Blizzard & Bloom: Insights from the Ice and the Green Scene
Welcome to Blizzard and Bloom, the podcast where the green meets the white! Hosted by Jay Rotonnelli, a seasoned expert with over 36 years in the landscape and snow removal industries, this show dives deep into the business, operations, and stories behind both blooming landscapes and blizzard battles.
Whether you’re a property manager, business owner, snow fighter, or landscape professional, you’ll find valuable insights, industry trends, and real-world advice. Expect candid conversations with industry leaders, tips for growing your business, and even a few wild stories from the field.
It’s informative, it’s fun, and it’s designed to help you thrive—whether the ground is covered in grass or snow.
New episodes every other week. Subscribe now to stay ahead in the green and snow game!
Blizzard & Bloom: Insights from the Ice and the Green Scene
Snow Fighting is No Longer Just About Having a Truck and a Plow
Welcome to Blizzard and Bloom, the podcast where we navigate the storms and celebrate the triumphs in business and entrepreneurship. Join us as we dive into stories, insights and strategies from top professionals to help you thrive in today's evolving landscape. And now here is your host, jay Rotinelli. Here is your host, jay.
Speaker 2:Rotinelli. Hello again. Welcome back to another episode of Blizzard in Bloom. Last episode we had Greg Thistle, northeast Regional Vice President for SiteOne. Greg offered us a lot of insight on some of the things that SiteOne is doing just through technology and training and partnership levels, so that was a great episode. If you haven't tuned in, please be sure to take a look at that. So today, fortunate enough to have Steve Smith with us from Storm Equipment. Steve has a presence in the industry that I'm sure most of you all know. It brings a lot of passion and a lot of experience and I think the timing is right to have Steve on, as we think about Simon here coming up. So welcome Steve. Thanks for joining the podcast today and glad to have Steve on, as we think about Simon here coming up.
Speaker 3:So welcome. Steve, thanks for joining the podcast today and glad to have you here. Thanks, Jay, for having me on.
Speaker 2:Can you kind of maybe give us a little bit background of I know you and I have chatted, but maybe just for some of the other listeners who don't really know your background maybe just share a little bit about kind of what you've done.
Speaker 3:And now with your role, sure Yep done. And now with your role, sure Yep. As a lot of snow fighters started out shoveling shoveling driveways in the neighborhood at the ripe age of 14. And a good friend of mine through school, his father had a lawn service and landscaping snow removal business, so shoveled for those guys and then got my driver's license at 16 and had my own plow truck in high school and subcontracted work with those guys and it kind of escalated and the passion grew from there. I just always was always in the grounds maintenance industry, but I always my passion was the snow side. I like both. I like both, but I definitely like the snow. Four years I'm 50 years old this year, so about 34 years I've been doing it and, fun fact, I've never missed an event in the Minneapolis market in those 34 years.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:Everyone been sick and you name it and we just trudge through like most guys do and I just I love it. So ran was fortunate to work with, work with that company for 20 some of the years and then they decided to kind of scale back a little bit and had an opportunity to go work for one of the larger companies that were looking to grow in the Minneapolis market and work for them and we built that up and had just an awesome team over there and they wound up selling to Brightview, which was fine but not for me, and I moved on to another company in Minneapolis and we built their grounds maintenance up. The team went over with me and we grew that and grew their grounds maintenance in snow. And then they sold to a private equity and Jordan Smith that I worked for with Storm Equipment. He owned VSI, the liquid sprayer division, so we had VSI sprayers and whatnot from that.
Speaker 3:So I knew jordan a little bit through through that end of it and, um, he reached out. He knew I had a uh place up in the northern minnesota on a lake and I fish a lot in the summer and reached out about asking what a good lake would be to take his boys fishing and we went out fishing and took the boys out and I just had a blast and he just mentioned one day in the boat. He's like hey, if you ever thought about doing something different. And they said for 34 years I've ran snow operations and been boots on the ground and front lines and so I'd never even crossed my mind. We were bought out by private equity again and just it was. It was fine, great company, great people.
Speaker 2:It just wasn't for me and I ended up over here at Storm Equipment On the other side of the envelope.
Speaker 3:I'm on the other side of the tracks now. I'm one of those guys that are talking to customers and whatnot, which is something I guess I've been part of in sales. You know, in my operations as director of operations I used to go out there sales sales staff quite a bit to go visit with customers. And you know, in my operations as director of operations I used to go with our sales sales staff quite a bit to go visit with customers and, you know, make sure that they weren't promising the customers that it was all going to be done and blacktop by 6 AM and give them the real story of what, what we're going to do and do our best to get it done. And so now I'm on that side and I I'm in the same way.
Speaker 3:It's like my, you know, as as as running operations, I always just was always in my goal was always for customer satisfaction, to make sure the customer it didn't matter what the cost was we just we got it done to make sure they were safe and good, and that's that's how I am on this side too. It's like if we're gonna sell somebody a piece of equipment, I want to make sure it's the right piece of equipment for them and it works. And if they have a problem they know that they can call at two in the morning and we'll try to help them. Help them get it through.
Speaker 2:So it's uh, pretty cool history and I know, like I said, you and I have chatted about that before, I think at the new hampshire salt symposium.
Speaker 2:But, um, it's always just different to have a different spin on it right from a um, from a manufacturer level, supplier level, versus, you know, being the end user. So oftentimes, like you said, we the same way with Piscataqua that we've worked for and many other folks in the industry, but we're always pushing the envelope right and trying to make things better for the customer and at the end of the day, how do we do that and what does it look like? Kind of admiration for Jordan for what he's done with the industry. Has he's been just a huge advocate for us folks, along with that liquid process. So, seeing some of the things that you folks are doing, I'm interested to in your mind to think about and chat about just some of the technology and how it's changed and some of the tools and resources that you folks now are offering to the end user and the contractors in the market and what are some of those things that are helping those folks in driving it to make the difference.
Speaker 3:Well, one of the things is you know our primarily we sell metal plus plows here at Storm Equipment, hydraulic wing plows and you know, back in the day everybody ran pickup trucks with you know mostly straight plows on them and whatnot. And we sell hydraulic straight plows on them and whatnot. And we sell hydraulic wing plows. And for myself, even on the operation side, to switch from running a push box to a hydraulic wing plow was just a. It was a little bit of a learning curve. You know, I won't lie, the first three hours of running one I didn't care for it and I tell the guys a know that we're that are new to that type of plow, the story all the time. But once you started running one of them, the efficiencies and what you can do with it, it's basically like everybody knows. You know, like the Swiss army knife, you know you can do so many different things with that knife. Same thing with the hydraulic wing plow and it doesn't matter. You know, like I said, we sell Metal Plus. There's all different brands out there and what works for you, but the efficiency of those is just. It's crazy what you can do and the lack of like, say, support equipment you need to go with your normal box to be able to do that. And then we took it at Storm Equipment with Jordan's leadership and Phil Holtz, our president's leadership, with Jordan's leadership and Phil Holtz, our president's leadership, one step further.
Speaker 3:The hydraulic wing plows typically all have wiring harnesses that go from the plow inside the cab of the loaders or skid loaders to run the wings and, you know, to switch your valves for the hydraulics and whatnot. We went to they developed a wireless system for that called StormVision, so you can actually run it from inside the cab without the wire harness going to the unit. So a lot of times you know that was one of the things like if you're out plowing snow and you got this wire harness and a chunk of ice or something comes over and wrecks that or whatnot, plus the time of setting up that unit, you know you're looking an hour, a couple hours a unit to set up and wire. Now you don't, you can just kind of plug and play that unit. It's ran Bluetooth. So you put your box on the plow, got a cab control box inside the cab. You know, 25 minutes, a half hour you're installed, you're up and running.
Speaker 3:So a lot of these guys that are leasing loaders or renting equipment instead of having to go through that was one of the things. You know, it's like when even us, like when we used to rent our equipment. It's like, man, I don't want to invest, you know, a couple hours in the preseason and after season to pull this wiring out, to get the machine back. Now, all of a sudden it's just plug and play. That's been a huge game changer for the industry. And not to mention if you had a loader go down, you loader go down. You can easily switch that components over. You know your plows already has the box on it, so just to put it on a different loader, you can do that. You don't have to wire it up and say that loader doesn't work for that plow anymore.
Speaker 3:Interesting, that's been something in the last year that's been super, super cool for me. One of the big one of the things that's super cool for me too is each inside the cab they have a, have an iPad in there and it's got a level indicator. So a new operator, old operator like myself, it's like it's got, you know, green, yellow, red. If you're green, it means go Red, you're doing something wrong and it'll show you the angle of attack and that'll definitely go for and show the operator you know, hey, you got too much heel or too much toe so you're not wearing out components as fast as well.
Speaker 2:I remember you showing that to me at the SALT Symposium in New.
Speaker 3:Hampshire, yeah, new Hampshire.
Speaker 2:And never had an opportunity and we plan to connect with you to take a look and start to try those pieces out.
Speaker 2:But I think about, we talk about all this innovation, right, and technology with some of this equipment, but you know, then there's a training component to it and you know you'd like to think year after year you get the same folks back because it's not always your standard, folks that you know throughout the year Correct, and you get some guys that are just come on or gals that are seasonal, right, and when I think about those pieces of equipment and technology, it just just takes that.
Speaker 2:It takes that whole process from all different facets, from a safety perspective, from a usage and wearing on the piece of equipment to a whole new level and I think that's great and, to your point, being able to take that off of one machine and onto another, that's uh, that's pretty fascinating and it is and, and you know, I think about, like you, you came from the other side of the tracks and now, being that other person, it's got to be a pretty good feeling to be able to talk to the contractors and educate them on that, one of the things I know that you're really good at and I hear often about, is you help contractors and educate them on really the right components or the right pieces of equipment?
Speaker 3:Yes, would benefit them.
Speaker 3:It's like you know. You look at the equipment, jay, you've been in the snow industry a long time and there's so many different tools out there to use, you know, from buckets to pushers, to wing plows, to truck plows and whatnot. It's like you open up, you go into any shop or any plow shop and they got their mechanics toolbox right. You open up that toolbox and there's so many not everything's fixed with the vice script. You know, and and I've used this this isn't like the sales sales speech that I learned, this is like what I've done in life. It's just like with our snow equipment. There's so many different pieces of equipment to get the job done and to get it done successfully, you know, and efficiently, you know. That's. That's what it comes down to you know inefficiently.
Speaker 2:you know that's, that's what it comes down to. Yeah, that's. It's great stuff and I think I've really seen and I'm sure you have too, but I've seen the, the technology and the level of professionalism in the snow industry really elevate in the past 20 years.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:It's no longer. Hey, you know, you got to, you got a truck and you got to put a plow on it for the winter and you go out and you plow snow, right, it's because all these other things come into place. And you know, when we think about CYMA and some of these other organizations that are help, training and out there, you know, elevating the industries, it's pretty cool to see, and again, when you start to see this technology come into play. So we're taking you know what you folks have done and really accessorizing and making better a nice piece that was already out there, right, correct. So we're taking and doing that, you know. I know there's some that haven't embraced the change in the, in the technology, and I feel like maybe some of them are probably starting to fall behind if they're not embracing it.
Speaker 3:You know it's. It's one of those things I was kind of. You know I don't feel old, but I was one of the old guys doing it. I was the same way. You're kind of set in your ways for so many years. Um, it's super cool. When I turned 50 years old if you got it on the video, I don't know if I can pull it up here they got me this as a as a birthday present, so this is a western t-handle controller and like it was the coolest gift. This is what I started with when I was 16, you know, and it was already kind of old then.
Speaker 3:But I have it on my desk and it's not because of the show. It sits on my desk every day and I actually look at it, you know, multiple times a week and it's just like how far we've come since those days and it's pretty impressive. I mean, back in 1991, we had a major snowstorm on Halloween here in Minneapolis. That was kind of. It was early for us, right Guys were out doing fall cleanups and all of a sudden it's rain. You know the old story rain changes the sleet to snow. We wound up getting 31 inches and 50 mile an hour winds.
Speaker 3:Back then, you know, a small frame, bobcat, a small bucket and a pickup truck was your option. Nobody ran wheel loaders. The excavators did, but they had buckets, you know. So now you got 31 inches of drifted snow over these parking lots. It's like, what are we going to do? Luckily it came on a Thursday and we had all weekend to do it. But I mean, if that happened now, with today's equipment it would be a piece of cake. It's like bring it on now, with today's equipment it would be a piece of cake.
Speaker 2:It's like bring it on. I want it tomorrow, you know.
Speaker 3:Right, Right, but back then it was just like it was. It was crazy.
Speaker 2:I know, Listen, I I've seen and watched some really cool things that you folks are doing out there at.
Speaker 2:Storm Equipment and one of them is a Storm Academy. Yes, and I was. I belong to our local snowmobile club up North where, where I a camp and we use different types piston bullies and different things for snow and I was at an event the other day and they had snowmakers and I said I was showing one of the guys. I says you know, I know a gentleman in a company over in Minneapolis that actually brought on snow equipment. They're making snow for people to see and train on their equipment. Like you're kidding me, like it's really come to that, it's gone that far. So I was thinking about Storm Academy and what all of you have done. So again, for some of the listeners who maybe not, might not be or might not know about that, can you talk to us a little bit about the storm academy and what you know, what you folks have done with that?
Speaker 3:yeah, definitely so. This was our first year of doing it. It was an idea that came kind of came to fruition. Jordan was thinking about it. It's one of those things being in the industry running operations for so many years, it's always in my back of my head. We'd always do our you know our fall rodeo plow rodeo in October here in Minneapolis for training and, and you know we'd have our vendors there showing how the equipment works and occasionally we'd throw some mulch on the on the you know 70 degree asphalt and push it around. But by the time it snowed those guys kind of forgot about it and it wasn't real world, if that makes sense. So we purchased snowmaking equipment. Right now we're sitting about an acre that's going to expand this year of asphalt new asphalt we put in, we brought in old semi-trailers, we got tractor trailers. There's the trailer sitting there so you can run your different van wings and back drag in between them. So it's basically a full-on course of snow for training with the different equipment.
Speaker 3:And the thing that's got me like it gives me chills to think about is, again, storm equipment. We're a metal plus dealer, right, that's all we sell. We have every major vendor that sells snow equipment is part of this. Really, down at our pad. I mean, you name it. I won't name them off because I'm afraid I might forget one but basically everybody we sell against and they sell against us has their equipment there and it's just a level playing field. These guys come in, they're reps from their company and help with these events and it's not a sales. There's nothing like that. The part of it is super cool is everybody's on the same page. It's for the industry, it's not. Hey, look at my plows. Better than your plow or this plow does this and this doesn't do that. It's somebody can come in and if they're, if they're running that piece of equipment at their facility, they can train on it.
Speaker 3:You know, you get some newbie loader operators. We've all been there. We get these new guys, we do our rodeo, we give them the quick 10 minute. This is how this goes. See you later. I'm off to the next fire, you know, and then as you're driving to the next fire to put out, you feel bad because you didn't give them time. You're kind of setting them up for failure. And now they can sit here, they can spend the whole afternoon. You know, like, hey, what does this switch do. What is this? What is that? You know what's the benefit of snow tires and what's float mean All these different terms and they can spend the time in the day, two days a week, I don't care learning how to do it. So when it comes time to do it, they're safe and they're efficient, you know so we In a controlled environment.
Speaker 3:Correct. It's a controlled environment and, like I said, we have more vendors reaching out. I got a whole list of them that want to be additional to this for next year. This past year it was new Minneapolis. We were having 50 degree weather in February, so it wasn't a prime season to even make snow here. We had a super below average winter again two years in a row, but we were able to get four events off this year, four successful events. This year we already have a calendar booked of 12 events and then we're looking to add additional ones as time allows. So it's super cool.
Speaker 3:This first year we didn't charge anything for it. Storm Equipment just flipped the bill. The vendors contributed their equipment, which was you can't thank them enough for doing that in their time of being here. This year we're looking at like a minimal charge and it's going to be an open book. This isn't a profit center for us, by no means. This is given back to the industry, promoting what we do. Like you said, this the level of professionalism in our industry in the last what would you say Five years at least.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I'd say five years has really increased, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's great and it's actually fascinating to me to even think that you know that there's something that exists out there. And then I think about Syma and all of these things start to come together, typically what happens in our landscape industry, grounds management. So when you talk on a local level, folks sometimes don't want to share information right, everybody's very protective. But when you open it up, you know, even regionally or nationally with Syma, and we start to have folks like Storm Equipment yourself and Jordan, really start to give back to the folks in the membership. It's amazing how far we can advance the industry Because we're all willing to share. A prime example is that when you talk about the different manufacturers that, uh, you know have, uh, staged equipment on your site and you know you're allowing them to do that and it's fascinating to me and I'm sure it is to others as well. And I know there was a couple groups out there over the winter, one of the groups with innovations, with the ladies. They had had a day out there, I believe.
Speaker 3:Yes, we were out here with they had. I believe it was 14 or 15 members of their group that were out here. Darcy that works here at Storm Equipment is one of their ambassadors. Okay, ladies out here and you know, all the way from operators that were operators out in the field to ones that are out doing sales, to office, all aspects of our industry were here and they were able to get in and run this equipment. We did some classroom stuff just on, you know, like estimating and basically just snow talk, and it was so fun to have them interject and be part of that. It was. I was blown away with it. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:It's cool that there's that group of them, of those ladies that are working through that, and I've been following it and I don't know a lot of them, but I know some of their spouses and anybody every way had really great things to say about the event and what you folks are doing. So so that you know that was really cool in itself. There's two more things that I really one of them I want to talk about is the liquids, and then I want to talk about the storm fighters. But the liquids do you see that advancing even further than it is currently, right now, from a technological standpoint or user abilities, anything like that? Is there anything on the horizon from a liquids? I user abilities, anything like that is there. Is there anything on the horizon from a liquids? I know jordan's been very, he's been the driving force. I feel like he and a few others in that, you know, in that sector.
Speaker 3:Yes, with liquids, yeah, obviously obviously vsi, you know, was sold off for a partner with boss, boss, no plow. So they're doing the development and stuff on that now. But yeah, I mean it's, it's just going to keep growing. We need to, we need to start reducing, you know, as an industry, the chlorides right. But to do that in my, my opinion is and I'm sure the opinion with many others is like the frivolous lawsuits that go with it right, like like they expect their parking lot to look like it does in June all year and to get it that way we do have to put chlorides down and whatnot. But it doesn't mean to go and keep pounding it, right, you put your application down. It doesn't mean just keep sending that salt truck back through every 10 minutes. Give it some time to work. But yes, I mean the liquids.
Speaker 3:As far as just just use, I mean when we had our, when I was in operations, our first liquid tank was basically toggle switches and you drove, you turned them on and you sprayed some stuff. Did we know what we were doing with it? Absolutely not. But we were putting white liquid lines down, right, we didn't have training, we just we're out winging it. And now it's. I mean, it's where you run these. Run these sprayers off your phone now and it's your gallons per acre going down. It is so I'm blowing away with it. It's awesome. I'm not a techie guy, but that stuff is super, super cool to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think about those innovations too, right, and I think about I mean, let's face it, you and I are getting older, we're about the same age and, you know, as we start to phase out in our careers. You know, I look, I think of some of these younger folks and they're all about the, you know, the gaming and the and the technology, right, and it's not a knock, it's, it's an observation. So, you know, when we do things like that and I heard you talk about using a phone or an app for that, right, there's an app for everything it's amazing to me, because I know exactly what you're saying. We took the old juice crates, we took a piece of PVC and we punched some holes in it, right, and you started that thing and then you got in the truck and went. You know as fast as you can.
Speaker 3:We were, we were something because we were so far against to the guys that were just throwing rock salt. You know you didn't have a clue what we were putting down, but we were. We were blazing Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in my mind I'm like that's, I think it's great for the younger generations, you know that are coming up through and you know, I know there's some some things taking place out in Minnesota and you know we have it here in New Hampshire, the SALT Symposium. You know they've passed some, some legislation advocacy board in the documentation. I'd love to think that's going to keep moving forward. I know Phil is doing a lot over here in the Northeast with New York Phil Saxton.
Speaker 2:Phil, yeah, and I've heard there's some movement on it over in the Minneapolis area or in Minnesota in general. But when we start thinking about how we're educating ourselves, I think it's only going to make us stronger.
Speaker 3:as we make our pitch to the, you know, to these delegates and to the government, to say hey, back to the professionalism, too, you know, of what we're doing, and it's just like, hey, this isn't a bunch of folks that are just sitting on a couch with cowboy hats waiting for it to snow in our pickup. You know it's this is.
Speaker 2:And there's some. You know, I've seen some municipalities that have tried it and quite frankly, I don't think they've had folks like yourself or jordan be able to educate them and it was short-lived and that was a few years back. But I think of the advancement now and I say to my own team if you're not, if you're not embracing the technology and move forward, then you've fallen behind because it's moving so rapidly right.
Speaker 3:And now we have.
Speaker 2:AI, and things are changing.
Speaker 3:I have a good friend of mine that did the tote with the PVC boom and didn't find it beneficial, you know, because he wasn't getting the results. So he just said this doesn't work, right? Well, it didn't work then, but it works now. So people just need to look at it and go with it, right?
Speaker 2:Educate themselves right. There's so many resources out there.
Speaker 3:You're getting left at the station, you know.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, that's right. One of the things that I know everybody's been following but the Stormfighter, the video that you folks have been working on and I think it's so cool Like I used to watch Deadliest Catch and Northern Woods Law and things like that and to think of what you folks have done for the industry and for us true snow fighters. Talk to us a little bit about that experience and what that's been like putting a group together and then you know getting out there in the storms and videoing and what kind of the what your folks vision is kind of for the end result of that so the storm chasing did kind of spear off of uh, deadliest catch.
Speaker 3:You know that type of deal. Yeah, jordan and Steve Lardy, jeremy Lindstrom from the Snow Jobs podcast, were all talking about it and they put it together and I fortunately I get to be part of it and I kind of help organize a lot of it and I'm out in the field with the crews doing it. This past season we did six companies that we went through on six different storms with them, kind of from the pre-storm pre-game to the final. We put one episode out already. One episode was out a few three weeks ago with Glacier Snow Management out of North Dakota, fargo, north Dakota, which was a great episode. We had over 20,000 views on it already, which blew us away because we had no idea. We had no idea what we were going to viewership or interest or whatever on this.
Speaker 3:And another episode hits this Friday 7 o'clock Eastern time of a company out of Cleveland area, lake Effect. Okay, 30 inches guaranteed, but we will. We will watch the. We'll watch the episode. It's a great episode for that. And then we have four more coming, so they'll all be out by Syma. Every episode will be out pre-Syma Great.
Speaker 2:Great, I was, uh, last week I was with some friends and I brought it up and I showed it to them and they were they were just enthralled with, with the process and not only the quality of what you put out there. But back to our points about the technology, um, and really the professionalism, like I had no idea technology and the professionalism.
Speaker 3:But the really cool thing is it's like everybody on you know instagram or Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or whatever puts out. You know the picture of the loader going by and it looks cool with all the strobe lights and stuff. But there's a lot more to this behind the scenes. That's the fun part when it all works and the plan goes together, but there's a lot of stuff that breaks down, as we know, and it's the show. Our industry, we're out there, we see it, you know, we live it, we breathe it. But it's for me, this was even more. It was to show these property managers in management companies and facilities what all goes with this. Right, this isn't just, you know. They look at it on a spreadsheet and you're a number on a piece of paper, right, but they don't know what that cat 938 loader does, or the LaR root blower on the front, or that. That doesn't mean anything, which is fine. They have a lot to worry about anyway. But now you can.
Speaker 3:I sent it to a whole group of property managers and I got some responses back and we're like this is what you guys do at night. They had, they have no idea, you know, and I think we're doing this. We have some spot. You know some help with this and whatnot, but we're doing this. This is going some spot. You know some help with this and whatnot, but we're doing this.
Speaker 3:This is going back to the industry. This isn't just for like, hey, look at this cool thing. This is for all of us that are in the snow fighting industry, both on the equipment side and the in the boots on the ground, to promote what we do. We're a bottom line, we're a first responder. We're no different. I've thought of this for years. We're no different than an emergency service. Right, we're out there in the worst conditions. We expect our crews to come in in the worst possible conditions, where everybody else wants to be on their pillow under the covers, and we're asking these people to drive in in the worst conditions to make sure their clients' properties are safe. And that's what we all do, and it's hats off to everybody that does this in this industry. But this is to go back and show what we do and promote our industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's twofold right To your point, like you can look at it from, you could use it as a marketing piece or, if nothing else, an educational piece. Correct, right For the property managers and the folks that you're servicing. But then also from a recruitment standpoint, right when we're talking about some of the folks that maybe want to get in the industry, or some of them that maybe even want to up their game, that are already in the industry Correct, and how do they up their game? Like you don't have to be a millionaire, you don't have to have millions and millions of dollars to make improvements.
Speaker 3:Correct. You don't need all these loaders and you know who cares if you have one or none. You know if you have a pickup truck with a, with a plow on it, you're out doing a great job for your customer. That's what it's about, Absolutely. We don't look at anybody different from what they have. We're all in it together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's always cool to talk with folks like yourself and it's, it's an interesting breed of us that are passionate about the snow, and I know, for, for myself, I felt like maybe I kind of lost a little bit of interest, maybe back in like the early 2000s, and then, is you know the late?
Speaker 2:We got into 2020 and or even 2015, and the advancement started right, we had the live edge boxes starting or the you know that would flip and trip and it's, it's, I'm so intrigued by it and everything that, like you, folks are doing and, furthermore, for the value that you folks bring to the end user and how you, you want that feedback of what people are looking for. So not only are you asking for that feedback, but then you're taking that, you're taking a step further and you're coming up with these solutions and then you're helping train them on them, and that's where, like, I look at storm academy and things of that nature. You know, kudos to all of you over there and hats off to you, uh, for really being one of the proponents to help, uh, propel this industry. Uh, and level of professionalism.
Speaker 3:So yeah, no, it's just a cool. Uh. The culture here at storm is is incredible. Everybody that works here that's part of it's all somehow related to have been involved in doing snow. So we all get it right, we all. We all get what it takes to get it done and to support our customers and, yeah, to help help grow this industry.
Speaker 2:So really great stuff, Really great stuff. Well, Steve, I really appreciate your time today. If people want to get a hold of you, what's the best way they can reach? Reach out to you and storm equipment.
Speaker 3:You could just reach out. Just look up storm equipment and our numbers and contact emails all right on that, right on the website would probably be the easiest way Then they can. They can reach out to anybody here on our team. So, or if they want to talk direct with me and just talk about snow, it's not you know, I can sit and talk snow all day. It doesn't matter if. If I can sit and talk snow all day, it doesn't matter if you're looking for a plow or not. That's what I love talking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, love that, and I was going to say to the listeners as well that it's always a pleasure to talk to you, whether it's here at the shows or via LinkedIn or something of that nature. You can always take away a nugget of information that can help you with your business, definitely that you can share with your team right.
Speaker 3:We'll have our booth at CYMA this year, as we always have, and feel free to stop by. We'll have Storm Chasing episodes playing and then we're going to do some mini sessions, mini Storm Academy sessions as well, just kind of some Q&A stuff with some people, so it'll be a great time.
Speaker 2:Great Well, thanks, steve. Thanks for being on the show today and I look forward to seeing you at Syma. And I hope all of you folks that are listening are making that investment in the time and money to attend Syma, the symposium Great folks like Steve here that you'll find really valuable. That can help with your business in a day-to-day fashion. So thanks again, steve, and next episode we're going to have Brett on from Bobcat Equipment. He's going to share a little bit with us about some of what we can expect with equipment updates and some trends latest trends in the industry.
Speaker 2:So thank you everyone, take care.
Speaker 3:Thanks.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to Blizzard and Bloom with Jay Rotinelli. We hope you feel inspired and empowered. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Inspired and empowered, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Join us next week for more insights and stories to help you bloom in your business journey.