4: Metal Pless History + Looking Into The Future (AeroPless/EuroPless) - Jason Whittemore

In Episode 4 of the BORN TO BE A SNOWFIGHTER podcast, Bob and Nick sit down with Jason Whittemore - Executive Vice President of Metal Pless. Jason was the very first member of the Metal Pless sales team, and he's been a key figure in the growth of the company since the early 2010's. Jason started on the road, working with dealers in Ontario. Today Jason manages the AeroPless (airport) and EuroPless (European Operations) divisions or Metal Pless and travels the world, spreading the good news of Metal Pless and our ever-advancing technologies. We hope you enjoy Jason's stories from the Metal Pless "early days." We've come pretty far!

Come see Metal Pless and upcoming trade show in North America, including the Landscape Ontario 2026 and remember - Metal Pless™ is always copied, never duplicated!

FROM THIS EPISODE:

Watch the original Dirt Ninja Metal Pless videos, with millions of views:

CLICK HERE

Reach out to AeroPless for more information:

CLICK HERE

Watch Jason explain Metal Pless hydraulic wing technology:

CLICK HERE

See the new AirportMaxx on Instagram:

CLICK HERE

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Watch BORN TO BE A SNOWFIGHTER episodes on YouTube:

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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:

CLICK HERE

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 and welcome to the Born to be a Snowfighter podcast, the story of the Metal Plus family. I'm your host Nick along with my co-host here Bob and today we have a good guest. We have Jason Whitmore, executive vice president at Metal Plus and we're gonna talk about the early days. Jason was there long before any of us. He saw the birth, ⁓ how Metal Plus was born in the United States and other areas.

and we're gonna get to know Jason a little bit ⁓ and talk about his background. So Jason, welcome to the Born to be a Snowfighter podcast.

Jason Whittemore (00:51)
Hey, thanks Nick, thanks Bob, thanks for having me.

Nick Arndt (00:55)
So Jason, explain your role today at Metal Plus and ⁓ how long you've been with Metal Plus. Let's start with that.

Jason Whittemore (01:02)
So today I executive vice president I managed the ⁓ airports around the world as well as our European division, Europlus. ⁓ That's kind of what keeps me busy every day. ⁓ The history, been around Metaplus for 15 years. Started back then just as a salesman. was actually the very first full-time salesman that Metaplus ever hired. They did have some part-time salespeople but I was the very first full-time salesperson.

And my job was, in the very beginning, was to grow outside of Quebec, because METALPLUS was very well concentrated in Quebec, very dominant, ⁓ yet very small outside. So that's what I started doing, and I started with Ontario.

Nick Arndt (01:47)
So that's a challenge, right? So I've been in the snow equipment industry for about, I would say 12 years, and I do come across lots of brands in Quebec, but it's a challenge to expand them outside of Quebec. So ⁓ it's a bit of a different culture, a different world in Quebec, right? So expanding, there's a lot of snow brands that stay in Quebec. It is a challenge to move into English, Canada, and United States, is it not?

Jason Whittemore (02:15)
It is, it is. And also the fact that we are very different. We did have technologies that just weren't available outside of Quebec. The market is very different. Quebec is a territory that's progressed very well in the snow removal industry, often years ahead of others as far as technologies and operations. So going to Ontario and presenting our products, it required... ⁓

A lot of tenacity.

Bob Green (02:48)
Jason, in the beginning, I because I've run into it out West, like I'm talking out West Alberta and whatnot, you get a little bit of the, don't want to buy from Quebec because they're Quebecers and it's French and they're the Frenchies and we're the English. Did you run into that? Because I mean, Ontario is, you've got two halves, you've got Anglo-Ontario and Franco-Ontario. When you got further West, did you ever run into that block? Like, I'm not going to buy from you guys because you're from Quebec.

Jason Whittemore (03:12)
I mean, yes, it happened at first, of course. There was a lot of, you know, not a lot, but there was some who just were hesitant to deal with the Quebec company. You know, I've heard French frogs, Frenchies, I've heard it all. But as much as the majority were very welcoming and happy to see me and willing to discuss, yes, they were also very cautious dealing with the Quebec company just because of the language barriers and the different culture.

Bob Green (03:25)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Whittemore (03:42)
But that's where it required a lot of work on my side to make sure that I was their contact. You needed anything, it was me. So from parts, service, repairs, everything went through me. So that really helped to create some trust and really helped to grow ⁓ Metal Plus outside of Quebec.

Bob Green (04:02)
So I got a question for you now. came from a non-industry, you came from out of the industry into snow. You didn't have a huge mechanical background. I mean, your wife's family are farmers, so you were exposed to that a little bit, but it wasn't your upbringing. And now, I mean, you trained me on all the technical service stuff, metal plus related. You helped out Yannick get to where he is.

How was that for you in the beginning? what's a diverter? Like, you know, like all these things that Jimmy brought in to make...

Nick Arndt (04:39)
Yeah, how did you figure this

out? Because when I first started at MetaPlus, figured, or I first got to know you, I figured that you were one of the engineers that designed the product because whenever there was a technical question, you could explain what was going on. Yeah, explain how you got involved with that. how did that happen? Was it by necessity or were you, are you generally interested in the design of everything?

Jason Whittemore (04:55)
Yes. ⁓

by necessity and I had a great teacher, Jimmy. ⁓ So yeah, was actually a life insurance salesman prior to Metal Plus, so I had zero knowledge of hydraulics and mechanics. ⁓ Last time I tried to do a noil change, back when I was in my 20s, it cost me a radiator. So I am not a mechanic. I knew nothing, but I had to learn.

and I had Jimmy being the best teacher and I do have a photographic memory so whenever he would explain something I see it in my mind. I was able to take it apart in my mind so I always said I can basically do anything, fix anything on a blade, repair it as long as my hands don't touch it. I'll give the knowledge and let someone else do it. So it was basically whenever from day one, hydraulic wing.

Bob Green (05:47)
That's funny.

Jason Whittemore (05:56)
It's a hydraulic wing so he had to teach me that you know it goes on the side it opens. It's got an axis. Okay you know the cylinder and Jimmy would draw pictures and show me how everything right down to the little components. I had it all in my mind. So I had an encyclopedia of the metal plus blade built in my mind so was able to whenever there was a service or a problem I was able to easily find it but don't ask me to go weld anything. I can't do that.

Nick Arndt (06:23)
But this is important though because being on the dealer side ⁓ for many many years 20 plus years 10 years selling snow equipment Having a contact that can answer all the questions is super critical So I do like honestly if that hadn't have been a one-person operation back in the day I don't know that metal plus expands the way it does so when I was working when I first initially started working with Quebec brands at

⁓ At RDL my John Deere dealer. It was critical that someone could answer questions with minimum With minimum delay with minimum problems in English ⁓ so I would say that I dealt with lots of the Quebec brands because You know, we didn't have pushback on a new technology people. We had pushback on the day-to-day operations How are we gonna communicate with these folks? How are they gonna get us parts? How are they gonna explain parts? How what's the part starting process?

Where's the parts diagrams? I would say that when I dealt with a brand, the one that could help my problems, and those aren't necessarily sales problems, they're majority parts and service and accounting problems. Those are the brands that stick around when you're dealing from Quebec to the United States. So you are that cog. Explain what you did at the beginning. When you...

or brought on at Metal Plus, you were in sales, were you just told, hit the road, we need this other places, or was that your idea? Did you see something and go, this is genius, we gotta make this a thing in other areas of the world. What was your motivation at the beginning?

Jason Whittemore (08:03)
It was hit the road, mean, but you know, it was funny how it all started too. So I was actually, again, I was in life insurance. I was trying to sell Jimmy life insurance. That's how this all started. He's the president, right?

Nick Arndt (08:12)
So for those, we talk about Jimmy all the time. For those who are listening who don't know,

Jimmy is the owner, the president of Metal Plus. He's the designer, the mastermind behind the product. Yep.

Jason Whittemore (08:23)
His dad founded Metoplass, Luke. So Jimmy took over

from Luke. so I was trying to sell Jimmy life insurance basically. And I'd have a meeting and I was able to present something and I'd go back a week later.

He'd say no, I'd offer something else, and then he'd say, well, give me a price. I'd come back a week later. He'd say no, give me a price. After three, four meetings, says, dude, says, I can't say no to you. Whatever I say no, you always have something to back it up with. So says, I'll give you a job. And back it up.

Nick Arndt (08:52)
I don't want the life insurance,

but I'll hire you.

Bob Green (08:54)
Yeah.

Jason Whittemore (08:55)
So I just said no right off the bat. I was not interested in the job. I was happy in life insurance. I was gonna do my career there and Two years later, it was actually two years. I wanted to grow in the company and anyway, there was some blockades in the life insurance so I went back to see Jimmy and I knocked on his door and I said hey you offered me a job two years ago still available and at this point he was ⁓

slowly slowly growing in Ontario. know a few blades here and there. There's like three four dealers that would buy from Metal Plus back in those days. And ⁓ so it's like how can we grow it to be a copy of Quebec? You know get the volume that we get in Quebec out in Ontario. So he says you speak English you're able to go. So take your car and drive down on Monday. Go to the GTA. You know knock on doors and come back on Friday. So that's what I did for ⁓

four or five years, literally Monday, take off in the morning, 7 a.m. get in my car, drive down seven hours, by three o'clock in the afternoon you hit our first couple customers, sleep in hotel, Tuesday you see some others, Wednesday, Thursday, head back home Friday. I did that for four years.

And a big shout out possibly to our very first dealers in Ontario. Even before I started, had Stewart's Equipment, who was a very good advocate of Metal Plus products. Total Rentals with Jeff Eerklunds there. There was Connect Equipment. So we had some really good dealers in the very beginning who did sell our green tractors. So I had a little base to start off on. So basically I went to see all those people and I asked every one of those salespeople, can we go see your

customers so we'd get in the car and go see their customers and then I'd ask questions and find out and what do you know anyone else that could use this are you looking for more and then from there as I would drive if I'd see a dealer I just stop in and say hey I'm Jason from Metal Plus do you know who we are and most of them did not so we had to had to start somewhere but

Nick Arndt (10:54)
So

these were the days, you know, before social media was really a thing and a Metal Plus user could post a video and a million people could see it really quick. So, Plus was growing slowly, naturally, and was already established in Quebec. ⁓ Since you're an employee, I don't know what number you are, but you're way back as far as anybody else on the sales team. There was an established market in Quebec and it was growing and people knew what it was.

but it wasn't being promoted, right? Was Metal Plus going to any trade shows? People would just happen upon it and say, hey, I should get one of these, but it wasn't, there wasn't a lot of marketing is what I'm saying.

Jason Whittemore (11:36)
No, there was not. was before social media. well, I mean, that being said, I don't know when Facebook was founded, but it was just not as popular as today. So keep in mind when I first started, how do I market this? put a, I had a pickup truck and I put a little mini blade on the back of the truck and I would drive with that and just go show people open, know, open the back door of the truck and take the hydraulic wing and I would move it left and right and see what a hydraulic wing is. Cause people didn't comprehend. It was just new. It was different. So yeah.

Nick Arndt (12:03)
So you were out

there on the road spreading the good news of the hydraulic wing. So was that the first product you were out there promoting or were you promoting live boxes?

Jason Whittemore (12:08)
That's how it's for.

Yeah.

Nope, no, Livebox was not started just yet at that time. Hydraulic wing, there was two things that I would show whenever I would go to dealer, I would convince them to walk outside to show them my product, right? That was a...

Nick Arndt (12:16)
Okay.

This is not

easy because having grown up in a dealership and worked in a dealership for 20 something years, when a random salesman comes in, especially if they don't have an appointment and they say they wanna show you something, like dealership life is busy. Like, I gotta be dragged out to the parking lot. this better be really cool because I don't wanna do this. So I can imagine it wasn't easy. Yeah.

Jason Whittemore (12:44)
It was a challenge. It was a challenge.

I had a very good success rate. I guess I was very convincing to be able to get people or you know got to smile and do pretty eyes who knows but I was able to get them outside, open the tailgate.

move the wing. That was the number one thing I would do which would then look at it like, well, what is that? It didn't make sense to them. It was too much. The second thing was the paint. Back in those days, we were the only ones to do baked powder paint. Nobody did baked powder paint. We were the only ones. So I had, I would take my keys and I would scratch the blade, right? And I would show them, look, even scratched, the paint is resistant, right? It's not like liquid paint. So those were the two things that I would work on to start convincing people. But yeah.

Nick Arndt (13:24)
So

this was the hydraulic blade and metal plus the originator of the hydraulic blade. What were people saying when you showed up and you showed this complicated blade? What was the initial reaction?

Jason Whittemore (13:37)
There was

two types of reactions. There was the wow, like this is really, this is gonna kick ass. This is gonna be awesome. This is gonna be very efficient, very productive compared to just your regular pushers or even buckets at that time. And then you had the other people who'd look at it like, it's gonna tear apart. That wing is gonna break off on the first night. And they'd say, you gotta make this bigger, make that stronger, change this, change that. And I'd be like, well, we've never ripped off a wing yet, so I guess we're okay. I won't work. So it was a bit of both.

Nick Arndt (13:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, I always find that interesting, because when I first started selling hydraulic wings and other metal plus product, they would, you the initial reaction was, that's not gonna work. That's not gonna work. But when I would tell people, no, it has worked in Quebec for the last 10 years, you just haven't seen it. That was sort of the same thing you were going against, because in Quebec, they were using our hydraulic wing. It just needed to, people just needed to see, right?

Bob Green (14:22)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Whittemore (14:32)
Correct. Correct.

Bob Green (14:34)
And Jason, you lived this more than I did, but I started in 2019 at trade shows, and it was at the tail end of the whole too many moving parts thing. So trade shows, I think people were just saying it because they had nothing else negative to say about the plow, because it was and is the best plow in the market, but it was like, yeah, there's too many moving parts, blah, blah. Now in 2025, nobody says that anymore.

Jason Whittemore (14:57)
No,

Nick Arndt (14:57)
Yeah, that is weird.

Jason Whittemore (14:59)
and I remember the very first trade shows we did, especially in the US, because keep in mind that, again, Quebec, there's a lot of manufacturers. do a trade show, you go on a trade show floor, there's five, six, seven, eight manufacturers. That's very common in Quebec. Go to Ontario, there was one or two. mean, there's another manufacturer in Ontario, and there was us, right? That was kind of it. That's all you saw. Go to the US, there's four five of them, but...

nobody did hydraulic wings. it was a for us to come in with our the very first trade show I did I think was in Minneapolis I can't recall it was in 2011 and or 12 whatever and it was

Nick Arndt (15:37)
could have been Northern Green

Expo.

Jason Whittemore (15:40)
I believe it was a Syma that I did the very first one anyways, and it was an agri-max on a Kubota tractor and People were looking at it was just out of this world because everybody just had pushers or you know that that combination of a pusher that has a straight blade that clips onto a pusher or like that was it that so everybody would come into you know, and of course try to Talk bad of our product right too many moving parts that won't work. That'll never work. There too many moving parts, you know

Nick Arndt (15:42)
Okay.

Yeah.

Jason Whittemore (16:08)
And it's funny because today, as you said, Bobby, you walk a trade show floor, well, everybody copied Metal Plus. I mean, it's all the version of a Metal Plus somewhere. So it changed.

Nick Arndt (16:18)
Yeah, so yeah, like it says on my hat, innovation starts here, which is something we've been talking about for the last two years, because, yeah, I would say the shift has happened even in the last five years where the pushback was too many moving parts. Well, then it became the standard of the industry to have the efficiency of a wing blade. Then there was a little lull where no one said too many moving parts. Then everybody just started making a wing blade. So they're like, yeah, well, it's okay now. It's okay.

Bob Green (16:46)
Can't beat them,

Jason Whittemore (16:47)
Now

it's okay.

Bob Green (16:47)
join them. ⁓

Nick Arndt (16:49)
Yeah, it's okay. ⁓ so in the early days in the hydraulic wings, ⁓ do you remember ⁓ the first hydraulic wing that you sold in Ontario or do you remember a particular story about the early days when someone was just blown away or it was a huge success for the dealer and it led to more and more sales? what?

Jason Whittemore (17:10)
Well, I

mean, I don't remember the very first one, right? There's many, but one that was very interesting and that we worked a lot with and became very popular on social media was Tom from the Dirt Ninja. Everybody...

Nick Arndt (17:25)
Yeah.

Jason Whittemore (17:26)
A lot of people have heard of the dirt ninja. So Tom reached out to us wanting a blade and I had no idea who Tom was back in those days. So met up with Tom. Great guy. Absolutely great guy. Beautiful family today, Tom. He's got and anyways, he wanted a metal plus. So we hooked him up with a metal plus and he started doing these videos and he had a Max Pro 1224 on a Caterpillar 9

Nick Arndt (17:48)
Yep.

Bob Green (17:54)
26.

Jason Whittemore (17:55)
926 or 926 maybe? Yeah, I think that's what it was. Yeah, exactly. It was for us too small, but he made it work. So Tom is such an awesome operator. He made that thing work, I can believe. Now you got to remember, 1224 back in those days, we didn't have the volume of today, but we might've sold, I don't know, one or two 1224s in Canada, US, you know, it was very little.

Bob Green (17:58)
It was too small, but he did magical things with it.

Nick Arndt (18:03)
Yeah.

Jason Whittemore (18:25)
Then Tom came, Dirt Ninja Videos, next thing you know we're doing about 50 of these things per year. Everybody wants a 1224 on the same cat loader. Everybody, everybody. So Tom really helped us out a lot with his social media.

Nick Arndt (18:35)
That video.

Bob Green (18:38)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (18:40)
Video, know, I was in the dealership industry, of course when that came out in I don't know how many hours I watched those videos in in Tom shout out to Tom too He not only made a video which is now very common of the GoPro You know actually showing operation, but he went through and said hey, here's how I set it up like it's a basic rocker switch set of hoses Wiring in into the cab wasn't that bad. I think that demystified a lot the whole

Bob Green (19:08)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (19:09)
too many moving parts because when you look at a Metal Plus blade, it has a fraction of the moving parts of your wheel loader. It's really just a few cylinders, one wiring harness and one set of hoses. So...

Bob Green (19:18)
Yeah.

Nick Arndt (19:23)
that thanks to the dirt ninja things really really took off but it wouldn't have got to that point and wouldn't have been a he wouldn't have been able to bring one into the united states if you hadn't started working on getting more product into the u.s and so you we've talked a little bit about ontario hitting the road how about in the u.s when what there were blades there were blades in the u.s trickling in one or two here and there and in the typical story is someone

hears about it or sees it and goes, what do I gotta do to get one of those? But working through dealers was the key. Explain the early days in the US, maybe your relationship with Paul and how that played a role in it, but it's something that I don't know all the details about.

Jason Whittemore (20:05)
Yeah, so I'll actually go a little bit further in time if I can. And this is actually before me. So Metal Plus, ⁓ now we're in the, I'm gonna say late 80s. So late 80s, early 90s, Metal Plus was selling ⁓ the Max Edge and the Pusher Max pushers. So there was two brands of pushers that Metal Plus sold through the Team Storm division. some, a lot of people.

Nick Arndt (20:27)
Team Storm, Team Storm, we talk about Team Storm

as a real funny like, ⁓ what did these things used to be called? Because it wasn't always Metal Plus, right?

Jason Whittemore (20:35)
No,

no it was and back then it was Metal Plessy. So because Metal Plessy is a little bit hard to say in English, the Team Storm came around. So Metal Plus was divided in Metal Plessy back in the day was divided in three divisions. You Team Storm, Team Ag and Team Track. So your Team Ag was your land levelers, whatnot. Team Track was the tracks on the tractors, which we don't do anymore. We haven't done that in a long, long time.

Nick Arndt (20:59)
Yep.

Jason Whittemore (20:59)
and

Team Storm was your snow products. So the two major products for the US back then was the Pusher Max and the Max Edge. So one was a rubber edge, the other one was a steel edge with a trip edge. And there was a lot of those sold in the US, especially on the East Coast, a lot, a lot, a lot. In the 2000s, it slowed down. The sales of those Metal Plus Pusher Blades slowed down. When I first started, ⁓

the US it was like basically one blade a year here and there. It was very, very minimal. So we started slowly growing that and then came around this gentleman named Paul van der Zon. So Paul van der Zon comes to one of our trade shows in Montreal and Jimmy presents him to me. He says, oh, this is Paul, know, he's like a, he's like an idol in the snow and he's the Wayne Gretzky of snow. That's how Jimmy presented the Wayne Gretzky of snow.

Nick Arndt (21:53)
The Wayne Gretzky of snow, just a really, really large

Wayne Gretzky of snow, yeah.

Bob Green (21:57)
Hahaha ⁓

Jason Whittemore (21:58)
So said, this is a Wayne Gretzky of snow and Paul wanted to work for Metal Plus. So we actually did a couple of trade shows, him and I at the very beginning. And then came the Saima trade show, the first one I went to, the one with the Kubota tractor on with an Agra Max 1016. So Jimmy says to me, in private, says, go with Paul, go with Paul and find out what this guy's all about.

spy you know it was basically what I what my job was it was good to go see and like what is all this about and I mean I've done a couple trade shows with Paul at that time which he was very you know very professional very normal but then you get to Simon that's a whole different Paul so Paul everybody at Simon knows Paul

Bob Green (22:43)
He's a rock star, yeah.

Jason Whittemore (22:43)
Celebrity Paul,

celebrity Paul. And I mean, so the second day I'm at the show, there's the awards ceremony and he's winning the fourth year in a row of being a recruiter. Like what the heck, what is this? And everybody's cheering and everybody, I'm just standing around Paul, right? I know nobody. So I'm just standing around Paul and you he's presenting me to everybody and like everybody knows the dude. Like what is this? We go to events and he's a celebrity.

to go in front of others and people let him go by and like, what is this? pretty much, pretty much. So yeah, that was how it all started. And then Paul was out there on the road and meeting with ⁓ dealerships as well. A bit like I did in Ontario, he kind of started that in the US, brought on some interesting users, a couple of them that became very large, large customers.

Nick Arndt (23:16)
After you, Mr. VanderZon! ⁓

Jason Whittemore (23:41)
One of them that I can recall, he's no longer there today, but he was a very large customer, bought a lot of our units. And that just, of course, got the ball rolling with others here and there, and dealerships came on board, and here we are today, right?

Nick Arndt (23:56)
Yeah, so Paul, in the US it was different. Earlier you mentioned that when you brought a Quebec product out west, in Canada people are like, ⁓ I don't know. It was different in the US because the snow guys that were researching things back in the day, and back in the days only 15 years ago, we knew that the cool stuff was coming from Quebec. we had no, we had no.

qualms about bringing in Quebec product, we just need to figure out how to do it because most everybody was speaking French. Along comes this guy named Paul who speaks English, who is on all the forums, Neige on snow plow, a plow site or whatever. This legend grows. Then there's a story or two in the trade magazines about how he's using a fleet of inverted tractors operated and maintained by Bob Green here. ⁓

Bob Green (24:33)
Yeah, place, plow site,

Nick Arndt (24:49)
And so he was a celebrity because of how like Simon was promoting him in the trade shows, you the trade industry publications were promoting him. So he shows up. He's he wants to be involved with Metal Plus. You must have wanted to take take it and run with it like we got to. This is our chance, right? So Paul and you are setting up dealers and really growing the brand. You hit gold with the Dirt Ninja video.

⁓ Yeah, if there's anything else you want to add to how things grew in the United States.

Jason Whittemore (25:21)
Yeah, I mean,

and there are so many great stories. Actually, I'll just come back a little bit. You mentioned earlier about the United States wanting to Quebec. That is one thing that, the language could have been a bit of a barrier, but I never had the same pushback in the US as I did in Western Canada or outside of Quebec. You know, the Frenchies, the French, you don't hear that in the US. The average American wanted Quebec products and wanted, they knew that, that's the one thing I would hear is you guys know snow.

Nick Arndt (25:38)
shoot.

Yes.

Bob Green (25:47)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Whittemore (25:51)
You guys get snow, you understand it. You guys know what you're doing. Like I would hear that all the time. You're trying to sell your product and the guy's telling you, you guys know what you're doing. Like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I know, just buy it now.

Nick Arndt (25:52)
Yeah.

No, that's about all we know about,

that's about all we know. So I'm in Minnesota, North Dakota. That's about all we know about Quebec is you speak French, you make really good snow product. There's some hockey up there. There used to be another hockey team, like no hesitation whatsoever. ⁓ Just hopefully when we call someplace, they answer in English, but if they don't, we can figure it out.

Bob Green (26:09)
You

Jason Whittemore (26:13)
And we have poutine.

Bob Green (26:13)
Nuts put in, yeah.

Jason Whittemore (26:28)
Yeah, yeah. So that's kind of how it started. And then with Paul, yeah, you were saying we were going on the road and Paul and I did so many trade shows. We were a team. We were a great team working together. Boy, oh boy, did we have some fun. I don't recall how many trade shows per year we're doing together at one point. I don't know, 10 maybe, I don't recall. But just traveling everywhere and promoting our product and going on the road together to see the end users working out.

little problems when they would happen which were quite rare but you know being there was important and we were there so.

Bob Green (27:03)
I mean, Paul and Jason spend so much time together on the road that they would finish each other's sentences, they could order each other's food. It was awkward being the third person, like three was a crowd. They would sit together, they would sit together on one side, I would sit on the other, the waitresses would always think, are these guys married?

Nick Arndt (27:11)
I'm not.

Jason Whittemore (27:13)
I would iron his shirt and he would put peanut butter on my toast.

Nick Arndt (27:14)
Okay, no.

No, that's the same

Jason Whittemore (27:22)
you

Nick Arndt (27:23)
thing when I started it like I knew both of them individually because they both came to see me at RDO but when I started at metal plus my first trade show was GIE or equip expo in 2021 and we're renting a we rented an Airbnb outside of Louisville and I show up I the house of the mouse that's a story for another time but

Bob Green (27:38)
the house of mouse.

Nick Arndt (27:44)
I show up and Paul and Jason

are interacting like, are the shirts ironed? Yep, I got that done. It's like this team, they've obviously been out on the road doing this because it's working seamlessly and they're getting along. And that energy obviously was a key contributor to Metal Plus growing because when it comes to trade shows, that can't be overlooked because even to this day, even though you could see a Metal Plus video, thousands of them,

Bob Green (27:49)
Hehehehehe ⁓

Nick Arndt (28:12)
right now on your phone or computer, early days especially, people, and now too, they walk up to a trade show, they go, so this is what they look like, and they touch it and they go, ⁓ man, I've wanted one of these for years, but like, I needed to see it. So, some people will buy just based off the videos, word of mouth, but some people gotta see it. So, you're out there pounding the road doing the trade shows in...

Bob Green (28:25)
there.

Nick Arndt (28:40)
and that was the key contributor to it. So MetaPlus has always had a history of contributing and participating in trade

So let's talk about...

Let's talk a little bit about where Metal Plus is sort of going today and maybe your role now, because while we're on the topic of trade shows, if we do a lawnmower trade show or one that's more geared toward the mowing industry where not everybody that walks by knows what a Metal Plus is or what a snow plow even really looks like, the first thing I say is, wow, you must do airports with these. And even if it's an 813, it's a humongous plow compared to what they've seen.

Bob Green (29:18)
Right.

Nick Arndt (29:19)
⁓

Explain what you've got going on these days in airport industry in JSON and just give us a little rundown of that.

Jason Whittemore (29:28)
I mean we've been selling to airports for a long time and bigger and bigger bigger blades so the very very first big blade the really really big one the 2444 the 15,000 pound blade the very first one went to Quebec City

and that was a request brought in by the operator at Quebec City Airport who asked us for a 44 foot blade so Jimmy designed it and we actually have a bunch of pictures of that very first blade the whole factory floor is outside standing in front of it taking a picture.

Bob Green (30:01)
Yeah,

it's out in the yard. Everybody that worked the metal plus stood in front of the plow and there's still room for more

Jason Whittemore (30:05)
Yeah, there's plenty of room. There's still plenty of room.

And funny also is when we build that blade and we had to load it on a truck while we didn't have sufficient loaders to lift it, it was too heavy for the equipment we currently had. So again, an average blade for us, a big blade was a 1016, right? That was a big blade back then. 813s, 814s.

even Max Pros, didn't do very many Max Pros back in those days. So having a 2444, we brought our little loaders, had little Komatsu, the little Deere loaders, like basically the size of a Deere 244 or Cat 908, trying to lift a 15,000 pound blade. So we actually had to bring in two other loaders, which were still underpowered and at...

as we're lifting the blade up, know, the ascent of the load is lifting off the ground. It was quite spectacular to see that blade being delivered. Since then, we've had those blades delivered all over the world ⁓ from Canada, US, out to recently in Istanbul and Turkey, Geneva, Switzerland, ⁓ London, in UK.

Bob Green (31:12)
Iceland.

Jason Whittemore (31:15)
Iceland everywhere. So we have blades all over the place at airports. It's done through the Aeroplus division. So we have the Aeroplus division which is specialized for airports as far as the product goes and the service that is required by the airport business. yeah, so that's kind of my full-time job right now. Just keeping on growing that kind of.

trying to duplicate what we did elsewhere but now with airports let's get that going everywhere combined with that is we have a Europlus so we have a team we're four people out there based out of France ⁓ and with Europlus it's all the European market growing the Metalplus side out there which is a challenge because that's a whole different ball game. ⁓

Bob Green (32:02)
Yeah, I want to ask you

about that. you've gone out of Quebec into Ontario, introduced the product to the Ontarians, did the same thing in the US. Now you're doing it. US, Canadian, Quebec cultures are all kind of similar. It's a big melting pot here. Now you're going to Europe where the standards might be different, cultures different. How is that bringing this Quebec made product and explaining it to, well, we'll start with the French because that's in France. And then how is that?

Jason Whittemore (32:29)
Well, I mean,

Bob Green (32:31)
or the trade show is there.

Jason Whittemore (32:31)
let's just start with the culture. mean, imagine how different the culture is in Quebec from Montreal, Quebec City to, let's say, you know, Gatineau. Right there you have three different cultures. Now let's go in Ontario. Now you've got a different culture. Go to Western Canada, different culture. The US, a different culture. Now we've got all sorts of this big different cultures.

But like you said, at one point they do resemble one another. Even though people think they're completely different, like people saying they have different snow, right? They always have a different snow. Different cultures. Now you go out to Europe. That's a different culture. That's a very, very different culture. Very different demands, very different requests. Very interesting, lots of fun. I'm not saying that it's bad, not at all. It's wonderful, but you gotta adapt to it. You have to adapt to the culture. ⁓

There's countries that I went to, we're not used to this, right? We see each other, we give each other a hand. Well, there's other cultures that they want to kiss you on the cheek when they see you and say hello.

Nick Arndt (33:30)
That's a no-go. That's a no-go for me.

Bob Green (33:30)
Nick, how would you like that?

Nick Arndt (33:33)
So when I I mean they

when I visited Plessisville in Christmas time and people want to do the two kiss cheek thing I was like, do I really have to do this? No, they they pulled me in they pulled me in for it So if that if I visited somewhere where that was a regular thing, no, no good. I'll stick to the US Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I that's what I'm talking about that no

Jason Whittemore (33:50)
What? Nick, hold on. Exactly. Exactly.

Bob Green (33:50)
Trump, but Jason's talking about my men, not just the women.

Jason Whittemore (33:57)
So when you have the sales

manager, a man, and he's got a wife and kids and everything, but that's their culture. They come and they kiss you on the cheek, and it's insulting if you don't do it, right? So naturally, you go with it. You go with it, you gotta respect it. I mean, I've seen another country where holding hands is very normal.

Nick Arndt (34:03)
Yep. ⁓

Please don't transfer me. Please don't transfer me.

Jason Whittemore (34:19)
So men do it, women do it, not as a couple, just holding hands. you know, but on day two of being with these people and working together, we create a bond, we create trust. And at one point we're outside and he just comes up to me and holds my hand and holds my hand going back into the factory.

Bob Green (34:19)
Hmm

Yeah, I'm gonna keep my hands in my pockets now.

Nick Arndt (34:39)
Yeah, what country was that? I want to know. I'll make sure that I keep that one off the list.

Jason Whittemore (34:40)
You know, it's, ⁓ but it's also

very flattering. mean, that's, that's because they trust you. They trust you. They, they, they, they, you, you, you've become part of them. And that's where, that's where I get a lot of ⁓ appreciation out of it. You know, is it out of my comfort zone? Absolutely. But to, to, to get that trust in such a short period of time, that, says a lot, you know, it says it's good people, right? So it's nice to meet great people like that.

Nick Arndt (34:47)
Yeah.

Bob Green (35:05)
Yep, yep, I can see that,

Nick Arndt (35:08)
It's gotta

be sort of an amazing thing to stop and think about it where this journey of 15 years ago, you're trying to sell Jimmy life insurance and there's blades in Quebec and there's blades trickled in through North American little spots. Now you're standing there in Istanbul or Iceland or wherever going, or the Swiss Alps and you're like, wow, this has come a long ways. yeah.

Bob Green (35:26)
The Alps.

In a short time, in a short

time, 15 years isn't very long.

Jason Whittemore (35:38)
Absolutely, never would I have thought that back then. I absolutely never. I remember in the very very beginning, many times in the very beginning, Jimmy and I would chat and you know we knew what sales we did last year and I've always been, my last name being Whitmore, I had a nickname that was said Wantmore, Jason wants more right? So I always want more and I would throw a number like we're gonna do this and he's like you crazy and yet today that's a fraction of a...

Those numbers are a fraction of what it is today. But it was always about going more more and more. But even then, never would I have thought that I'd be in Europe ⁓ traveling the world and promoting our products everywhere.

Bob Green (36:14)
Yeah, that's amazing.

Nick Arndt (36:15)
Well, it

speaks to this idea that I tell people all the time is I don't know of another place on earth in a populated area that's flat and has everything, has housing, it has retail, it has everything. There's no other place that it snows as much as it does in Quebec where it's so necessary to move that snow out safely and quickly to keep everyone safe in the wheels turning.

In Europe, it's a little bit different. The airport says, of course, it's different, it's bigger stuff. But like in Europe, it's snowing in the mountains. It's a different style of blade a lot. You know, there's not a million people in every town. In Quebec, it's the epicenter. And it's happened to be that a lot of the innovation, if not almost all of the innovation, comes from Quebec. And at the heart of that has been Jimmy, you know, our boss who we work for that is designing this stuff.

You know, Jimmy influences the world of snow removal, not just North America. So I think it's so cool that we're out there. know, an Aero Plus plow is just a bigger version of someone's 813 that they're using in Fargo, North Dakota. It is a super amazing thing to think about.

Bob Green (37:29)
Well, in Quebec, know, in the US, we have the innovation starts here. In Quebec, we're saying we're the world leaders in snow removal innovation now. The world leaders, not just, not North America.

Jason Whittemore (37:42)
Absolutely,

absolutely. as you said it, hydraulic wings, live edge, there's so many, so many, so many other things we can name off. And in the airport industry right now, what we're looking at is a product called the Airport Max. So we found a way to uniquely transfer the weight of a blade to your vehicle, yet keeping the quality of the scrape on the ground. Very unique blade, very unique way of working. And we're gonna revolutionize the industry, the airport industry with this blade all around the world now. And again, that's like you said.

Comes from Jimmy's mind.

Nick Arndt (38:13)
So the same thing applies to the commercial contractor in Minnesota or Ontario or Winnipeg. Scraping clean, moving snow as efficiently as possible. The same principles are key to ⁓ the airport industry, correct?

Jason Whittemore (38:27)
And

even more so, mean, the cost related to having a Boeing 737 parked by the gate waiting for it to be cleared of snow, that's phenomenal. I mean, you can't compare that to, you your Starbucks not being open. It's a whole different ball game. So if you're able to get in there and clear that gate, like many airports do that have Metal Plus blades, clear it in minutes versus to...

Nick Arndt (38:43)
Yeah.

Bob Green (38:43)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Whittemore (38:53)
I'm not going to name the airport, but I've seen airports where you're sitting and watching them and an hour and a half later, they're still working at it. They're not done. They're still working, clearing that gate. It's phenomenal. We're no longer in the thousands of dollars. We're in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So ⁓ it's absolutely important for the industry to become more more efficient, more productive.

Nick Arndt (39:14)
And there's tremendous growth available because when people think about airports, they think about the runways and that's one type of product. But again, just clearing the gates. I was sitting at a major, major Midwest airport for a few hours during a snow delay this this this last winter. And I saw them using humongous 844 John Deere's with 20 foot boxes that our own Steve Sopanik probably welded himself. And

They're using 10 or 15 844s with 20 foot boxes just pushing the snow, not back dragging very well. Just use it like, wow. Even in the clearing of the gates, there is tremendous opportunity for the whole world to be more efficient at snow removal. So it's cool that you get to be a part of that.

Jason Whittemore (40:03)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Nick Arndt (40:07)
So we've talked to sort about where you started, the growth. Are there any other metal plus stories from back in the early days that you might wanna tell? Because you're way back there. You're way back there compared to everybody else.

Jason Whittemore (40:16)
there's so many. There's so many. ⁓

Let's go with the funny one here, because you mentioned earlier and it kind of stuck in my mind. I forgot about it. But borderline embarrassing, but let's have fun here. It's going to include Paul. ⁓ So him and I, as you said, we worked so well together and had so much fun. I remember we did this trade show. was in... Where's Elvis Presley? What's that?

Nick Arndt (40:29)
boy.

Bob Green (40:29)
You

Nick Arndt (40:44)
Graceland?

Memphis? No? Yeah, okay.

Jason Whittemore (40:46)
Memphis. We did a trade show in Memphis.

And we're staying at the hotel right there. We're next, not far from where Elvis Presley's thing. I can't remember the name of hotel. And we did the trade show. it's the evening. We had dinner and there was ⁓ kind of in the lobby, somebody was singing, playing the piano and everybody was kind of just sitting down. So Paul and I sit down, order some drinks, you know, and next to us, there's this couple, I'm talking with them and they were from Canada. They were from

Ontario, I can't recall. So we're just chatting, we're chatting. And at one point I say, you know, they're talking about their kids and whatever, so I say, how long have you guys been together? You know, and a few minutes later, she says to me, says, how long have you two been together? But here's the thing, here's what I say, eight years, it never dawned on me. I thought she was gonna ask colleagues. And then Paulie's like, no, no, no, Jason, Jason, no, no, we're not.

Bob Green (41:27)
That's good.

Nick Arndt (41:28)
yeah. What a couple.

Yeah.

⁓ man.

Jason Whittemore (41:42)
I'm like, ⁓ no, no, we're not together. We're just colleagues. But.

Nick Arndt (41:42)
Yep.

Bob Green (41:48)
boy.

Nick Arndt (41:48)
man, what a relationship.

honestly, you and Paul, as we've grown, we've added people. That was the key to it growing in the United States, particularly, is that relationship that you guys hadn't worked so good together. We wouldn't be where we're at today. Like I say when I go to trade shows and they ask me to say something at a dealer thing, go, history of Metal Plus just a little bit.

Paul and Jason were there laying the groundwork. They made it possible for our end users who have really grown Metal Plus to run with it. And if you guys weren't there laying the groundwork, it wouldn't have happened. So yeah, thanks to you for where we're at today. Metal Plus definitely has a bright, bright, bright, bright, bright future. We'll never stop innovating. We have stuff lined up for years to come. Yeah.

My final question then would be to you Jason would be did Jimmy ever buy life insurance from you?

Bob Green (42:52)
Hahaha

Jason Whittemore (42:54)
Actually, not at that time, but after starting, he did. He did. He actually did buy life insurance, but I was already an employee of Metoplast, but he did, yeah.

Nick Arndt (42:57)
Okay.

Okay,

so you didn't get a commission on that one, but you got something much better. got...

Jason Whittemore (43:09)
Yes, I did it. I was still on for just like

Bob Green (43:10)
What?

Jason Whittemore (43:12)
borderline and I needed a couple extra sales so he helped me out so

Nick Arndt (43:16)
Aw

Bob Green (43:16)
I'll

Nick Arndt (43:16)
man.

Bob Green (43:16)
just add a little anecdote to this because when I went for my interview I went to middle plus office Jason met with me and then Jason went off to do Jason stuff I don't know what here and I was just sitting in the reception it was a small little reception there was a displaced case of stuff you could buy some swag and whatnot and I knew Jimmy I knew Jimmy but he didn't know me and he kept walking by and he kept looking at me at the corner of his eye walking back

Walk by about 10 times. Then at lunch he goes, I thought you were a salesperson trying to sell me something so I didn't want to say hi to you. So that's what Jason had to deal with when he first started trying to sell Jimmy life insurance was that wall of Jimmy. Because salespeople come and try to sell stuff all the time, right?

Nick Arndt (43:46)
You

Jason Whittemore (43:56)
And he so badly did not want to buy anything that when I would arrive, he would purposely make me wait 45 minutes in the lobby. And his door was open. I could see him. He was there.

Bob Green (44:08)
He's playing video games.

Jason Whittemore (44:10)
You

Nick Arndt (44:11)
It takes that persistence. Like they

say sometimes it takes three times, you know, asking someone for them to say yes. And after you ask them the third time, the percentage goes way up. So I guess that's what we've done. We keep going back to these trade shows. We keep reaching out to people and yeah, now, and that's still what we do today. Trade shows and ⁓ connecting. Now trade shows are a little different. It's about connecting with the end users too. So they've shifted a bit, but it's still a very important part of what we do.

Jason Whittemore (44:20)
Absolutely.

going at it. Meeting new people all the time.

Nick Arndt (44:40)
So let's wrap here Jason. Thank you for giving us a little history about your involvement with metal plus you're still a key cog in the whole big wheel of metal plus today and We look forward to working with you for years to come and growing the metal plus brand throughout the world.

Jason Whittemore (44:59)
Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Bob, for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for everyone watching. yeah, we're here for quite a while.

Nick Arndt (45:06)
All right, so this has been another great episode of the Born to be a Snowfighter podcast, and we look forward to the next one. Thanks, everybody.

Bob Green (45:06)
Right on.