3: Get to Know Bob and Nick

In Episode 3 of the BORN TO BE A SNOWFIGHTER podcast, get to know Bob and Nick of Metal Pless, as they discuss their own Snowfighter journeys, from Bob's first days in the Vanderzon garage, to Nick's big move from the rainy Pacific Northwest to Fargo, ND. Bob and Nick clicked from day one, and they were destined to work together - on the best team in the snow equipment industry - Team Metal Pless!

Come meet Bob and Nick at Equip Expo in Louisville, and remember - Metal Pless™ is always copied, never duplicated!

FROM THIS EPISODE:

Very little information lives online for the French television program mentioned in the episode, En Plein Tempête. If you can find episodes online, please let us know! Try these links for a bit more information:

Brief Trailer from Canal D

Canal D Facebook

Canal D Facebook - Link 2

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Watch BORN TO BE A SNOWFIGHTER episodes on YouTube:

CLICK HERE

Follow Metal Pless on Instagram:

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Follow Metal Pless on Facebook:

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Connect with Metal Pless on LinkedIn:

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Own a Metal Pless? Join the Metal Pless Owner's Group on Facebook:

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Listen to "Born for This" by Royal Deluxe on Spotify:

CLICK HERE

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Contact Metal Pless directly:

go@metalpless.com

1 (866) 362-1688

Transcript

Nick Arndt (00:13)
Hello everybody, welcome to the Born to be a Snowfighter podcast. The podcast about the Metal Plus family where we sit down and get to know the Metal Plus family a little bit better, get to hear their stories about how they became snow fighters, how they were born to be a snow fighter. And I'm your host Nick along with my co-host Bob. And today we're gonna do something a little bit different. To begin our podcast, we're gonna do an episode about us. Our episodes are always gonna be about the Metal Plus family and getting to know.

those folks, but we do need to do introductions about who we are. A lot of you know us from trade shows, from dealerships, from interacting with Metal Plus Online, but we want to do a quick episode, talk about how we got here, how Bob and I got to know each other, and our individual Snowfighter journeys. It will be a bit entertaining. ⁓ Bob and I get along real good. We have great conversations, so hopefully it goes really well today. ⁓

Let's begin, Bob, by talking about how you and I got to know each other. So we were just texting about this. You looked it up on Instagram. And a little bit of backstory on me and Bob. Bob is sales manager at Metal Plus. I am a territory manager at Metal Plus. So day-to-day operations, we're dealing with sales in North America all day, every day. So we have a working relationship, but our relationship started online.

Bob Green (01:17)
Okay.

Yep, yep. Back in 2017, when Instagram used to be entertaining and not political, I was posting pictures of what I was doing. I was the operations manager of a Snormobile company and I was posting a lot and doing the hashtags and somehow Nick aren't, RDO Nick at the time, picked me up.

Nick Arndt (01:42)
Correct?

⁓ it's changed a bit. ⁓

the

infamous RDO Nick. People still call me that if they recognize who I am at a trade show. It's kind of weird.

Bob Green (02:09)
Yep.

Right, right.

And I was funny because we didn't know each other at all. I was just looking back at our messages back and forth. It was awkward. We were we didn't have the flow we had now, you know. And you're you know, you're I thought you were a snow removal guy. And then he said, no, no, no, I just saw this stuff. And, know, we started talking a lot about in the beginning, it was mostly about snowblowers because you were you were broadening the the pole style snowblower in Fargo area.

Nick Arndt (02:21)
yeah. yeah.

Bob Green (02:41)
And that's what I grew up with. So we had some talks about Norman, Pronovoo, Bilodeau, all of it.

Nick Arndt (02:48)
All of it. I

was all in. so back at Instagram, Instagram I believe has changed quite a bit, but I call it the good old days. So let's say from 2014 to 2021, man, was just all about posting cool pictures. The videos weren't super complicated and you could just see people posting stuff they were proud of and excited about. that's what I did. That's how I got into Instagram. I was posting unique pictures.

almost exclusively about snow removal stuff. And I would just follow every single hashtag. I would follow hashtag snow removal, hashtag denigement, ⁓ hashtag. So that's what led me to all the interacting with the Canadians. And so I would just follow everything hashtag metal plus. And so anybody that posted anything hashtag metal plus, I would follow them. And I saw you posting stuff about a John Deere 4066 in a reverse max.

Bob Green (03:25)
Hahaha

Nick Arndt (03:43)
And that was probably, I didn't look it up, but that's probably what we talked about. Instagram was the good old days and I got to know so many people ⁓ just through following them and interacting with them on Instagram. And honestly, I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for that because that's how I got to know people and people in the snow removal world are and were super accessible. So we started chatting. I'm just this salesman in Fargo, North Dakota.

Bob Green (03:59)
Yeah.

Right.

Nick Arndt (04:11)
doing his best to bring the Canadian way of business to North Dakota. And that's kind of my journey we'll talk about later, but my goal was always to bring the Canadian methods to the United States. And people had already done that, but that was my goal to grow that. And you were one of the figures I ran into first. ⁓ Everybody runs into Paul van der Zandt and he was out there, but there was this guy lurking in the shadows at van der Zandt.

Bob Green (04:35)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. ⁓

Nick Arndt (04:41)
named Bob Green who was the

real mechanical brains behind the operation.

Bob Green (04:47)
Whoa,

Yeah, not really. John Van Der Zand was the mechanical brains behind that operation. He taught me a lot. ⁓ But I started clearing snow for them in 1989 in ⁓ a Kubota with a Burvak snow blower. ⁓ Yeah, Burvak snow blower. ⁓ Everything was smaller back then. It was very easy to plug your chute back in those days. And the only way to unplug them was really to take the chute off.

Nick Arndt (05:07)
my.

Bob Green (05:18)
It ⁓ was much different and the machinery was different. We didn't have hydrostatic, we didn't have power shuttle. It was all sticks and levers and clutches and whatnot. ⁓

Nick Arndt (05:29)
Yeah, small shoots,

people to this day still tell me that small shoots don't matter that much. Yes, they do. Big shoots matter. Big, big shoots matter. That's a whole other rabbit hole of a conversation.

Bob Green (05:36)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Why, there was a whole,

you know, whole snowblower evolved. I mean, back then there probably wasn't enough pallets in the fan. There wasn't enough, you know, the screw was probably too spaced out. So wasn't nothing or those ratios were wrong. There was too many pallets in the fan. It was pushing too much wet snow. Anyway, it's yeah, that the snowblower is a whole different conversation for another day. So.

Nick Arndt (05:59)
Yep.

But you got

your start in residential snow more or less with the Vander Zans in the late eighties.

Bob Green (06:09)
Yep.

Yep. So I did, I worked for them in a, you know, was 30 years in total, 25 for what was called Déné Chimauvanderson. And at that point, Paul left full time to go work for Metal Plus and he wanted to be bought out. So John and John and his brother, Tony, bought one third and two thirds. So Tony hired me to be his operations manager and we ran, I think we had 17.

runs close to 20 tractors. 15 guys plus Tony and I. said 15 guys, 15 people because we did have women working for us. ⁓ And that's where I really got the baptism by fire and how to run a snow business. ⁓ John was still there for support, but he was running his own show at that point. So if I really got stuck with a problem, he would come over. ⁓ But yeah, that was five.

five years of running that operation and it was, I did everything, ⁓ hiring, payroll, you know, I worked with the accountant, ⁓ training and then the maintenance and repairs of the fleet. it was, ⁓ the season would start, ⁓ snow guys know mid October and finish, finish when it finished snowing. And then he'd hop back into the landscaping again. ⁓ So it was fun, but it was very, it was tiring.

Nick Arndt (07:35)
Yeah.

Bob Green (07:36)
Even if it didn't snow for two weeks, you still have to garage every day because you can never stop maintaining because as soon as you stop maintaining, that's when you run into problems during the storm.

Nick Arndt (07:44)
Yeah, and so you had a variety of experience, which I think is super unique in what you bring to the role today is that you understand, since you were a snow fighter and not just an operator, you were a manager, you understand what's going on for the end user. And I think that comes through really well right now when you're having conversations with snow equipment companies is that you get it. You weren't just plopped into this role from another sales role selling paper clips or whatever.

Bob Green (08:12)
No, no.

And the other thing, it wasn't just residential because the Vandersons ran what I always call is the hybrid style business. They did commercial and residential snow. So a lot of their fleet would have a plow on the front and a snowblower on the back and you'd do your commercial lots, you'd drop your plow, go do your residential run at the end, you'd come and put your plow back on. And there was years that I also ran a loader, which was my first experience with a wing plow. It wasn't a metal plus.

Nick Arndt (08:40)
⁓

Bob Green (08:41)
There was metal plus

Nick Arndt (08:41)
whoa, whoa.

Bob Green (08:42)
in the fleet, because I moved, I migrated from residential to the commercial side, I got the oldest loader and the oldest plow. And I used to see the metal pluses running beside me and they always seem more efficient. They clean better, obviously. And their wings didn't open flop. My plow was floppy. It would angle side to side and it was new. It was like a two year old competitor's plow. But the metal pluses immediately when they arrived, because Paul was still working.

Nick Arndt (08:59)
Yeah.

Bob Green (09:10)
He still owned a third of the business. he was working for metal plus at the same time. So, you know, he bought a couple of plows. started with a live box and then he brought in some wing plows. ⁓ so I sat in a variety of chairs, you know, I did residential snow, I did commercial snow and loader. I did residential snow with loader arms. ⁓ that's, that's the, I had a metal plus in front of a 4066 with the reverse max. ⁓ it was a rough, it was a rubber rubber edge plow.

Nick Arndt (09:29)
Yep.

That's what caught my attention. That's what caught my attention. Yep. Yep.

Bob Green (09:40)
And it was a great setup, I loved it. I had a standard blower on that and I would do, again, it was a hybrid run, I was doing commercial condos, ⁓ pumping state, like little lots, and then I would jump in and help the guys do their driveways.

Nick Arndt (09:55)
Yep, because with that reverse mech set up on the 4066, you totally could. You could back drag, turn around and blow, which is a method, boy, I've really tried hard to promote in the US over the years and it hasn't caught on as much as inverted blowing, but it is great for a hybrid run. But so when you were, when you're with the Vanderzons, they began transitioning to metal pluses. And ⁓ I remember, so there is, before there were any other,

Bob Green (09:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick Arndt (10:24)
programs about snow removal, Bob was part of a series in Quebec, this hidden gem of a television program that followed the Vanderszons, the company for a season. And Bob was a reluctant participant in, ⁓ I don't even know how to pronounce the name of it, but talk a little bit about that.

Bob Green (10:41)
Hahaha

It's so that

so yeah, so the show was called on playing Tom Pite, which is the middle of the storm. ⁓ And so this again, Paul. Paul always wanted to do a show, so ProTech many, many years ago did Project Snow Fighter. They did, think, four years in the Vandersons were involved in two or three of them. So that was my first time being filmed. I hate I hated it. I hated it. You can see the side of my head in the restaurant.

Nick Arndt (11:09)
Yeah. Trust me, it showed.

Bob Green (11:15)
⁓ I didn't do my interview. You know, they wanted to interview everybody. just didn't other other guys loved it I just left the spotlight for them. I just didn't want to be around when that was happening and then You know projects no fighter. I think it was four years the vanders ons were You know, they did four companies a year. I think the vanders ons were in two or three seasons ⁓ But then Paul kept trying, you know with all the reality shows ⁓ That were coming on

at the time on network TV, like on Discovery Channel or whatnot, you just named the, you know, West Coast Choppers, whatever it was. Yeah.

Nick Arndt (11:51)
Yeah, really big at the time there was

West Coast Choppers and all kinds of building guy stuff shows.

Bob Green (11:59)
Yeah.

So he thought, and we all thought it would be great to do a reality show and he pitched it to a lot of people and they come and they come and do interviews. ⁓ I remember one time Rob, Rob Vanderzanser, Rob's the youngest and he now works for Norman Snowblowers because this is a funny one. So Paul at the time was also selling Norman Snowblowers in the U.S. So he got a deal on Norman Snowblowers and a load came in and instead of having them assembled at Normand,

Nick Arndt (12:05)
Yeah.

Bob Green (12:30)
Rob and I were tasked with putting the shoots on. Now this all sounds super easy, but when you're doing a 92 inch inverted snowblower, the thing's way a ton. And unless you got a chain block and we didn't, we were frustrated. We didn't like doing it. And there was a filming company there filming John, Tony and Paul, the three owners of the company. Rob was an employee like me. Rob and were working on the snowblower and the interview's going on like.

Nick Arndt (12:37)
Nope.

Bob Green (12:59)
15, 20 feet behind us inside the garage. We're outside and Rob keeps going in to get tools and coming back out. And he, every time he walks by, goes, I'm a brother too. I'm a brother too. I'm a brother too. Yeah. So somebody saw that. So Canal D, which is a, call it a French discovery channel, saw that one done. And that one was in English and

Nick Arndt (13:09)
The Forgotten Brother, ⁓

Bob Green (13:28)
A producer said, yeah, this could work. So ⁓ they came full, like a full film crew, sound, camera, like the whole professional set up. And they did, they started doing interviews in October. And again, filming snow is hard because it doesn't always agree with your schedule. So you look at, no, they look at the forecast, they'd show up at the garage, you'd sit up, you'd show up at the garage and just sit there and look at each other.

Nick Arndt (13:49)
You can't schedule it at all.

Bob Green (13:56)
So and then it wouldn't snow and they go home the next day you'd get six inches of snow, but because they were It's a spread out film crew. They couldn't always assemble or they had other things to do So yes again Super reluctant. I again I speak French, but it's not my my first first language You know something

someone backs into the garage with a broken something on their machine and I'm trying to fix it and you've got a cameraman, the mic boom's like hitting you in the side of the head, the producer's like, do this, do that, and the director's, know, and at one point, this was the second season actually, I could not get these settling torches lit. There was something stuck in...

Nick Arndt (14:36)
Were you

trying to, were you, you were, ⁓ phonebook against, I think, or, some kind of wire had gotten sucked into an auger.

Bob Green (14:43)
Yeah, it might have been that

time. I was stuck. I had to burn something out of the fan or the auger, I don't remember. And I could, we had a new set of torches and I could just, it was 50-50 whether I lit them or not. I don't know, there was something wrong with the mixture. And I was just like, and this kept blowing out, kept blowing up. And I just, I just looked at the director and I said, I can't do this. And I walked out. And if I saw them at the garage, so,

Nick Arndt (15:08)
You

Bob Green (15:11)
You know, someone would call me Bob, I need this, you know, or it was one time a guy's hydraulic oil light came on. So I booked out of the garage to get a, you know, a five gallon bucket of hydraulic oil, put it in the cab of my tractor. And I was sneaking around the shop so they wouldn't see me. Cause as soon as they saw me with the bucket, they were going to get in their truck and follow me to where I was, he's doing something. Yeah, let's go follow him. And John goes, what are you doing? I'm like, nothing. I just have to use the bathroom. don't want to see that.

Nick Arndt (15:28)
⁓ he's doing something interesting. Yeah.

Bob Green (15:38)
So yeah, it was definitely reluctant. all the main players in the episode got filmed, interviews day to day and a camera in their machine from front and back, and with them mic'd up, and they wanted us to talk. the director had, I had an earpiece in and she would be like, yes, tell us about what you're doing. I'm like, well, I'm doing snow removal. Like I was super impatient. just, no.

Nick Arndt (16:03)
And it's an emergency too. It's not like this is some,

like you got four hours to clear all these driveways. It's not like take two, do it again. It's not. ⁓

Bob Green (16:11)
Yeah, and

I guess because, you know, the phone's ringing, I'm getting calls on the CB, it's just, just, you know, when Paul did the Project Snowfighter for ProTech, he was a supervisor in a pickup truck. So he'd get chit chat the whole time, you know, get a call, I'm gonna get a call now, you know. And the other thing I didn't like in it, it's cheesy because a lot of the things get reenacted. You know, an event happens,

Nick Arndt (16:39)
Yeah, I think that's the way

it goes. It's not good.

Bob Green (16:41)
Yeah, and they didn't get enough.

Someone's camera was not or someone's mic wasn't to get, you know, they'd reenact things and it was annoying. I didn't like it. I'll be honest, I didn't like it. I'm a little bit better in front of the camera now, but I'm still not super relaxed about it. I don't want to be the center of attention.

Nick Arndt (16:58)
So and I think we're the same way where we like be we like helping people but we don't necessarily like being the center of attention but now so worked for the Vanders on as part of that program ⁓ it all kind of builds your resume of snow fighting greatness ⁓ but we should we should say if people want to know if they could see the show they can't there's like canal D did not put this this was before streaming this was before

Bob Green (17:26)
Yep.

Yep.

Nick Arndt (17:27)
You know posting shows online. This was like the beginning of YouTube being popular. So it wasn't on YouTube there is like Some I've seen it. I don't know if it's exactly Yeah

Bob Green (17:38)
You know, there's a handful of people that have seen it in the US. You're one.

Charles Plaisance saw it. Aaron Smith saw it. Yeah, it's very hard to see. And you've tried to find it online and you haven't had any success. So no, they didn't upload it. And there's stuff about the rights of it.

Nick Arndt (17:45)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah, can't, no.

It's a bummer

and it's a bummer too because it is really good. It's a hundred percent in French. ⁓ But with the way subtitles could be generated now, you can totally follow along, but the episodes are really good. there might, some of my highlights include Bob pulling someone out of a ditch, tractor to tractor pull like he is the hero Bob. Yeah. So there's an episode where Bob is a total hero. And then there's an episode where

Bob Green (17:59)
Mm-hmm.

for sure.

That was funny. That was day four, yeah, I pulled him out of a ditch.

Nick Arndt (18:23)
I don't know why I watched this one over and over again when I got access to the secret disks. Someone from VanderZone drives to the Metal Plus factory and buys a plow and I just thought, ⁓ this is the coolest thing ever. Like he's literally just a wheel loader dropping the plow in the truck and I'm like, ⁓ this is it. This is, ⁓ man, no. I think it's Ryerson or Ryerson.

Bob Green (18:38)
Hahaha

I don't remember that. It's weird. don't remember that. Yeah, maybe Wooden Ryerson or Crassia.

Nick Arndt (18:52)
He drives like this F-150 with this oversized trailer out to Plessisville to get this Max Pro and I'm like, wow, this is kind of a sketchy setup, but this is really cool. ⁓ So that is all intertwined. if like me, there are a lot of people around my age for the last 10, 15 years wanting to be a part of industrial professional store removal. And when they start digging into it, they find that

Bob Green (18:55)
you

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (19:20)
well, Canada has it pretty figured out, which leads you to, where are these inverted blowers coming from? Well, which will lead you to some searching, which leads you to Paul van der Zandt, and you were right there with van der Zandt in the middle of it. Now, at that same time where the inverted model was spreading to the United States, Metal Plus is also starting to take off. Van der Zandt's using them, which really helps it get to the United States. So that is a big tie into how you got

Bob Green (19:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (19:49)
started working with Metal Plus because Paul was selling them and representing them in the United States, which a few years later led to you coming on board with Metal Plus. Maybe talk about how you got started at Metal Plus. When did you start?

Bob Green (20:03)
So

this is a funny story and I'll tie in Jason Whitmore, of know, Vice President of Sales at Metal Plus. So we did a couple of open houses at the Vanirzon Garage that Metal Plus was the prime, it was like a mini trade show, a one day show at the Vanirzon Garage and Metal Plus was there, a couple of tractor dealers, Skihr system.

Nick Arndt (20:09)
Yep.

Bob Green (20:29)
I don't know if you've ever seen Skier System, they have that very cool leveling blade for ⁓ skid steers. ⁓ Was there anybody else? ⁓ so Entrenaise was there, which was Paul's other company that he had. They made the sticks and the Coroplast, soul shovels.

Nick Arndt (20:33)
Yeah. Yep.

The sticks

are way different in Canada. ⁓

Bob Green (20:51)
Yeah,

so, you know, it was a mini

because Paul also, the trade show at a shop, we did it two years in a row, meeting Jason, know, he's a super personable guy, big personality, and maybe there or after, I shot him a text saying, know, because Paul was working full time, and then his brother Rob, who's one of my best friends, and like my top five favorite people on the planet was working there, so I just wanted to work with them, because I missed them, you know?

Nick Arndt (20:56)
trade show at a shop.

Yeah.

Bob Green (21:24)
And I

Nick Arndt (21:24)
Yep.

Bob Green (21:24)
was getting fed up of I was getting fed up of the the snow removal Being in the juice all the time. So that was my first touch to Jason Hey, and he texted me back saying why would you want to leave what you're doing? I just said well It's an age thing because in the summer your landscaping it's hard on the body ⁓ Just like the you know Try something different, you know months go by the pew is probably the next year when big Jason turned into big little Jason Which is another story ⁓

Nick Arndt (21:31)
Yeah.

Yeah. Whole

other story. Jason is.

Bob Green (21:54)
Yeah,

Jason kind of shrunk. He...

Nick Arndt (21:57)
⁓ Good

for Jason. It's still awesome every time I think about it.

Bob Green (22:01)
⁓ yeah, whenever

I find pictures of old Jason, was like, So we talked again. I probably did a follow up text. then Rob was getting he he Rob loves something he loves. Everybody loves his kids. He likes to be there when his kids are around. know, he wanted to cherish every moment of those three growing up. And they're all super duper athletic, involved in every sport possible. ⁓

Nick Arndt (22:04)
Yeah.

Bob Green (22:29)
And he didn't like being on the road and missing even practices. He just wanted to be there. He wanted to always be there. And it was just getting to be too much. then his mom got sick and he just honestly said to Jason, I'm not giving everything I can to do this job properly. So Rob, he was at the garage at the VanderZone garage one day and he had a truck with

plows on it he was going down to Toronto for the heavy equipment show and he said I'm resigning when I come back so it'd be a good time to hit Jason up but he goes wait till I come back so Rob texted me and he goes okay call Jason so I sent a text to Jason saying hey you know just following up it was the end of the season it was it was like March so you know I was in the garage taking everything apart and so Jason got the text from Rob or the call from Rob and then he called me he texted me saying are you available for a call

And we would talk about my role at Manorzani. He went, oh man, I never knew. He goes, I thought you were a mechanic. Cause every time I went to the garage, you were in overalls and you had grease from here to your feet. So, So he had no idea that I did everything, not everything. I did majority of the stuff there. Tony was there too, but I was the operations manager every day running stuff. So Jason had no clue. I went and had an interview with.

Nick Arndt (23:27)
Yeah. See?

Lurking in the shadows ⁓

Bob Green (23:48)
Jason and Jimmy at this cute little restaurant in Plessisville and you know explain my role to Jimmy and Jimmy looked at me right away He goes, okay How much do you want? He hired me on the spot based on my you know, because they were getting someone They could fix a plow who could run a loader who could talk to talk and I was quite honest with them I said don't ever expect me to be a high-pressure salesperson because I'm not I'll always answer my phone But I'm always gonna tell him the truth and I do I tell my clients the truth. You don't need that Why do you want to buy that? You're better off with this?

Maybe you're not ready for that yet. I try to always steer my clients in the right direction and I told them at that point not to expect me to be a used car salesman. And I think clients get that from me that I know what I'm talking about because I come from the industry, I sat in the chair, I've been underneath getting gear oil dumped in my face. I've tried to put a tire, a wheel on a tractor loaded with calcium. I've done it all, been at minus...

800. So I think they get they understand when they talk to me that I'm not just a greasy salesperson. I'm a greasy mechanic.

Nick Arndt (24:57)
I'm gonna be greasy mechanic. Well,

it works out so good now. Like honestly, the diversity of your background. Like when it comes to technical questions, you can answer almost everything if not everything. in sales, I found also I'm not pushy, but people are looking for you to give them almost all the answers. We can't answer everything.

Bob Green (25:11)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (25:23)
But the more you can answer, the more you know about parts and service and how the plow actually works and how their dealership actually works, ⁓ which is more what I've focused on because that's my background. But the more you know about what their actual business is, the more they're gonna rely on you and trust you. And I think Metal Plus, starting from when Paul and Jason brought the Metal Plus product over,

Bob Green (25:37)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (25:49)
Paul wasn't a salesperson hired to bring the product and just, when someone asks a technical question, say, let me look it up in a book. Paul knew what was going on with the plow and how to use it, because he had, we gotta give credit to Paul. He's responsible for a lot of the cool product everyone's using now. When he saw a winner, he knew it. And when he saw a metal plus, it was a winner.

Bob Green (25:52)
No.

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (26:14)
and it brought you along in the same way, but you have that same background. You have that same trustworthy, if there's a Metal Plus owners group on Facebook, if there's ever a technical question, Bob is right there to answer it. And I think that's super unique that most of the time reps know the sales program, but they don't know, they haven't sat in the chair, know, they haven't faced the struggles. And so that worked out so good. And so you...

You started, what was that, 2019?

Bob Green (26:45)
Yep, March 2019. And I started as a territory manager like yourself. I had New York, Vermont, and Pennsylvania. ⁓ And not long after Steve Sopanjak got hired, I gave him Pennsylvania. And Jason, that's kind when I got my first promotion, Jason made me his assistant. So whatever that title was, I had assistant general manager or something, but we didn't have a general manager at Metal Plus, so I was assistant to nothing.

Nick Arndt (26:47)
March 2019.

Yeah.

You just weren't allowed to be the yeah. We can't make it. We can't make you the full thing. We got you're climbing too fast. You're the assistant. You're the Dwight Schuett. You're the assistant to the regional.

Bob Green (27:15)
But it was just a way to give me a different title, know, it was cool, was fine, I got a new business card.

So yeah, that was in.

Like, jeez, January 2020, right before COVID hit. Then COVID hit, you know, and then everything got weird. ⁓ But let's back up a little bit to how you and I met back in the good old Instagram, the good old days. Yep.

Nick Arndt (27:47)
Yeah, because we're getting to that intersection.

2017, then you come on board to Metal Plus 2019. You and I talked a lot during that time because I had, know, most of the time, Quebec's a little different. Like it might be a little different now, but there's not a lot of French Quebecers posting stuff online about what they're doing.

Bob Green (27:55)
Yep.

Nick Arndt (28:08)
I don't know why I just found that most of the people I were interacting were English Quebecers and you were one of them and I'm like, this guy's in the VanderZone garage. wait, now this guy works for Metal Plus? Like you were the ultimate insider for me about what's going on. And so yeah, get to your point about us interacting.

Bob Green (28:12)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So yeah, I mean there was a lot

of back and forth. We shared a lot of pictures and we just chit-chatted a lot and I think we kind of fed off each other's friends lists. You know, our friends lists grew from each other's. And then I took over to Paul's dismay the RDO chain. Just because I was quick. Paul traveled a lot. He wasn't always available. But I was quick and I think you kind of realized that and you started placing orders with me and you were the first

Nick Arndt (28:33)
Yep.

Yeah.

Bob Green (28:55)
big booking we ever did in the US. ordered all these crazy, cause Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, when my eyes was like Paul, like minded to Paul that you always saw the potential of something new and different and you wanted to change the market, you know, and you, ordered stuff that we weren't really selling anywhere else, but you, saw a place for it. And, we talked more and more and more. And then I said to Jason at one point, I want to hire Nick.

Nick Arndt (28:58)
Yeah. You're welcome.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Bob Green (29:24)
And I think I kind of made some hints and innuendos about you coming to work for us and then that, you know, one thing led to another

Nick Arndt (29:31)
we'll, get to this later. I would say I've always wanted to be in the sort of territory manager role and, and, and, and be the person that helps people, helps dealers learn and sell more equipment. So yeah, when it came time, when it came time to, for me to take the next step in my snow removal equipment career, ⁓ my relationship with Bob was the key.

Key to that all happening. ⁓ Yeah, that's where it all started. So I dealt with Paul and I dealt with Jason and I dealt with you. At the end of the day, sometimes, and I find this now with my dealers too, getting information to them the quickest is the most important thing. It isn't so much being there to shake their hands and all that because they're busy, it's getting them information super fast, especially when there's a problem.

It's who can I text, call or email and help me resolve this situation. And you were always super fast at that. And again, I think that's because you understood the urgency of the industry. This industry is all about, boy, we have six months to plan it out, but it is all about emergency, emergency, emergency, emergency from October to April. is, whoa.

Bob Green (30:36)
Yes.

The planning out thing, it

hasn't been Snow Removable Company's strong point over the years. It's getting better, I find. They're planning better now. ⁓ But yeah, so when Nick came to ⁓ Cleveland, Syma, that was one of the mini trade shows that year was post-COVID when Syma did four trade shows. One was in Cleveland. It was the main event. And we had a great interview. spent two days at the show and yeah.

Nick Arndt (30:53)
No.

Yeah.

Yeah, two or three days hanging around the show and hanging

around with you guys.

Bob Green (31:16)
Yeah,

and then Nick, learned Nick's adventurous side the day after the show and he dragged me all over Cleveland. We went to every team's sports store. still, I'm...

Nick Arndt (31:22)
Oh, oh. So I like going to trade shows and you really gotta take

a little side quest here is that when I go to a city for a trade show, I instantly start looking at one, what is there cool to go see like touristy things? I don't care how touristy it is. Two, are there sports teams specifically baseball playing while we're there? And even if we're not, we're gonna go to the stadium. But that started a long journey of dozens of

Bob Green (31:43)
Yeah.

Nick Arndt (31:52)
trade shows of me dragging Bob everywhere like, we're gonna go see Louisville Slugger Factory and have, you know, see baseball bats made. We're gonna go see, my gosh, all kinds of things.

Bob Green (31:56)
Ha ha.

That was cool. It was

Vegas though. Vegas was crazy. One day we'd go left out of the hotel, one day we'd go right out of the hotel after. And Con Expo, for people who have never been, it's a five day trade show that if you walk, if you're attending the show and you try to see everything and you just walk up and down every aisle, it takes five days and you don't make any stops.

Nick Arndt (32:16)
So long.

Bob Green (32:27)
You're not stopping at John Deere, you're not stopping at Metal Plus, you're not stopping, you are just looking, looking, looking, looking. So that's the scale of ConExpo. So we walk 25 to 30,000 steps during the day and then Nick would be like, ⁓ what hotel are we gonna go see tonight, Bob? we'd go, it was just crazy.

Nick Arndt (32:46)
I didn't want to, didn't like, we had this thing, like,

⁓ I didn't want to gamble. And I don't think any of us really did gamble at all. I just wanted to see every single hotel. Cause I had been to Las Vegas in high school for a baseball tournament. I hadn't been there 20 years. I'm like, can we see them all? And like, we literally walked around for hours upon hours every evening and just went through the lobbies of each one. Well, this one has this cool, this one has this cool. Like connoisseurs, like we could have started a blog about the interiors of these things.

Bob Green (32:52)
No.

Yeah.

Nick Arndt (33:16)
But that's, yeah, going back to Cleveland, that was my first dragging Bob around to stuff. Bob's gotten healthier since then because I must, the step count has escalated. drove, like, well, the Cleveland Guardians baseball, and we were there when they transitioned from the, like, I like saw, they took the Indian sign down and put up the Guardian sign. like, well, this was cool timing. But like,

Bob Green (33:21)
Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah, they were still.

Yeah, well didn't they have

both kinds of mercs still in their store? Like they had Indian Spearsies and the Guardian stuff was rolling out.

Nick Arndt (33:43)
They had it like, they, it

was just rolling out. Like it was just at the transition time. But yeah, that was Cleveland 2021. And then I came to work at Metal Plus at 20 in the fall of 2021. And my first official show was GIE.

Bob Green (33:57)
Yep. So

we haven't talked about your background on how you got to be RDO Nick. Who was Nick before RDO Nick?

Nick Arndt (34:05)
Yeah. So it's unconventional.

Oh, before I do it. So it said to me, it's clear that you were sort of born to be a snow fighter. Like you were, you were in Quebec where all the cool stuff gets developed. I always tell people that when they ask why does the best snow equipment come from Quebec? go, when you think about it, where else in the world?

Is there a super populated area where it snows so much? Like it is by necessity that people developed this cool stuff in Quebec. Other places in the world, mountainous regions, they're doing a different type of snow removal. There's a population where it's just dumping, dumping, dumping snow 100 inches or more every year consistently. by necessity, people have made, like Jimmy Vino has made amazing snow equipment. ⁓ And that's where you were born.

I was not born in snow. I was born south of Seattle, Washington in Tacoma, Tacoma, Washington. And ⁓ I started in the same sort of way as a, it was an unglamorous childhood. ⁓ My parents owned a landscaping mowing company. It really was just one crew of mowing where for a very early age, I was out mowing all spring, all summer doing small landscaping jobs.

Like it was a laborous childhood and we weren't the most efficient. So from a young age, and maybe I started mowing professionally at age 12, my brother was nine, ⁓ questionable there. ⁓ Labor laws, labor child labor laws, wasn't a farm either. ⁓ So I was always thinking like, what could we do to be better? Like we're not using the best stuff. Like I was always like from the...

Bob Green (35:44)
Ciao, Lieber.

Nick Arndt (35:56)
from an early age looking at the other crews going like, why don't we have that? Why don't we have that? Like that's the way my brain works. Like we could do this better and faster with some equipment. Well, at my parents company, we never got that equipment. We'd get a new truck. We'd get a new truck and my dad would be like, this thing's too expensive. I don't wanna make the payment on this anymore. ⁓ Well, in high school, my parents took over a transition out of landscaping labor into, they purchased a small,

Bob Green (36:08)
Hahaha.

Nick Arndt (36:25)
power equipment dealership, the one we went to. So we were familiar with it. And it was a really small shop that focused on service, repairs, repairs and parts, and high-end equipment geared at landscapers. That's why we went there. It was very personable for the professional landscaper, even though it wasn't big and fancy, it was a very, very small shop. In high school, they did that. And I worked there helping them all through college. ⁓

And then after college, I worked in advertising for a little bit, but like it was clear that I needed to be there to help them. And so I started taking these interesting angles at it where we would see a Home Depot. The Home Depot popped up right down the street from us carrying some of the same brands we did. Like what was I going to do to differentiate our stuff? What differentiate us? One, it was service. Like our service. I worked on systems to get stuff repaired, to have the parts, to get things out super fast.

I wanted to run it like a restaurant. know, like there's front of the house where the sales happen, there's back of the house where the mechanics worked. I really looked at it as a restaurant and I got it running really well. We focused more and more and more on catering to landscapers, to pros, and we started bringing in other brands. Like now it was my chance to get the equipment that I wanted as a kid, but I didn't get to use it. I just got to help other people enjoy the benefits of it.

So it brought me into some interesting brands. It brought me into Walker Mowers, which are a unique high-end one of a kind type thing. I think similar to Metal Plus and similar to the Metal Plus customer. There's a lot of crossover between Metal Plus owners and Walker Mowers owners, especially in Fargo here where I am. But so the shop became a real specialty shop. grew ultimately. ⁓ Well, as you know, I wasn't involved with snow in the Pacific Northwest. It snows a few times a year.

It's a huge disaster. Like it's mostly ice events. The snow is gone by the next day. It doesn't really get super cold. It snows up in the mountains if you want to go skiing, but there's not like this industry of snow removal. There are people that offer it. ⁓ but the average landscaping mowing company has nothing to do with snow removal. Therefore I had nothing to do with it, but I would get the trade magazines. So they it's, you know, there's industry magazines about dealerships and you know, equipment and selling equipment. And I would

for whatever reason also get the the snow editions. And I thought this snow stuff is cool. Like mowing grass, like anybody could do that. Like this snow stuff is awesome. Like these blades, like these metal plus started running like print ads during the VanderZonish area of Live Edge. And I thought, my gosh, like this, this, these people are making new things. Every mower kind of looks more or less the same besides that walker.

Bob Green (38:59)
you

Nick Arndt (39:19)
the snow equipment is so cool. And there were stories about Paul and there were stories about Paul from the service side of how he grew this inverted snowboard. I'm like, what? A snow blower that's backwards? Like just mind blowing. The way it still is for a lot of young people now when they see how cool it is, people are so drawn to the cool snow equipment. So I thought, you one day, one day I wish I could be a part of this snow stuff. Like this is so cool. Well, what ended up happening with my family's dealership is we, ⁓ the family,

Bob Green (39:37)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (39:49)
My mom passed away who I ran with ran the dealership with and I had an opportunity to start over anywhere I wanted more or less and my wife and I decided let's start completely over She speaks Norwegian. She majored in Norwegian in college. She went to a Lutheran school Pacific Lutheran in Tacoma, Trust me. The Norwegian degree is really paying off now It's not

Bob Green (40:13)
I'm

Yeah

Nick Arndt (40:17)
But she was like, I've always wanted to live in like Minnesota someplace Scandinavian ish. And we started looking at, you know, small towns in Minnesota, North Dakota. And we came upon Fargo and thought, Fargo is, Fargo is interesting. It's not too big. It's really a great place to run a family, to raise a family. And ⁓ I ultimately connected with someone running a Walker-Mower dealership in Fargo.

One day picked up and moved out of Washington and literally just drove across in my Subaru Outback with possessions we could fit in the car and started over. Now, when I got there, that's when my snow journey, that's when I realized I was born to be a snow fighter because instantly I started saying, what can we do? There is equipment that is not in Fargo that needs to be here for snow stuff. So while we focused on mowers, I quickly got us focused on unique snow products.

One was, well, the big one was Ventrac. So there wasn't a Ventrac dealer in Fargo. And to me, I'm all about marketing and all about the exciting thing. Like people buy the excitement and buy the emotion behind the product. And Ventrac was out there making amazing products and videos. And I brought Ventrac in. started, and this is where the whole social media thing started too, was that I started making videos of myself and other operators running Ventracs.

Bob Green (41:16)
Right.

Nick Arndt (41:43)
and we started selling a ton of them. And that's what got me, it got me to know the people of the snow removal industry really well was being kind of not the voice of Ventrac, but a real vocal proponent of it. ⁓ And ⁓ I fell in love with the snow world. Like the snow equipment industry is super cool. They're super cool products. And I've been enthusiastic about it ever since. And I was posting a lot of videos, so simple back there then to just

Bob Green (42:12)
Yeah.

Nick Arndt (42:13)
take a

cool picture with the sunset in the background, that was sort of my signature, throw a filter on there and be like boom, explodes for hundreds of likes or whatever views. Again, I'm the one who wants to keep taking steps, so ⁓ in 2017, I moved over to RDO, the biggest John Deere dealership group in the world, headquartered in Fargo.

It was strategic that I moved to Fargo because there's so much awesome equipment going on here. There's Bobcat headquarters, there's Titan Machinery headquarters, there's John Deere facilities and plants, there's Case IH plants. It is an awesome place for equipment if you're into it. Lots of opportunity for jobs. I moved over to the John Deere dealer with the goal of building their commercial snow business or commercial landscaping slash snow business and that's exactly what I did. I...

I took those 4066R tractors, started selling inverted Norman blowers, was the first to bring in a metal plus plow to put on a 4066. People said it wouldn't work. We proved it did. Hundreds of those units later, shout out to Jasper Jacobson. He wasn't the first one to buy that setup, but I was posting videos, which I really think encouraged my end users to post videos and pictures on Instagram and YouTube. ⁓

Bob Green (43:19)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (43:33)
Jasper Jacobson posted a 4066 Metal Plus setup ⁓ video that ended up getting, I don't know, it's a million views. It's more than a million views. I haven't checked recently, but that really skyrocketed things too. Now I'm getting calls from all over the country to sell them that setup because it's not the easiest thing to set up. It's not the easiest thing to ⁓ be a part of. What I found instantly and I already knew was the coolest attachments were coming from Quebec.

Bob Green (43:50)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (44:03)
but there's some barriers there. Like the companies, like Bob is English, English Quebec, but the companies are generally French, primarily French Quebec. There's communication challenges and in dealing with Bob and dealing with Paul and dealing with Jason who are English, that was a huge motivator for me. at first it was very hard to get access to this stuff just because the cultures were so different. Well, at RDO, it really took off, like the inverted game.

We were selling dozens and dozens of those setups. Farthest I ever shipped a tractor and set Metal Pless inverted blower out to was Alaska. a shout out to Nick Moulcare and Anchorage, believe, wherever Santa's Village is. Because I thought it was the coolest thing that I sent a tractor and Metal Pless and played literally to maintain Santa's Village on Santa's way. I don't know where that's at, but it's so cool. But it just became a thing where I was posting

Got to know people and became sort of a resource for the for Americans a bit About you know, would what really escalated things was posting just really basic videos to YouTube explaining what I was doing explaining what the attachments I was putting on the tractor Explaining the accessories I was adding to the tractor or we were adding at RDL They gave me the the go-ahead to do this. So thanks to them. I really got it really got a shout out them but but it

Again, I wanted to do something more. Since I was a kid at my family's dealership, I always thought when the sales reps, the good ones, came in, because there's bad ones that are just like, here's the sales program, see you later, what are you gonna order? The ones that actually got to know us and could help and knew what was going on, I thought, I wanna do that someday. The daily grind of a dealership is sort of probably what it was like with Bob and landscaping, and I'd been there too, was, man, this is a lot of work, I wanna.

not scale this, but I want something a little bit bigger. So I thought, where else but the snow stuff, which is now my life. And so when I wanted to move into OEM sales, my first thought was, is, and Bob and I had got to know each other really well by then. It was like, how could we get this going? Like Paul, it was.

good timing because Paul, who was technically the rep for this area, I'm the upper Midwest, I'm Midwest and Western United States, ⁓ was eventually gonna retire. And like when Paul came to visit me as my rep at RDO, it was a real surreal thing because I had read about him as a kid more or less in my dealership magazines in Seattle, having never seen more than four inches of snow at once. And now here I am interacting with him.

Fast forward to October 2021 when I came on board with Metal Plus. I'm now working at a trade show standing right next to Paul VanderZone and we're tearing down the show and it's sort of surreal. Like me and Paul are having dinner together one-on-one and we did it. Me and Paul had lunch together one-on-one in Cleveland too. Like it was a surreal thing. Like here I am with Paul VanderZone. Like how did I get to this point? was really, really divine intervention. But like the real mind blower to me was I'm at GIE Expo.

biggest equipment show outside of ConExpo in North America. I'm standing here. We're literally bribing, bribing forklift drivers to get us our show box so we can move out faster. Like, well, now I'm in it. Like, I'm in it. Like, this is this I'm a full fledged, you know, I'm neat. I'm a snow fighter now. And that was the point.

Bob Green (47:45)
There's no fighter.

Nick Arndt (47:49)
where I realized, yeah, this is what I was supposed to do. And now I talk about snow removal, like it's just this normal, normal thing, but it wasn't. I never realized I was born to be a snow fighter and now my daily role at Metal Plus, I get to help dealers and end users with their snow fighting journey. still to this day, Bob and I talk and it's just like it was at the very beginning where, like we never talk, like there's stressful things definitely happen.

Bob Green (48:08)
Yep. Yep.

Nick Arndt (48:17)
with customers, with sales, whatever. But when Bob and I called to discuss something, the conversation never ends on a sour note. We're always like, yeah, this sucks, it's also kind of funny. We take the same, and I think that's why we get along, and I think this podcast will do well in our interactions. We have the same approach where even when things are going bad, because it's inevitable in the snow industry that things go bad.

Bob Green (48:28)
What are you gonna do with it? It is what it is.

Nick Arndt (48:47)
⁓ We never have a conversation where it doesn't end in this just kind of laughing it off. So now I've been with Metal Plus for about four years and there's definitely been some stressful ones. But every day look forward to working because the team is really, really, really good. Like the sales team, the office, everybody from the top down working for Jimmy. Jimmy is the innovator of the industry. Everybody's out there saying they innovate.

There's an innovator in the industry, his name is Jimmy Vino, and we get to benefit from selling the coolest equipment. And in the future, more cool stuff. Like there's no stopping what we can do. And that's why Bob and I are so enthusiastic, I feel, and we bond really well over it.

Bob Green (49:32)
Yeah,

yeah, and part of this podcast is not to be ⁓ pushing metal plus plows, but I will push metal plus plows because I really believe in the product and I think it is the best plow on the planet. Hands down.

Nick Arndt (49:39)
Nope.

Yeah,

and the same thing, when I was selling all kinds of snow attachments at RDO, and at the end of the day, I thought to myself, what's the most proprietary, cool, awesome thing? And I'm like, it's a metal plus wing plow, it's live edge. Like, I gotta be a part of that, because the way I sold stuff was enthusiastic, and what I was most enthusiastic about,

was Metal Plus and Live Edge in the Wing Blade concept. To me, I couldn't go sell something else and pretend I was excited about it. I just couldn't do it. So it just worked out so well that the timing to me to come work for Metal Plus was there. so.

Bob Green (50:29)
Yeah, was just

timing for me to things happen for a reason and that's why we're here now.

Nick Arndt (50:35)
Yeah, so I don't know. think this is a good place to end it. The future for us in this podcast is really just, ⁓ this was a get to know us a little bit. Most of you already kind of have an idea of who we are, but get to know our background a little bit. And moving forward, the episodes will definitely be digging into our end users because the Metal Plus family is what makes Metal Plus what it is. I like to point this out to people as like Jason and Paul brought Metal Plus to the United States.

Amazing product by Jimmy, but it's the Metal Plus family, the end users that have made the brand what it is. I mentioned Jasper Jacobson earlier, but there's people from my world that I wouldn't be here where I'm at without them. Eric Welk making amazing video from Welk's Lawn Care about Metal Plus. Dude, Nate Shustad from Green and Black, all people that me and Bob interacted with together as a ⁓ group.

Bob Green (51:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (51:34)
Like it's the end users that have made metal plus what it is. And we, we want to have the podcast to celebrate those guys into, into infer. And for the general public, the snow removal public that might consume this, they might not know some of these people cause they're not the most vocal online. ⁓ that's who we're really targeting to, to, to put out there into the world and to introduce you to.

Bob Green (51:56)
Yeah,

we have a pretty cool, and I keep calling it an eclectic list of guests that are going to roll through here. like Nick said, not the social media influencers. So some of them are. Some of them are huge influencers. But I would say the most part of them are very quiet. But they've got interesting stories. And they're just really, really cool people.

Nick Arndt (52:16)
Yeah, the people running Metal Plus are some of the most awesome people. Like you wouldn't believe it. It attracts a certain type of person, honestly. It's an innovator. It's someone that wants to do it correctly. And ⁓ to me, that's what me and Bob are all about. And so I think with that, we'll end this one. I think I could get talking and go a little bit too long, but that's the way our conversations go. So Bob will call me about a particular deal that's going on.

Bob Green (52:36)
Yeah, we could keep going.

Nick Arndt (52:44)
and I'll look at my phone and realize, ⁓ shoot, we talked for an hour. And so that's about what we did here. So let's end it here. Thanks everybody for tuning in and there'll be episodes to come ⁓ that expose you to the most excellent people in the snow removal industry, those who are truly born to be a snow fighter. So thanks for listening and we'll talk to you later.

Bob Green (52:47)
Pretty much, yeah.

Yeah, and take care.