Episode 44: July is P&Q’s ‘Dealer Issue’ Month

In the latest episode of Drilling Deeper, hosts Kevin Yanik and Jack Kopanski shine a spotlight on one of Pit & Quarry’s most anticipated magazine editions of the year: The Dealer Issue. Now in its seventh year, P&Q’s Dealer Issue explores the vital role equipment dealers play across the aggregate industry’s supply chain.

Kevin and Jack dive into this year’s four dealer-centric stories, which include in-depth coverage on tariffs and equipment supply – plus insights from a standout project at Gila River Sand & Gravel.

Also, joining the episode as featured guests are two industry dealers:

•  Rock Machinery president Bryant Fazer shares his perspective on how labor shortages are driving producers to upsize mobile spreads, how tariffs are influencing purchasing decisions and what real-world challenges the industry is facing in global sourcing and supply chain uncertainty.

•  Crush Mode president Micah Tysver presents a look at where the industry stands in 2025, offering commentary on portable versus stationary plants, the staying power of rental models, and how customers are navigating high interest rates while remaining open to new business strategies like leasing.

From reshoring strategies to tariff-induced hesitation, Episode 44 of Drilling Deeper dives into the pressures and opportunities equipment dealers face in today’s market. It’s an essential listen for anyone invested in how distribution and dealer dynamics are shaping the industry.

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Thank you to our show sponsor, Kemper Equipment.

EastRock Solutions is now part of the Kemper Group – and together, they’re raising the bar on parts availability, equipment solutions and turnkey plant design. From the pit to the stockpile, Kemper Group has got your operation covered. 

 To learn more, visit kemperequipment.com or call (610)-273-2066.

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For 108 years, Pit & Quarry magazine has been the premier monthly aggregate processing information source. Through multiple platforms, we deliver the very latest in equipment and technology news and information that is critical for safely achieving the highest level of efficiency and profitability. Editors Kevin Yanik and Jack Kopanski cover the market in print, online and through e-newsletters. As respected industry insiders, they moderate the annual Pit & Quarry Roundtable & Conference and speak at industry conferences and meetings.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Also, follow us on YouTube to see full-length episodes of the podcast, watch our Road to Prosperity videos and see other clips from our travels and events.

Transcript

Kevin Yanik: Welcome back to another episode of Drilling Deeper everybody. I'm Kevin Yanik, and we're gonna be talking about equipment dealers here on episode 44. July is always the month Pit & Quarry publishes its annual dealer issue, so we're gonna dig into the contents of that. Plus, we've got two special equipment dealers as our guests today. But first, let's hear a word from our show sponsor.

Did you know East Rock Solutions is now part of the Kemper Group? And together, they're raising the bar on parts availability, equipment solutions and turnkey plant design. From the pit to the stockpile, Kemper Group has got your operation covered. To learn more, visit kemperequipment.com or call 610-273-2066. Thanks to Kemper.

Well, thank you to Kemper, we appreciate your support of Drilling Deeper. With that, I want to bring in Pit & Quarry's managing editor, Jack Kopanski. Jack, great to have you on the show doing one together here today.

Jack Kopanski: I know it feels like it's been a minute since we've actually sat actually sat down together and done one of these, just kind of the way it's been happening. You know, obviously, I've been handling part of it. You've been handling part of it. So it's nice to nice to get in and do one together for a change.

KY: Yeah. And similarly, we kind of handled some of the content for for Pit & Quarry's July dealer issue. I mentioned at the top, that's our dealer month. We actually debuted our dealer issue back in 2019, so this is the seventh one we put together. Hope everybody enjoys it. If you haven't yet gotten it, check the digital edition out on pitandquarry.com, but we've got a lot of dealer-oriented content this month. But want to talk a little about the history of the dealer issue and kind of why we decided, seven years ago, to put the spotlight on equipment dealers. In part, it was due because equipment dealers are such a wealth of knowledge.

Before that time, before 2019, we were engaging dealers a little bit, but we hadn't really put them front and center, so to speak, in content. But there's so much that they touch, that they see because of their unique position in the supply chain, Jack. You know, they've got their vendors to the one side, those being the manufacturers, and you know, they're touching the producer side, the end user side, arguably more than manufacturers, because they're out in the field every day and they have a feel for what's happening on the front lines of the aggregate industry. So, we essentially put this issue together, it's been around for a number of years now, and it's been a hit. We've gotten good support from a variety of equipment dealers in the pages of the magazine, and we appreciate their support as well. But from a content standpoint, Jack, it's really an issue where you and I can take an interesting look at things that pertain to anything related to a dealer.

So this month, you know, we got a case study or two. One's mine, one's yours, and I'll walk our listeners through it today, because we'd love for you to pick it up, again, your July edition of Pit & Quarry. But I had the opportunity to visit with a few equipment dealers about tariffs. We've been talking a lot about tariffs this year, Jack. Probably even on the show a little bit in some of our fodder, but it's something we can't get away from. There's still that uncertainty, and we're going to hear about that a little bit from a couple of our guests today as well. But in the magazine, you can read a little bit more specifically in terms of what dealers are experiencing and what they're expecting, because we don't have the resolution that we're looking for on tariffs at this point in time. But that's the cover story of Pit & Quarry's July issue this month, and encourage you to look for that.

I also had the opportunity on a unique case study involving Gila River Sand & Gravel. They're a sand and gravel producer, one of the largest sand and gravel producers in the entire country. They're actually top 100 among the US Geological Survey's top 100 sand and gravel producers in their latest list, which was released early this year. But they actually just put in a mega plant, a mega wash plant that is, in Coolidge, Arizona. And they did that along with Kimball Equipment Company, which is the dealer, and Superior Industries, which is the vendor or the manufacturer in this case, and it was actually a story whose origins go back probably eight, nine years in terms of the conversation between these partners.

Sometimes when you've got a plant of that magnitude, 1,000 ton per hour plant, I mean, that's not something that comes together in six months, in a year, not even two or three years in some cases. I mean, that's a long term vision, because that's going to be a plant that's hopefully going to be there for 20, 30, maybe even 40, 50 years, you know, if you're getting total life out of it. So we talked about how that plant came to life. Kimball Equipment was central to that, because they're local to the market there out of Arizona. That's another component of our July dealer issue as well. And, Jack, I mean, you participated. You put a lot of content out for the dealer issue as well. You engaged a couple of dealers, one being RDO, and then another one being General Equipment & Supplies. Tell our listeners out there a little bit about the content that they can read from you this month.

JK: Yeah, a couple very interesting experiences, kind of both unique in their own right. I'll start with the General Equipment story that we'll have as sort of a recap of their every three year show, Aggregate Expo. Held, like I said, every three years, Fargo, North Dakota in early May. So it's nice and brisk and-

KY: Early March, even.

JK: Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, early March. So very, very brisk, especially with some of the outdoor exhibits where they've got a bunch of equipment in the parking lot. It really is a unique experience, because you don't see many, if any, other dealers putting on trade shows like this, where they've got exhibits, they've got their partner companies there representing and sort of talking about the benefits of working with General, and then you've got potential customers there as well, checking out all the different manufacturers and pieces of equipment that are on display. Really, I mean, I've been to it twice now, first time in '22 and then obviously earlier this year. I mean, the feedback is just incredible. People are die-hard for the show, they love going every three years, the attendance has been steadily growing. So it's just a really, really exciting, really unique experience. I got to talk with Don Kern from General Equipment about that and just sort of how the show has grown and what he expects moving forward. So, it's a very cool show. If you haven't already, I would highly encourage you to check out General Equipment & Supplies' next Aggregate Expo in 2028, I know they're already working on it.

The other story that I did for the dealer issue, which was again, very unique and a really cool story to work on. RDO Equipment and Knife River partnered up to start a pilot program that gets jobs, or provides job opportunities for disabled military veterans, and they're doing so by working with John Deere and Teleo, a technology company that is outfitting two John Deere loaders with semi autonomous technology, where these disabled veterans, who may not be able to fully operate within the confines of a cab or whatever the situation is, they're able to operate these loaders from basically a space off of site, and they're able to run it, there's cameras all over the loaders, and they can sort of do everything they need to do on a Knife River site from a control center. And it was really cool, there were some comments in there from Montana's Governor, RDO, Knife River shared some thoughts. We got to hear from John Deere, from Teleo as well, and everyone's just really excited about providing these opportunities for these veterans living with disabilities. What it means providing them with, you know, this fulfilling and rewarding opportunity to work again and even kind of the future for what semi-autonomous might hold for individuals who are fully abled as well. It's just sort of an interesting viewpoint, because we've obviously talked a lot about autonomous hauling, and that's been a hot button issue, or hot button topic, I should say, in the industry for the last several years. So seeing it kind of manifest in a different way with loaders is very cool.

And I'll just wrap up by touching on something you said sort of at the start of the episode. It really is such a unique issue that we get to do. This is the fourth time I've been a part of the dealer issue, and the more and more I learn about these dealer dynamics, how they're working with manufacturers, how they're working with customers. They have such a unique point of view in this industry, where, you know, you have manufacturers that can obviously talk about what they're building, they can talk about how they work with their dealers, or if they go direct to consumer, then they can talk about what their consumers are hearing. Dealers are really sort of in the middle of everything. They can talk about what they're hearing from the manufacturers. They can talk about how their business is doing. They can talk about what they're hearing from customers. They really have sort of that 360 viewpoint, where they really get to see almost everything that's going on within the industry. And that's just such an invaluable perspective to really understand the health of the industry, what's going on, what the future might hold. So yeah, always enjoy doing the dealer issue, really happy to be able to get a couple good stories in. You obviously mentioned yours, a couple of really great stories as well, and just a jam packed issue. So yeah, I would highly encourage you, if you haven't already, check out the dealer issue. I certainly don't think you'll be disappointed.

KY: Yeah, again, that's our July issue. That's this month's issue, as we're dropping episode 44 here today. But two of the sources of content for our dealer issue this month, Jack, were Rock Machinery's, Bryant Fazer and Crush Mode's, Micah Tysver. They are our special guests today, and we actually talked about a variety of topics, and so we kind of cut some of the more business-oriented topics based on my interviews with Bryant and Micah within the last few weeks. It's been an interesting year again, with tariffs, with interest rates, with inflation, yet at the same time, and I think you'll hear this in some of the commentary that we'll play here in a bit, Jack, it's been a productive year in terms of a demand standpoint for construction materials. Our readers are still busy, dealers customers are still busy. There's just this uncertainty surrounding the business environment, or in the business environment, because of a variety of headwinds, some of which are new here in 2025 but those are kind of the focal points that we're going to be zeroing in on here today with our two dealer guests.

But we're going to play Bryant first, then Jack and I are going to come back and we'll hear from Micah second. But I at least want to set it up a little bit for those who aren't familiar with Bryant Fazer. Bryant is the president of Rock Machinery, and he's been with them for more than 11 years. He actually started there back in 2014 as a territory manager, and he worked his way up to the VP level and general manager before becoming president of Rock Machinery at the start of 2019. Rock Machinery has been around a couple decades at this point. They're an equipment distributor, they do crushing, screening and more. Their focus at large is aggregates, but they also touch on mining and recycling in their territory as well. They're based in Wisconsin, and they cover a variety of the states up in the upper Midwest and some others outside of the Upper Midwest, but mainly around the Midwest region is what they're serving. So with Bryant, we're going to hear about the workforce. We kind of get into that at some point. We uniquely kind of worked into how customers are upsizing their equipment. Specifically, their mobile equipment spreads these days as a means to work around the workforce, and that's been an opportunity for Rock Machinery as a dealer, it's been an opportunity for producers.

Jack, I know you touched on that in a story you did recently for Pit & Quarry's sister publication, Portable Plants. So we'll get to hear from Bryant Fazer around that trend. And of course, it's 2025, so we're going to hear about tariffs from Bryant Fazer. He actually has some really interesting real world experience based on what's transpired here in the first half of 2025 and he has some interesting outlook that he's going to share for us as well on what could happen in the second half of the year. So with that, let's play our special interview with Rock Machinery president, Bryant Fazer.

Interview Starts (Bryant Fazer - Rock Machinery)

KY: What are you seeing right now? What's your feeling as we're sitting here in mid to late May? We've got some clarity, but not full clarity, on what the road ahead looks like as a dealer.

Bryant Fazer: Yeah, certainly, no. Great questions. And if we all had a magic ball, right? We would know what levers to pull at the time, but you can only react to what you know. We can feel from our customers and our end users, and we're focused on sand and gravel, large quarries, large mining operations and recycling yards throughout the Midwest. So that's our perspective, right? Some of the other markets, they have their own, but, you know, a lot of customers – a lot of pent up demand – but a lot of customers are putting decisions on hold until they understand how the tariffs play off. You know, there's a softening, and I think the softening is just related to the uncertainty of the tariffs. They don't want to make that commitment until either they have a signed contract with their end users, and I see a lot of that getting delayed as well. You know, we're not going to commit to buying some large, crushing and screening projects until we get firm commitments from our customers. So we're hearing that quite a bit, but we are hearing that they're getting their contracts signed. But now it's just like, how do you deal with the tariffs? There is a grace period, 90 days, right? That puts it sometime in August, but that's still not a long term solution to get over the hurdle of these tariffs. So I think that our manufacturers are looking for alternative sourcing, you know, sources either in the country or partners in the US to help mitigate this for the long term.

KY: How viable, Bryant, would you say it is to switch either a little bit of manufacturing or a lot of it to the US? I mean, I gotta imagine we're still gonna be reliant on overseas sources for so much, and there's only so much we could do in a short period here to react based on what's happening internationally. So I guess, what's your outlook as you think about our ability to react firmly one way or another to this?

BF: Yeah, and some things you can react on, you know, structures and portable chassis. They're made here domestically for the most part. So yeah, they can react. There's manufacturing facilities here in the States, they can deal with that. And if manufacturers decide to build it overseas, they're going to certainly have to take a hard look of bringing it back, which I think it's good for the US economy, no matter what. But there are certain things, due to EPA regulations,that we're not going to be able to have produced here anytime soon. I don't think we want to produce it here because of the regulations. So there's large castings, there's manganese foundries. Manganese foundries, there's not a domestic foundry here in the United States or Canada, so you're forced to go to Central America, Mexico, South America or Asia or Eastern Europe to get it done. So I don't see that coming back, and it's just ramping up with whoever, whatever country, partners with the US and negotiates a trade deal. That's what we have to focus on. But some of that stuff I don't see ever coming back.

KY: So maybe you can share an example or two if you have it, Bryant, but does that lack of clarity translated into 90 day pause, what was happening with containers or cargo at ports? Do you have any sense of that, even something that you had ordered or expected to receive? Did you have any impact?

BF: Yeah, you know, great question. We did, and our customer service team's following up and understanding where deliveries are, making sure we're hitting our customer commitments. We had containers where there was a lack response from our suppliers, which is abnormal, and you know, to come to find out why it was, is because the containers were getting held up at the port because they were trying to understand, you know, do we release them? How important is it? And are they willing to pay 150 plus percent tariff to bring it in? And, you know, some of the things are we get it in, you know, we're going to charge that to our customer, and most customers would refuse the shipment. So a lot of these containers got held up. And, you know, I do think there will be some supply shortages because of, you take a two month period where people aren't making decisions, and that's all starting to hit, right? That all started to hit us in early May. So now there's going to be shortages, and then there's limited container ships. Now you have two months of containers on the ground in Asia, and with a limited shipping capability, it's going to take time to catch up.

KY: Is there a desire for manufacturers and dealers right now to move forward with a lot of purchasing, thinking maybe now might be the best time to buy versus later? Or is the mindset that, let's wait and see, it's got to get better later?

BF: I would say, from our manufacturers, the manufacturers are definitely reacting and getting as much into the US as they can while there's this grace period. From our customer standpoint, I'm actually surprised that there isn't more reaction of, "Hey, let's stock up our inventory right now." There are some customers that are doing it, but I would think there would be a lot more, because the inventory on the ground right now is a better value than the inventory that's going to come in here in a few months. But I'm not seeing a quick reaction to like, "Hey, let's buy up the inventory because it's a better deal." And I think everyone is trying to wait this out to see how everything plays out.

KY: Is part of that just a matter of, hey, we're in May, getting to peak production season during the summer months. They got their head down. They're crushing, and they're just not thinking about this as much as they should be?

BF: Yeah, that's very true. I mean, you get into … Right, the winter season for us, it's a lot of service work, it's getting the equipment ready for the season. Now, our customers are ramping up production, should be in full production right now. And what you said is very true. They're focused on getting their operations running. And then, you know, some of the smaller producers too, that don't have access to large lines of credit, you know, their cash is a little tighter. They're just starting to run. They invest in their equipment over the off season, and now the cash is starting to come in. You know, I can definitely see that. If there's clarity that the economy is going to do well, I'm very confident it's going to, a little bit of a lull here. But once you see that, see that clarity, our demand is still very good for our end users, from everyone that I'm talking to throughout the Midwest. So yeah, I mean, I do believe that there will be customers taking advantage of some of the deals that are out there with current inventory.

KY: Do you foresee there being parallels between COVID supply situation and what we've got here with tariffs, in terms of lack of availability, backlog extending months and months, in some cases? Is the late 2025, 2026 scenario going to be very much what we saw in 2020, 2021?

BF: I do think, with … the Trump administration was talking tariffs, you know, early April, that's kind of when it went into effect. And, you know, a lot of these container shipments started getting delayed because of the uncertainty. Manufacturers, dealers didn't want to pay the … And retailers throughout the United States are planning for the winter holiday season already, and they're starting to hold containers up because of the tariff. I do see that there being shortages on certain products because of those delays. They delayed shipments, there's limited ship capacity, and with that, it's just going to delay getting things from overseas to the US. So I do see shortages on certain products, but I also think dealers, it's different in COVID, because dealers came into this situation with higher inventory levels than they would probably have liked. So it gives you an opportunity to right size your inventory, and pay a better value for that inventory before all the increases where the tariffs were passed to the end user. So, I see it being quite different than the COVID situation.

KY: Okay.

BF: I see shipping being, you know, I similarity it with shipping because there's limited ship capacity. Everyone's trying to get their containers over to the US market. So I see increased prices on shipping. That would be similar, but because our inventory levels are higher and manufacturer inventory levels are higher, I think we'll get through this a lot better than we did with COVID.

KY: Outside of that, we still have factors like inflation, interest rates that are high and continue to remain higher than everyone likes that are maybe contributing to that slowdown that you've mentioned already. What other pain points are your customers echoing or verbalizing to you guys these days, and what, ultimately, in terms of relief, would you like to see to make the business environment a little bit more friendly for both them and yourselves as a dealer?

BF: Interest rates would always help, right? Number one is interest rates, lowering interest rates to drive the cost on our inventory that we carry. But I think the big one is people, for our dealers and for our end users. I just got off the phone with a customer here in Wisconsin, and he's like, "Hey, you know, I'd be doing a lot better if I could find a few more good people." It's talked about a lot, but it's hard to find people that want to go into this industry. The Wisconsin market is a highly portable market. You're coming in, you're crushing for the road projects, and one of these portable plants might move 10 to 12 times a year, so it's hard. You might not be home every night, and you're out in the environment every day, you're working physically. It's not for everybody, but I think that's one of the biggest challenges for our producers, our customers. It's just finding good people that still want to do this. And you know, with that, a lot of customers, what they're trying to do to find a solution is running less portable spreads and running larger portable spreads with more production capability, just going bigger. Instead of having two crews, they'll do one and get it done in half the time and move on to the next one.

KY: That's the workaround of the labor shortage they're trying?

BF: Yeah, they're upsizing the plants, but it's a snowball effect, because they might buy a bigger jaw, but when they buy a bigger jaw, then they need bigger cones, they need bigger screens, and then it all comes down to a bigger generator to power it, if there's not enough line power. So it's a significant cost to step up to go bigger, but if you can't find the people, it's really one of the only solutions.

KY: Yeah, so basically, you're moving the cost from A to B, but the costs are just taking on a different form, I suppose.

BF: Yeah, I mean, the equipment's available, right? You know, we have it in our yard. We can definitely supply the equipment. But people, that's variable. And I think the other big one that I would think should be talked about more is immigration reform. You know, we have people getting sent out of the country – not to get political – but there are a lot of good people that are here. And you know, how do we find a solution and make it easy for small businesses to employ? Some of them may be here illegally, but they want to be here, they want to better their families and finding a solution and putting in the work.

KY: I don't want to get political either, but just to further the conversation along. But yeah, I think it's interesting, this is a pain point – the workforce – for our industry, forever. And as a country, we continue to promote going to college, getting a four year degree. I've even had conversations internally lately because of AI and nature of my job being such a creative one, traditionally. But even my own use of Chat GPT, for example, I mean, it's going to show that, well, geez. I mean, a computer can do my job so much better, or elements of my job so much better. What's the future hold? I think just the conversations I've had more of late is the jobs that are going to be the most secure ones in the coming decades are the ones where you got to use your hands, the trades, touching equipment, because we haven't really figured out how technology can turn the wrench, or how you can get somebody into a tight spaced screen. I mean, it still requires the person to do that. So, if you're looking for job security, I think our industry can provide that. But again, as a country, I think we continue to largely push people toward the four year, creative type of jobs, sitting at a desk, that kind of thing.

BF: Yeah, I agree with you. We have a youth apprentice program. I think you and I may have talked about this before, but we have a youth apprentice program, and then we have an apprentice program accredited through the state of Wisconsin. So we bring on high schoolers, juniors and seniors, you know, they work with us just to develop soft skills. You know, can they show up to work on time? You know, are they ambitious? Because to be in this business, you got to be the top 10 percent of ambition and drive, because it is a demanding job, and we want to make sure they're ready for it. But we have some great young guys going through this program at the high school level and through a local community college. It's a five year program, they're in school a day every week, and they work for us the other four days, hands on with, we have an electrician on staff, cone, jaw mechanics. So there's a great experience for them. And there's no dumb question, right? They can answer anything. And I just tell these young guys coming in, you know, give this five years and you can write your own ticket, because a lot of the guys that have the skill set today won't be around in five years. Since 2020, there's been a lot of people that retired in the industry, so it's a big need. And you know, we're still investing heavily into that to bring on young mechanics, because there's not a lot of them out there that exist with the skill set today.

KY: They've got to imagine the ones that have the passion go about it the right way, they're setting themselves up for an awesome career, stable career, 35, 40 some years, if they want it.

BF: Yes. So I would say if, collectively, you know, producers, dealers, is whatever we can do to motivate young people to go into the trades, and fill this significant gap of a skill set, and they will have a very good living. They'll make more money doing this than they will, you know, coming out and having a four year degree.

Interview Ends (Bryant Fazer - Rock Machinery)

KY: Well, that was Bryant Fazer, president of Rock Machinery. Bryant, thanks again for getting together and Jack, he obviously touched on a variety of topics, but one thing that kind of resonated with me, and I know it's, again, something that you've touched on, probably at Pit & Quarry, but for sure, at Portable Plants, because I can remember one article in particular that you wrote about on this subject, but the idea of upsizing equipment is a means to kind of circumvent worker shortages. Bryant talked about how that's kind of a trend right now. He talked about the pain point in his customers, aggregate producers and others, struggling to find people. If you can't find people, yet you're a contractor, for example, contract crusher, you still gotta go about doing your job a certain way, completing jobs. But what they're doing nowadays is basically getting bigger equipment, getting bigger crushers and bigger screens, essentially being able to finish those jobs in half the time, or a shorter period of time. So there's obviously a cost to go with bigger equipment, but if you can't find the people, then what's your alternative, I suppose, at the end of the day?

JK: No, absolutely. And he hit the nail on the head with this. And I think this goes into what I was talking about earlier, where, as a dealer, he's able to kind of see what the manufacturers are doing, hear what the producers are looking at. And I think he's, again, exactly right. You go back about a year ago, kind of like you mentioned, I talked with Matt Voigt from Superior Industries and he talked about doing more with less, and that is just a trend that I just keep hearing about constantly and constantly and constantly. So that's from sort of the manufacturer perspective. Similarly, I believe it was the June issue of Portable Plants, we picked up a story that had previously run in Pit & Quarry looking at a Superior outfitted plant Daanen & Janssen, a contract crusher, and they're looking at the same thing. They're trying to use fewer pieces of bigger equipment to not only get the job done quicker, but also supplement some of that workforce shortage. So I think that is certainly a growing trend, and a trend that we're only going to see increase, because, like you said, there might be more upfront cost, but if a producer is looking at their output for maybe a primary, a secondary and a tertiary, and they're like, "Okay, I can get 100, 150, 200 more tons per hour by upsizing my primary and secondary, I can eliminate the tertiary and just focus on these two plants." Fewer people to work it, one less plant to have to maintain. Over the lifespan, you're definitely going to be saving time and money there and again, sort of making things easier if you don't have the workers. So yeah, great to hear that from Bryant. Definitely an interesting perspective, and like I said, something I think is only going to continue to become more and more prevalent.

KY: Yeah, I still wait for the day, Jack, when we don't have to talk about the labor shortage, the workforce shortage, however you want to characterize it, but it's very real. I think it's to hear, too, about some of the things that Rock Machinery is doing to address the workforce shortage with apprentice programs. They're obviously trying to figure out the next generation, just like every other dealer and every other producer. But I think at the end of the day, it kind of comes down to everyone doing a little bit of something to find their next leaders and mold them. So thanks again to Rock Machinery's Bryant Fazer for joining us, and ironically, Jack, you know, Micah Tysver, our next guest … Micah's the president of Crush Mode. He kind of gets into this topic as well, not necessarily in terms of workforce, but he talks about the trend of mobile equipment going into quarries more. I think he even mentions in the interview that we're going to play here shortly, that maybe roughly half of his mobile equipment, mobile processing equipment, is in a quarry environment, versus something else like a contracted crush environment or recycling environment. 

But a little bit more about Micah, who we're gonna hear from in just a moment. But he is a seasoned dealer, but he's established a new venture in 2023 called Crush Mode. He's coming up on his second anniversary this August for Crush Mode, and he's actually located in the Upper Midwest, just like Bryant at Rock Machinery is. But he serves Iowa, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and he's the exclusive dealer in that area for IRock Crushers. Micah has the unique background of being a producer as well. Probably half of his career, a little more, I suppose, was dedicated to being a producer. He was an aggregate operations manager at a couple companies. One was Holcim, the other was Aggregate Industries. Again, like we visited with Bryant Fazer, Micah talks about the business environment, so we'll hear about what his outlook is on tariffs and what he's hearing from customers. We talk, again, about what's trending with mobile plants, and how that's fitting in these days, and how it compares to traditional stationary setups, and what some of the opportunities are out there,and more so. So with that, we'll play Our second guest interview today, This is Micah Tysver, president of Crush Mode.

Interview Starts (Micah Tysver - Crush Mode)

KY: Still seems like demand is strong. Depends on where you're at, I suppose, so I'd be curious to hear what you're seeing in your area. But just with the cost of things, you know, the tariff situation, interest rates just keep hovering higher than everyone would like. I guess I wonder, as that whittles all down to the dealer's point of view, you know, the Crush Mode standpoint, what does that translate into real world narrative? I guess, what are you hearing on the front lines from customers these days on their ability or willingness to make purchases, to make decisions, to move forward on things? Is it still healthy, you know, because of there being demand out there, or is there any hold back that has surfaced in recent months because of economic developments, that sort of stuff?

Micah Tysver: I think that things are shifting a little bit for the better when it comes to this aggregate industry, as far as equipment, as far as dealers position, as far as customers position. I think, yeah, your topics, you know, they included a lot of topics around interest rates and tariffs and inflation, etc. But I think kind of the economic status that we're in, customers are starting to accept it kind of as a new norm. Kind of the situation that we're in, dealers are starting to accept it as a new norm. The demand is high, there's a lot of work out there. Seems like customer conversations I'm having is very optimistic. Backlogs are already getting full for this year. There's a lot of work that's going to take some new equipment, going to take a lot of equipment. And you know, we're just finding ways to navigate around the high interest rates and now tariffs and some of those things. It seems like supply chain issues aren't much of a conversation at all anymore. But I'm very optimistic about this year, and it seems like customers I've talked to kind of singing the same tune.

KY: If there's one variable that's kind of giving producers, your customers reason for pause, Micah, what is that right now? I mean, you hit interest rates. I wonder if that's it, or is it something else?

MT: I would say it's still would probably be interest rates, is the most significant. But customers are open to new ideas, not necessarily new ideas, but different ideas. And I think dealers are getting more creative with finding ways to get this equipment into customers hands. We've been looking at things, talking customers about least term, long term lease terms, and you know, still, still a rental heavy industry, in my opinion. You know, which releases the customers of the ownership liability, if you will. I think the rental market's always going to be attractive. I think it's always going to be heavily weighed on on rentals when it comes to mobile and portable aggregate equipment. But starting to look at more long term solutions. Lenders are getting more aggressive, more creative with lending options, whether it's extended term financing or lease terms. We're just starting to kind of look at it from a little different angle, and I think leasing is going to become more attractive than it's ever been in the past. Long term, formal, committed leases.

KY: Are customers asking for that? Or you're saying just the financing world is starting to funnel things that way?

MT: I think to some extent the financing world is starting to funnel it that way. But it's really probably a different way for customers to look at it without consuming more liability than they maybe … they maybe don't want to get into a five year, five year loan at seven or eight percent interest rates, where now they only have to lock themselves into, you know, 12 months or 24 months or 36 months commitment for an attractive monthly payment. And a lot of times are looking at their tour or their project scope as a one year project, two year project. It's like okay, well, we can, we can go in and lock this piece of equipment, or these pieces of equipment in for this project, for this term and we don't have that long term commitment. We can work the cash flow, and so let's go with a 12 month lease or 24 month lease. And we're starting to see more of that.

KY: And you kind of hit, too, on the maybe the portable or the mobile contractor. Does that best fit in or better fit in, these days, with what they're doing? Job pops up, they're looking for equipment to kind of add on or support what they're trying to do for certain projects best fit for them.

MT: 100 percent. We've been seeing this for several years, more of a shift in the market to the mobile and portable equipment. Even with the with large quarries, we have placed mobile equipment into large quarries. There's pros and cons, you can argue it either way. Obviously, I'm a mobile equipment dealer and I brought on mobile equipment for a reason. I see a lot of benefits with it. But aggregate producers are starting to see benefits with it. I have as much or more equipment right now in the quarries as I do into smaller sand and gravel operations. And people are seeing the benefits of it. You can you can track them out of the way, you can get your your drill and blast shot on the ground, you can track it right back in there. You can eliminate your load and haul aspect of it. You can be right there and produce it near the face, and people are seeing the benefits of.

KY: In a way, Micah, the fact that you're focused on on mobile crushing and screening and kind of just considering the the financial landscape, is that helping to drive people away from the longer term to pick the bigger, multi, multi million dollar projects, and think a little bit more shorter term, that's helping to fuel IRock, helping to fuel mobile crushing and screening, in a sense?

MT: Yeah, I think it definitely is. There's still going to be a place in time for these large, stationary quarries that have been operating and still have 100 years of reserves, or, you know, they're always going to have a market, they're always going to have customers. But those quarries with deposits that are long lasting like that, and finding new quarries and to be able to permit … First of all, to be able to find the resource for the material, and then trying to be able to permit it is getting harder and harder all the time. So people are looking at more creative, simpler ways to mine material. A lot of it is going into deposits that have a short lifespan. That's where the mobile and the portable equipment shines, because it's, you don't need to set up large structures, you don't need to pour big concrete pads and foundations. It's simple, you can go in and quickly, efficiently set up a spread to produce whatever volume is needed in those and then you can get out, move on to the next one and do the same thing.

It seems like it is going to be more and more of a shift in the market. And for a long time, I think the mobile and portable plant was a little bit hard received, and it still is with some producers. Just because there's occasionally some cons and some downsides with it, what they feel compared to stationary plants where, you know, there might be a little more challenges with some of the maintenance aspects of it. It's a little challenging, still, to get some of the extra large crushers, you know, the 500, 600, 700 horsepower crushers, whatever, on these mobile, portable chassis. But they've come a long ways, and they've been a lot more well received in the market, and people are seeing the benefits of it. And in my opinion, the benefits far outweigh the negative side of it.

KY: Anything else you want to add? You hit on both big topics and got some depth for me based on your experience and what you're seeing.

MT: The only thing, Kevin, is I would maybe just comment a little bit on the tariffs.

KY: Yeah.

MT: You know, tariffs are going to, to some extent, gonna start impacting most manufacturers and most dealers, especially when it comes to this mobile equipment, where the majority of the mobile equipment is manufactured either partly or in whole in the country of Ireland, which we know there's a 10 percent tariff put on Ireland to US trade here right now. So to some extent, it's going to impact majority of us mobile equipment dealers in 2025 and likely moving forward. But we haven't really felt the many effects of that here, yet. Most dealers have been a little heavy on their iron. They have a lot of inventory, which the supply chain, if you ask customers, supply chain probably isn't much of an issue, because seem like inventory has been pretty readily available, but now as dealers are filtering out their inventory and and making reorders here for their fleet for 2025 and moving forward, we will start feeling some of the effects of these tariffs coming on. And I have some equipment in order right now that's going to be impacted by these tariffs, but it's not going to be significant, and it's not going to be a drastic impact due to anybody out there, because the manufacturer is going to participate, the dealer is going to participate. obviously. We just can't expect to stick the customer with all these tariffs. We're all going to feel it to some extent here, but it's going to work out, and I don't think it's going to be a significant factor.

Interview Ends (Micah Tysver - Crush Mode)

KY: Well, thanks again to Micah Tysver, president of Crush Mode, for joining us on today's episode of Drilling Deeper. Jack, just like we had with Rock Machinery's Bryant Fazer, Micah kind of left us with a variety of topics to explore, but he finished on tariffs, and that's kind of where I wanted to take the conversation. We can't get away from it, it seems like. You know, we're sitting here, this episode's dropping July 1, and I just wrote my third column in a row that kind of touched on tariffs. And I don't think it's necessarily going to break the game or it's not scaring anybody too much, but it's certainly going to alter the nature of the playing field, I suppose, and maybe what manufacturers or what dealers supporting those manufacturers are taking the lead, because costs will change. We just don't know at this point where costs are going to settle at the end of the day, and we don't know. I can't remember if it was Micah or Bryant, but just thinking back on our two interviews, but based on the 90 day pause with China, for example, we're still looking into August for the end of that pause. And beyond that, is there going to be another pause? What's the road ahead? We really don't know, and in our industry, as long as I've been around it, and same for you Jack, you know, we like to make decisions based on certainty and and the fact that tariffs are still here in July means we don't have clarity on where we're going, and that affects buying decisions and a lot of other things.

JK: Yeah, no, obviously tariffs are certainly kind of the topic of the day, week, month, first half of the year. So you know, certainly no shortage of fodder to talk about. And I think to your point, the way that you kind of mentioned that there's not necessarily a lot of fear, or maybe it hasn't impacted super strong yet. I even kind of had a similar experience where I reached out to some people for the editorial advisory board as part of the June issue of Portable Plants, and I'd ask, you know, "With all of everything going on, tariffs, interest rates, supply chain, all that, you know, what are you feeling?" And it was a very mild response. Not to say I was necessarily expecting the sky is falling into the world type stuff, but it's very much sort of like you said, wait and see, kind of taking it day by day.

And it's very reminiscent to me, and I obviously wasn't here for sort of the heart of when the industry went through COVID, but I kind of caught the tail end of it after I joined Pit & Quarry and got to hear about maybe what had happened. It's very reminiscent of that where I think a lot of people are just kind of taking in information as they can, and then when it comes to going to work every day, they're putting their head down, doing what they know how to do, pushing forward. Because what other choice do we have? I mean, it's such an integral industry to everything that goes on in the world. There's really, you know, tariffs or supply chain or interest rate, they don't have a choice to stop. 

So I think, in the same vein, as we see these tariffs and the impact of them maybe evolve more, become more apparent, I think that, as this industry has done before, they'll adjust as need be, take it into account, figure out what they need to do, do it, and then just keep pushing forward, because that's what this industry does. So I'm not incredibly surprised that they're sort of taking it in stride and just sort of saying, "Whenever it becomes more clear and whenever we have something we can make a decision on, we'll make it, but until then, we just got to go with the flow."

KY: Yeah. And I think you said that well. I think it comes down to control, what you can and what you can't. We cannot control tariffs. We cannot control some of the other elements you mentioned, supply chain, interest rates. We have really no say over those things. They kind of are just presented to us, and then we operate with those as they are. We can control how we crush, how we screen, how we go to work every day, those sorts of things. And you know, our industry here for the first half of '25 has done that. 

Production volumes are a little bit down, but we're still, as an industry, doing pretty good work, we're busy. I think the beauty at the end of the day, Jack, too, is the fact that infrastructure is in demand. As a country, we continue to fall behind where we are in terms of our roads, our bridges and highways, and the demand for that isn't going to improve without the addition of more construction materials. Like we need more materials, we need more roads, we need better bridges. Things are deteriorating, so if we don't address those things, we're not going to improve the situation. So I think that at least favors our industry. And so for the time being, let's just continue to go about doing the things that we can control. Go to work every day, crush, screen, put materials on the ground.

So again, this show was very much centered on dealers. I know we brought some business topics in, and we appreciate Micah and Bryant offering their perspective on those. If you want more dealer content, again, check out Pit & Quarry's July dealer issue. It's in your mailboxes now, and if it's not, go to pitandquarry.com for our July digital edition. We also house all of the dealer content from the whole history of the dealer issue online at pitandquarry.com/dealerissue. So check that out there, you can look at our 2024 content. I was looking back the other day, Jack, and last year we put the spotlight on how dealers may one day go national. You know, we mentioned Kimball at the top of the show. I remember, they were one of the sources for that story. We talked about that whole dynamic, and how some of the big dealers are getting much bigger, just like producers are. So lots of dealer content out there, from Pit & Quarry for you to consume, and we appreciate again, everyone who helped make this episode possible. But before we depart, I want to thank our sponsor one more time of this episode.

Did you know East Rock Solutions is now part of the Kemper Group? And together, they're raising the bar on parts availability, equipment solutions and turnkey plant design. From the pit to the stockpile, Kemper Group has got your operation covered. To learn more, visit kemperequipment.com or call 610-273-2066. Thanks to Kemper. Well, thank you again to Kemper. 

Thanks again to Bryant Fazer and Micah Tysver, and for Jack Kopanski, I'm Kevin Yanik. We'll see you.

JK: See you.