're familiar with B &I. And I don't remember how I got connected, basically it's a bunch of representatives in our group. It was on Wednesday mornings.
speaker-1 (15:12.622)
Tell me about what that is.
speaker-0 (15:24.78)
and we had about 32, I think, at the time in the B &I group. And so it's a bunch of networking. You're spending time talking with people, getting out of your comfort zone. You're basically selling yourself and your product, your business.
speaker-1 (15:45.006)
Is everybody an owner operator or like leadership role?
speaker-0 (15:48.212)
Yeah, most owner operators, some are salesmen. So it's a variety. And so, again, that is not what I enjoy doing. I don't like just walking up to people, hey, I'm Zach and this is what I do. You should use.
speaker-1 (16:06.56)
I'd say there's like such a minority of the population who does like that. Yeah. Yeah, it's brutal.
speaker-0 (16:12.398)
There's something wrong with them.
So I joined this B &I group. And so anyway, you're sitting after the networking, then you get together, you're sitting, at least in our group, we sat in this U-shape tables and chairs, and each had 45 seconds to get up and give a commercial about you and your business. And this is every week, in and out.
speaker-1 (16:37.589)
Wow
speaker-0 (16:42.378)
And so, and obviously visitors came in and so you had new ears each time. And then part of BNI is that you're basically increasing your sales force by however many people in the room. And so you can give referrals. So if you were in BNI and you had a lawn care business and I was in BNI, I would want to give you referrals. I would come across a Taco Bell whose grass was two feet high and I'd say, you need to call Wes to come.
So there was a lot of, again, challenges for a person like me to do that. So I joined the B &I group and I started really trying to network. I started pouring myself into books and podcasts. not much of a sit-down reader, but I love to listen to books when I'm traveling and I do a lot of driving.
And so I listened to a of books, John C. Maxwell, Dave Ramsey obviously, and I can't think of his name right now, at the table, Patrick Lincione. so anyway, dove into these podcasts, trying to stretch myself in leadership. And it worked. It's amazing whenever you start being intentional about something and that it works.
And then I have this friend who's always challenging me, Jared, who you met. And he was after me for quite a while about starting our own podcast. And so finally it was in this moment of weakness and challenging myself that I said, yes, let's do it. So we started in, I guess, January of 24.
Yes, January 24, we released our very first Life and Leadership podcast. looking back, was probably horrible. Audio was probably horrible. I won't go back and listen to it just because, you
speaker-1 (18:55.214)
Cringy. Yeah, I understand.
speaker-0 (18:57.87)
But we have, we've not only have we learned a lot personally and grown personally, but the two of us, I've heard some pretty good testimonies from people who do listen to our podcast. And I guess the thing is that I want, now that I'm on this side of it, and I see how much of a difference there is between management and leadership.
I want everyone to experience that. want every business owner, every business leader or organizational, whoever it is, I want them to experience what we've experienced, which is going from a small business stuck in a rut, just going through the motions every day, to a business that's thriving, that has a culture that's incredible. We've thankfully, graciously been named one of the best places to work in Indiana the past two years.
speaker-1 (19:57.42)
Yeah, I saw that. That's great.
speaker-0 (19:58.786)
Thank you. It's just incredible. And I say this very seriously. I want every business to be able to experience this and every business owner to have the privilege of being able to say you're a part of a team like we have. so that's, and I think of it that way that I'm
So privileged, so blessed to be a part of such an amazing group of people. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. So I already loved what I did before. Now it's just, I love it even that much more.
speaker-1 (20:39.256)
What do you think the difference is in terms of how you would describe the culture before and after that sort of intangible shift? What do you think sort of the nature of today's culture is versus when it was more of a strictly management, if you had to say it like that?
speaker-0 (20:59.852)
I say the main driving factor is being intentional, intentionality.
And intentionality starts at the top. Intentionality, you can be intentional no matter where you are in an organization. But if the top is not intentional, it's not going to spread throughout the organization. And I believe that's our number one reason is being intentional on everything that we do.
speaker-1 (21:39.542)
It's like having like a why behind all these... ...reasons and processes.
speaker-0 (21:41.806)
Having what? Having core values. That's something that prior to we did not do. We knew who we were. We knew that we were a Christian organization. We knew that we did what was right. But we didn't have it written down. And so we didn't have anything to turn to in the moment of a decision. It was just what feels right. Well, you can't lead a business and lead a team by what feels right.
You have to be very intentional and that's where core values come into play. so our core value of respect, integrity, having art to serve, we have six different core values. All these core values, when we have a decision to make, whether it's hiring or firing or how to handle a customer situation, business growth, whatever it may be, we use these six core values to base that decision, to make that decision on.
And so that's where it starts is being very, very intentional. We're very intentional about.
about our leadership style, who we allow in leadership positions. They have to obviously, well, to be a part of our team, you have to have a heart to serve because that's one of our core values. But I won't put someone in a leadership position that has a tendency to lose their temper. And I'm, I am, I don't know, I guess I'm kind of different. I'm not.
I'm old school in some ways and in other ways I'm like, it's called old school for a reason. The ways of my way or the highway and I'm going to yell at you and I'm going scream and you're going to do what I say to do because I'm the owner. That's not a thing anymore. Shouldn't be a thing anymore. Respect is, was our very first core value, respect. If you...
speaker-0 (23:50.19)
If you worked for me and I had an issue with how you handle the situation, if you wouldn't listen to me talking to you like this, then you're not going to listen to me if I'm yelling and screaming at you. so being very intentional about how we handle these situations and how we treat people. There's 100%. Yep. Yep. And one thing that our team loves is that not only do we give respect,
speaker-1 (24:09.144)
Would the same be said for customers?
speaker-0 (24:20.478)
Respect being one of our core values. We also, I shouldn't say demand because that's not, but we utilize that same core value of respect in the other way as well. And so the phrase the customer is always right has been around for ages and ages. And although we do have hard to serve,
speaker-1 (24:31.096)
Give.
speaker-0 (24:49.614)
core value and we have integrity and we have all these things that drive us to make sure we're doing everything we possibly can to please a customer. There are some customers that you cannot make happy. so when a customer crosses that line from respect to disrespect, they have about one warning. if it's, you know, if I hear a conversation and one of our office staff is or our drivers or whoever,
is being disrespected by a customer. You know, we usually allow them to find someone else to service their garbage needs. And so respect is a, again, it's a two-way street. And so our team loves that because they know that they're not going to have to put up with being screamed at and cussed at and everything else and go home and bear it all.
And so.
speaker-1 (25:52.31)
It also makes sure, it makes what you say and what you've written down as values and mission real, that you back it up and you live it out versus if, you know, plenty of people could say all that stuff and then when push comes to shove and a customer's pissed off and they're going to lose money, they just thought like, we'll let this slide now, we'll just, you know, but everything's okay, you know, but employee, it's going to be fine. Like we're going to figure this out. But when you actually...
live out your, you live by what you say, it gains so much internal respect too, I can imagine that. Builds a healthy company.
speaker-0 (26:28.846)
It does. does. We're also intentional about having fun. And I do not micromanage. I don't have time to micromanage. so, and I wouldn't want to micromanage. I did have time. We hire people that we can trust. And there are times where, in fact, most of the time they say when I'm around the office, it's actually
a lot crazier than when I'm not there because I enjoy having fun. enjoy how we have, everyone has a Nerf gun on their desk, you know, and at any point in time, there could be a Nerf war. So there's just an incredible amount of fun that we have between pranks and just, know, everyone's going to have a bad day and work is going to be stressful at times.
But you want to create a safe haven, if you will, for people to want to come to work. And you never know what's going on. I was just talking to some leaders a while back about this. You never know what's going on in someone's personal life. you want the workplace to be a place where they can come and they have friends and they have family and they know they can trust the area. They can trust
the people there. And so sometimes it's a relief to come to work for some people. Not me, I love my wife and we get along really well and I do everything she tells me to in case she's listening. But anyway, sometimes it's a relief for people to come to work because of certain stressors at home, health issues. Again, you never know what people are going through. So we're very intentional about...
making it a fun place to be. And we're also very intentional about caring for one another. And when I say that, I mean more than just business. We get involved personally in every one of our team members' lives as much as they'll let us. We get involved with their spouses and their family and their,
speaker-0 (28:53.208)
their dogs or cats, you know, we ask how everyone's doing and when someone is in the hospital, we go visit them. know, it's just, it's a family. It really truly is a family. So, I think that's the thing that drives us now is it's not the number of customers, it's not the how many trucks we have, it's that we have
a tremendous family that we get to see every day.
speaker-1 (29:27.534)
When I was at this leadership conference that you and Jared put on, it be the inaugural Poseyville conference. was great. one of the reoccurring themes of the day was communication with your team and how important one-on-ones are. Do you do one-on-ones with your team? How do you communicate with them?
speaker-0 (29:55.469)
Yes. Yeah. So there's a couple of ways. And I think I may have actually said this a little bit in our Q &A at the end of the conference. In our industry, it is very difficult to be able to conduct one-on-ones and to have a close-knit feel because we have drivers that are out all day.
We have early morning mechanics that are there at four o'clock. We have late night mechanics that are there until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. And then we have a driver that is strictly commercial, routes downtown. He starts at midnight. And so we're kind of all over the board. And so it is a challenge, 100%, to be able to...
not only make time to be able to meet with each one one-on-one, but also you want to be fair with people because whenever they are spending nine, 10 hours a day in a truck, when they get back to the office, last thing they want to do is talk for another 30 minutes. And a lot of them, they'll come in and they'll joke around with us and stuff, but they don't want to sit and think about, you know.
speaker-1 (31:09.942)
Sit and talk to you.
speaker-1 (31:19.758)
That's right.
speaker-0 (31:21.77)
And so one way I do it is we use the Entrez Leadership Tool and Entrez Leadership Elite. And so we have weekly reports that everyone is supposed to fill out, some struggle with that. And so everyone fills out a weekly report of how their week went, the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, the ugly, not only business, but personally. And then we can respond to them.
or we can schedule one-to-one from that. And then we have some topics of conversation rather than starting from a zero and not knowing. And then another way I try to be intentional is just reaching out rather than sitting down in my office and having a one-on-one. I just call them and talk to them, see how they're doing.
They can talk when they're, you know, they have their headset on and they're driving down the road. So obviously with the office staff, that's easier one-on-ones. And our leadership team has been meeting one-on-one with their direct reports as well. So it's kind of a group effort, but again, in the industry brand, it's definitely a challenge to have a set schedule, if you will, of...
going to meet with this person every other Tuesday or whatever.
speaker-1 (32:53.31)
You know what's awesome though about talking about earlier in the conversation that the leadership example starts at the top is to say that you struggled with maybe still it's your task in life is to put yourself out there and talk in public on podcast. I would say calling a driver is also challenging in the beginning of like, we're going to start doing this.
speaker-0 (33:20.44)
It is.
speaker-1 (33:20.778)
Yeah, I have this is part of my role now, but you overcoming your fears in leadership that is you know, if people say well, where do I start? It's that it's incorporating your own journey of growth of self growth Into your process of work. It's gonna inspire somebody else to they know they can sense I mean, it's not an easy thing to do. you know, so I think that that's a
I just wanted to note that because I think it's such a cool way to think about how that looks practically for you and your business. was that, you know, it could be as simple as that.
speaker-0 (33:58.392)
That is a very good observation and that's something that I don't, I usually don't say out loud because I don't want people to feel like they're bothering me by calling me. Yeah. The only one I really say that to is Jared and my wife, Amanda, because Jared knows I hate talking on the phone and he'll call me and he'll be like, Hey, I just need two minutes of your time. just want to, you know,
Got an idea? Yeah. He's like, I promise I won't go over two minutes. And then when we're hanging up, he's like, man, it was three minutes and 12 seconds. I'm sorry. And so anyway, that is very much a struggle. And so good observation on that. I much rather text for multiple reasons. And I think part of it goes back to when the business was really growing and I was in the day to day.
And I was the person. Like, I didn't have a leadership team. So everybody called me. And I had multiple days, had somewhere between 100 and 150 phone calls on my cell phone. And since then, my phone is always on silent unless I'm asleep. If I'm asleep, it's on ring. So that way, if there's an emergency, I can hear my phone. But during the day, I have this Apple Watch.
And my phone's always on silent because I hate to hear my phone ring. So, it is a challenge, but it is something that I'm intentional about making sure to reach out.
speaker-1 (35:25.493)
Mmm, yeah.
speaker-1 (35:38.114)
That's great. So if we go into the industry that you work in, tell me about, like I've always been curious about how does, if you had to give us the overview, the outline, when I wheel my trash can to the end of my driveway and a trash truck comes and picks it up, what is the journey that that trash bag goes on before it finds its final resting place?
And also what goes on inside of a garbage truck. thing, to me it's like a combine. it looks like a, there's probably a lot happening inside there that I can't see or tell. And it seems like a big expensive piece of machinery, you know.
speaker-0 (36:20.588)
Well, I will say this, if you ever want to see a trash truck in action, just come out to our shop.
speaker-1 (36:25.102)
I would love to. I would love a tour.
speaker-0 (36:27.894)
I can't tell you how many people, the grown adults I talk to, they're like, I want to come out and see it. But yeah, it's actually a lot more simple than you think. you we did switch about five, six years ago to these automated trucks that have the arm, they come out and grab the cart, it up above, dump it in. There's really not much, I mean, there's a lot of electronics and things, but
The operation is pretty simple. Once it dumps, dumps into what we call the hopper. Then from there, there is a blade controlled by cylinders that pushes it back out of the hopper into the bed of the, of the truck. And so from there, you know, you can, is that
speaker-1 (37:19.168)
Is that automated at all when they pull up beside it? Does it tell them when to stop? No.
speaker-0 (37:24.878)
No, Relation to it, but it's not that advanced.
speaker-1 (37:29.39)
Okay, that's their eyeball in it like, okay.
speaker-0 (37:31.87)
They're eyeballing it and they have cameras. The only automated part right now is that once you grab the cart, you can push and hold a button and it will take it up and dump it. You don't have to bring it in and take it up. So there's some automation to it, but we're not that far advanced yet. We're still trashy.
speaker-1 (37:52.034)
Hahaha
speaker-0 (37:54.126)
But I have talked about this. It's just a matter of time before we have drones come around picking up people's trash.
speaker-1 (37:58.998)
Yeah, that's right. God.
speaker-0 (38:01.521)
But yeah, so from there, obviously, you know, once the truck is full of trash, cannot compact anymore.
speaker-1 (38:11.822)
How much can each truck hold?
speaker-0 (38:14.406)
Usually around 12 tons for residential and commercial trucks. And a front load's the same style. You you pick it up, you dump it in the top, and then it compacts it. Then once you get to the landfill, you can operate everything from inside your cab. You open the tailgate, it goes all the way up. And then that same blade that compacts it pushes, and then it continues going and pushes everything all the way out.
And so, yeah, it's pretty neat. It's a whole lot easier than the, back in the day, the rear loads, you had to get out and you had some turnbuckles you had to take off manually. then, yeah, it was, these guys have it easy now. Sit in the cab and push a couple buttons.
speaker-1 (39:00.974)
What do you know about, like how does a landfill work once the trash gets to the landfill, its final resting place? is that? Like I'm assuming a land, I don't know much about it. I'm assuming a landfill is like a highly regulated environment, right? It has to be. Do you know much about, like can you give us an overview of that?
speaker-0 (39:20.002)
Yeah, it is.
I don't know a whole lot about landfills because we're about a billion dollars short of being able to own landfills. Goals. Yeah. So yeah, can't speak much to the environmental side of that. Obviously, there's different types of waste and different types of landfills. There's landfills. My friend knows the landfill.
in Velpon, Indiana, that's called a C &D, construction demolition landfill. And so you can only, they can only accept construction demolition. And there's landfills like down the road here that can accept MSW, which is household garbage. So as well as C &D, as well as asbestos. so whenever you have a special waste load,
speaker-1 (40:00.75)
materials.
speaker-0 (40:21.624)
For instance, asbestos, generally they have to dig a hole, bury the asbestos and cover it back up and the asbestos has to be bagged and there's procedures for all of the special waste.
speaker-1 (40:36.854)
Is the EPA, is that who regulates it?
speaker-0 (40:39.726)
And I dim okay, I don't about any department of environmental management Okay in state of Indiana, okay, and they are over the transfer stations as well. Okay, I think that so a transfer station is basically just a Concrete floor with a concrete push wall Where you can take? Either you could take your garbage directly there or have it collected and trash trucks dump there and then this place into semi
speaker-1 (41:09.314)
Is there one like out by the interstate? used to work at MCF construction. We'd go dump old roofs. Yep. Take the dump truck in there. Cool. So let me ask you this. Is there any sort of, at your level of leadership, networks that you're a part of that are in the garbage industry? You part of networks?
speaker-0 (41:12.13)
Waste management has one out there.
speaker-0 (41:33.774)
SWANA is one. And I can't remember what it stands for now. But yeah, it's, I'm not heavily involved in it. Our safety director, our director of safety is involved in it because there are some materials and things that he uses. Solid waste. I can't remember what SWANA stands for. But yes, there are some networking and things.
that you can make your
speaker-1 (42:04.192)
You have friends in the industry.
speaker-0 (42:07.574)
We do, we do. Generally speaking, as probably in any industry, it's competitive and there are some that like to stir the pot. We kind of just stay in our own corner and we just do what we know is right and treat our customers fair and stay out of the drama.
Obviously have points of contact for even our competitors around here. And then there's some, as I mentioned, in developing Indiana, we have some friends that own a business up there. We have some friends that owned a business in Brazil, Indiana. And so there's definitely, there's a lot you can learn from those that have been in the business, even in different regions.
You can learn a lot. because it can be, oddly enough, can be drastically different in a different region. so, yeah, it definitely does help to reach out and to connect with people. It's just, again, I'm not a fan of drama, so I get involved.
speaker-1 (43:29.39)
How do you, I've heard you talk about, I guess you had a whole podcast dedicated with Tad about AI. How has AI worked its way into your life since that podcast, if it has, and then how do you think about AI in terms of it benefiting your business or just the way that things work in your business?
speaker-0 (43:36.963)
We did.
speaker-0 (43:52.6)
Good question. So when we did the podcast with Tad, other than when you pick up your phone and it gives you the AI overview, I did not have much intentional or any intentional experience with AI to that point. And since then I have. So Tad brought up some really good points in our podcast.
My concern with AI was taking away the human touch, the human feel. I did bring that up during our podcast. And I said, this is my concern. one of the things I love about our business is that whenever someone calls our business, they talk to a person. And we hear that a lot, that it's so nice to actually talk to a human being.
and not wait on hold for an hour. And so that was my thinking was that AI and phone systems and then emails and this and all of the forms of communication with your customer. And I thought, I do not want that. And I still stand the same. don't want that. But Ted brought up some great points during the podcast about
how he's been using AI and how he thinks AI should be used to take up, to be able to free up time to spend time with human beings. Yeah. And to have that kind of paradox. Yeah. And so he explained how he was using it in some smaller task. but that was freeing up a tremendous amount of time for him. And
speaker-1 (45:35.038)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (45:49.302)
So anyway, I kind of started leaning into it. And our director of marketing, does use AI with marketing and things. And I have no idea half the stuff he does. And he knows it. anyway, but I did start here just about, within the last month, I had an AI tool save me probably three days worth of work.
and did it just as good, if not better, than I could have done it. And what it was was, so I mentioned earlier, we use Entree Leadership Elite, which is the Ramsey tool. They have KRA assistant on there, so key result area KRAs. And so I was revamping and making new KRAs for our team. And some of them, they had never had a KRA. Some of them, they've had KRAs, but it's never been
written down, kind of like the core value thing, you know, I know what I'm supposed to do, but I don't have clear direction. And so that's been on my to-do list for about a year and a half. Shows you how far we've come.
speaker-1 (46:58.83)
How many team members have this before now? You would have to be doing this for how many people? Okay, so the work is exponentially grown.
speaker-0 (47:03.886)
37.
speaker-0 (47:07.628)
And it's one of those things, I don't know if you've ever done this, but if I have a task that I know I have to do, but I know it's going to take me a very long time, I just keep postponing it. Instead of like chipping away a little bit at a time, I just get this overwhelmed, like, I'll do that later. It never comes. So anyway, I blogged onto Entry Leadership League and I used a KRA assistant. it had me, and it's AI, powered by AI, and had me put in there.
speaker-1 (47:24.014)
can't get down the room later.
speaker-0 (47:37.742)
the role of the person and three main objectives that I had for them. And within a matter of seconds, I printed out this sheet of paper that's carried that 95 % of the time, it was almost perfect. I mean, obviously I did have to go in and adjust some things, but it-
speaker-1 (48:02.798)
But it's saying like these three main points and it's giving like details around those.
speaker-0 (48:07.298)
of how that needs to be handled and how, and honestly, it saved me minimum three days work to be able to go in and create those that quickly and be able to review them. so I did, I think that morning in about two hours that morning I did, I think 15 in two hours. And that was still me learning how to use it.
So I say that to answer your question about AI. When it's used correctly and when it's used as a tool to free up time that you can spend with your people or with your customers, I think it's incredible. Now, I'm unsure of the future and we could go down a rabbit trail of what all this is gonna get involved. So I'm not saying that I'm...
sold on AI 100%. I'm saying that the way I've used it so far, it's been a huge asset. And probably just like technology through the years, how it's always been when it's first introduced, it's kind of a, you know, hands off, let's wait and let this thing play out for a little bit. And then when it, by the time everyone's used to it, it's, man, well, how did we live without
speaker-1 (49:29.012)
That's right. I think that's like the common theme I'm seeing. I ask almost, I mean, I ask probably almost everybody I meet now, how are you using AI if I'm like talking to them in conversation, whether it's nonprofits, churches, businesses, schools. And it seems that the people who are finding the most impactful uses are the ones who are being intentional and trying out just to see what happens with
this or with that in their workflow. then they're like, but you were saying, you know, I spent two hours and it was me learning what to do with this process. And then that seems like now, okay, it's probably hard to ever do it another way. okay. And like, Tad and I were just talking about this the other day is that it seems like the most basic adoption of AI in a workflow actually has a, like a significant impact.
if it is part of a process or some sort of really time consuming thing. Even just a tiny adoption could create a really big impact, disproportionate impact versus other tools.
speaker-0 (50:40.47)
Yeah, I was very impressed with that.
speaker-1 (50:44.654)
That's awesome. Okay, so if we look out into the future, if you had to sort of paint a picture of where at least you would like to continue heading in your own journey personally, professionally, what do you dream about these days? What do you look out into the future and see if anything that you are looking forward to?
speaker-0 (51:08.792)
Good question.
So I really enjoy, I love what I do. I love our business.
I feel very challenged by not only our business and continuing to get better. I want to continue to get better. I want to grow our team and our business to be the best there is out there. I think our team is already the best, but I just want to, I don't want to get satisfied with where we are.
And part of that is continuing to challenge myself outside of our main business. We have started another business which is kind of a national brand, if you will, of Marshall's Puzzle. My wife and I were pulling our camper in New York State and the idea just popped in my head of we need to start doing this.
And so through that, that was last September, I believe, we've been able to start a second business, a national brand, if you will, where we can now service our customers in a greater way, even outside of our region. So I want to continue finding new ways to be able to serve our customers and to serve our team.
speaker-0 (52:53.87)
And then outside of the garbage industry, Jared and I love what we do with the podcast and with leadership. I want to have, not for personal accolades, not for anything of that nature, I want to be able to have a tremendous effect on young leaders or leaders of any age for
for that. Again, as I stated earlier, the amount of joy that I have now, leading our team now versus four years ago, it's astronomical the difference. I really, it's one of those things that you can talk about and you can talk about and you can talk about, but until someone experiences it, they're never going to know what your
you know, what you're talking about. And so it's something that I want people to experience. So we want to continue speaking out and with our podcast, we've been able to present at different locations at conferences. We presented in Lexington, Myrtle Beach,
Connecticut, then we're in Indianapolis next month. Actually, we're going to be presenting in Indianapolis. then we obviously back in February, we had our first local conference. Very excited about that. want to continue that. yeah, that's honestly, that's my goal is to be able to help people find this.
is a way of leading that is so much better than management. And I've said this many times, but as a leader, a good leader never feels like they've arrived. If you feel like you know it all, then you're not a good leader. But I want to continue to grow and find better ways to lead myself.
speaker-0 (55:22.894)
So yeah, that's my goals and my vision for the next little bit here.
speaker-1 (55:32.898)
great