BORN TO BE A SNOWFIGHTER - The Metal Pless™ Podcast
Get to know the incredible people that make the Metal Pless™ Family special. We talk with like-minded folks from throughout the snow and ice industry, all with a common goal - to EFFICIENTLY pave the way to a safer environment. Metal Pless plows are "always copied, never duplicated," and our people are originals too!
BORN TO BE A SNOWFIGHTER - The Metal Pless™ Podcast
6: Phil Sexton - WIT Advisers, and the "Tragedy on Ice"
(Part 2 of 2 with WIT Advisors.)
In Episode 6 of the BORN TO BE A SNOWFIGHTER podcast, Bob and Nick sit down with Phil Sexton, founder of WIT Advisers and the SWiM® (Sustainable Winter Management). In this fascinating conversation, Phil discusses the environmental problem that the usage of road salt poses to our water sources, the history of salt usage in the United States (spoiler: it might have started with the "Miracle On Ice" in Lake Placid at the 1980 Olympics), and what snow clearing professionals can do to become part of the solution.
Phil's background in landscape and snow and ice management is extensive, and his unique knowledge of industry environmental impact (including graduate research at Harvard), is unmatched. The conversation concludes with an discussion on how WIT Advisers, much like Metal Pless, is helping clear the way for a safer environment.
Come see Metal Pless at upcoming trade shows in North America, including the Landscape Ontario 2026 and remember - Metal Pless™ is always copied, never duplicated!
FROM THIS EPISODE:
Learn more about WIT Advisers and the SWiM® (Sustainable Winter Management) Program:
Read SWiM® research mentioned in the episode here:
Watch Paul Vanderzon explain the benefits of LIVE EDGE technology at the 2015 Salt Summit:
Learn about salt-reduction efforts and the annual Salt Symposium from the Lake George Association web site:
Read an article from the Lake George Association describing the partnership with Metal Pless:
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Watch BORN TO BE A SNOWFIGHTER episodes on YouTube:
Follow Metal Pless on Instagram:
Follow Metal Pless on Facebook:
Connect with Metal Pless on LinkedIn:
Own a Metal Pless? Join the Metal Pless Owner's Group on Facebook:
Listen to "Born for This" by Royal Deluxe on Spotify:
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Contact Metal Pless directly:
go@metalpless.com
1 (866) 362-1688
Nick Arndt (00:13)
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Born to be a Snowfighter podcast, the podcast
you learn about people in the metal plus world, the metal plus family. Today we have a very important guest in the snow and ice removal industry. We have Phil Sexton of WIT Advisors and we're gonna have a good conversation with Phil about his history. He's really done it all in the landscape management industry. What he does now is super important as far as
preservation of our environment goes. we're just going to ask Phil some questions and have a good conversation. So Phil, thank you for taking the time to be here today.
Phill Sexton (00:52)
Yeah, thanks guys, thanks for having me.
Nick Arndt (00:55)
All right, so Phil, give us a little background of your history in the snow and landscape management industry, because it seems like you've done a little bit of everything.
Phill Sexton (01:08)
Yeah, and it's interesting when we were sort of prepping for this, I too often sort of forget sort of like how this all came about, but I think it's maybe always important for me to remember sort of where I came from. So, I I grew up in a really small ⁓ farming village in central New York, a little place called Waterville, which I'm ⁓
I'm just really proud to have grown up there. ⁓ you know, I think, I think a lot of my background sort of came from that culture environment. They're just working hard. That's another tough industry to work in. It's a tough industry to make a margin in. ⁓ Milking cows was never an easy thing, but people still need it. Just like plowing snow is not an easy thing either. And kind of sometimes hard to make money at that too for some.
bizarre reason. So, um, but, uh, when I, when I look back at that history, then it's like, I, I, you know, I think that growing up in that sort of agriculture environment sort of then instilled like a passion for horticulture for me, somewhere in that also, like, I think, I think, uh, even though my family were not a family of farmers, but I, you know, most of my friends were, and I, I grew up sort of
helping people milk cows and do all that stuff. so it's a very interesting ⁓ correlation. Like I think I have a good friend, Mike Mason's his name actually, who you guys should probably have him on your podcast sometime. I met him through Sima years ago and he's always described the landscape industry as being urban farmers. And so I just, I always sort of use that term when it.
Bob Green (02:59)
Mm-hmm.
Phill Sexton (03:03)
when it sort of pops up appropriately. um, but I guess where I'm going with that is like, think even farmers are, they're, probably one of the most innovative entrepreneurs that are out there in the world that most people don't really realize. Right. Like, and I'm not talking about like the big sort of factory farms that have sort of, sort of become sort of a reality. They, but it's more like, but even those huge farms,
just like a lot of other industries acquired other small farms and then rolled up to be bigger farms. so it's, I've always said like the farming industry, I think is always been like at least a couple of decades ahead of the snow industry. It's like now we're suddenly the industry that's measuring salt outputs, but barely, right? Like we're still learning how to even do that. And they've been measuring with similar technology for
at least the last couple of decades, if not more, and they're already automating their tractors and farmers fields. And I think we'll eventually automate, you know, plows in the parking lot, right? So, but we'll probably be 30 years behind them as we always seem to be. but I just sort of state that upfront, like the, again, even though I wasn't raised by farmers, but I was very much influenced by that industry. And, you know, even when I first attempted school, ⁓
Bob Green (04:12)
Right.
Phill Sexton (04:31)
I've been going to school for a long time too, which is kind of weird. But when I first attempted school, that's what I did. I went to an ag and tech school, Canton tech way up near the Canadian border. even there I worked on the farms and milk cows. I came home and I smelled up the dorm room and everybody hated me for it, but whatever. Right. But that's where the background started. And then.
Nick Arndt (04:52)
boy.
Phill Sexton (04:58)
Somewhere along the way I was really fortunate enough. I continue to say like my experience in this industry really has been you know intermingled with quite a bit of luck just running into and being mentored and coached and influenced by the right people along the way and so I was very fortunate when I made us I think it was my third attempt at college so ⁓
you'll learn that I struggled as a student for a while. ⁓ my third attempt at college, I went to another ag and tech school, Mooresville College based in central New York. And I was recruited by ⁓ a fellow by the name of Dave Lindorfer from Rupert landscape. And suddenly I ended up, ⁓ got, I got accepted to Virginia tech. was supposed to go.
⁓ studying their landscape program there and I was going to go work for Rupert and I did I worked for Rupert for number of years they're a big player in the mid-Atlantic ⁓ and I never actually went went to Virginia Tech I ended up just kept getting promoted and really loved you know the commercial landscape industry somewhere right before that I had started my own landscape business in central New York and just you know I just kept playing around with horticulture and landscape and then
Bob Green (06:20)
you
Phill Sexton (06:24)
Because of where I grew up, I think is really what influenced my passion for snow, because I literally lived in the center of the snow belt. Right. So like central New York, everybody thinks about Syracuse, New York and Buffalo and all that. And we actually were in the little area where I live. We actually got more snow than those big cities. Right. Because we got we got kind of northeasters and lake effect. And we just kept you know, we got dumped on a lot. But.
Bob Green (06:48)
I kept getting dumped on.
Nick Arndt (06:50)
Thank
Phill Sexton (06:50)
But because we were such a small community there, population wise, people didn't necessarily measure the snow there, but we were getting 120, 140 inches of snow a year all the time. And I loved it. And so then my first plow truck was a 1976 Chevy Silverado with the fenders on the side that were really flapping from the rust.
Nick Arndt (07:16)
You
Phill Sexton (07:16)
I would just
like ⁓ roll paint it every year with a roller just so it looked clean and it had an old Fisher plow on it. And ⁓ I've been running Fisher ever since for some reason on my trucks. But and so all that. Right. And so ⁓ and then that sort of brought me to I got recruited by Rupert at that college. And then that sort of changed my career path because then
Suddenly I was working for this, you know, know, Uberly legit company, millions of dollars. They actually were the, they were really one of the first companies ever that sold and, you know, became sort of part of the initial wave of mergers and acquisitions in the industry. And then it's very interesting. Then they started up again. And so they're, they're, they're way bigger than they were the first time. Right. But
But that again was, you know, all the way from Craig Rupert, who started and owned the company, to many people there. I just learned a lot. And then I ended up leading a tree company that was a subcontractor of mine, Harbor Care, down in Rockville, Maryland. A guy by the name of Kevin Clare gave me an opportunity there. So I learned a lot from him as well.
And then all along the way I was sort of being subtly recruited by Brickman, ⁓ which no longer exists. That's now what's called Brightview. Brickman and Valleycrest merged. But I ended up agreeing to take an opportunity with it because it brought my family back to upstate New York. So they needed someone to sort of start up that whole northeast area. And so
I took that on as like, I thought it was going to be a two year challenge that at least get me back to back home. And then I ended up there for 11 years and became one of the managing partners. And, you know, some of us got equity in the company and, you know, we were quote unquote owners of the business. ⁓ you know, I just learned a tremendous amount there as well. So it's, it's kind of like going to school and getting paid. Right. And so.
That's where a lot of my foundational background comes from. then somewhere, somewhere in the history of all that, ⁓ it just, the culture change, I wouldn't say there was a problem. This was just, wasn't, it was a time to make a change. And that's when right around the same time I sort of became highly passionate and aware of gosh, for, for this green industry.
both landscape and snow, we sure create a lot of problems like pesticides and fertilizers and road salt. it's like we were actually a big contributor to water pollution and in a lot of ways not necessarily knowing or realizing it. And so I got super frustrated in my career.
Bob Green (10:14)
Mm-hmm.
Phill Sexton (10:36)
got a bit burned out, decided to leave that business and that partnership. So I kind of sold off my shares in that and essentially did not have a plan and just said, you know what, I'm cooked, I'm frustrated, I need a change. And so I left. And then I was real lucky again because then actually quite a few competitors
that once they had learned I left, asked would I come work with them, be their vice president of ops or run the company or whatever. And I just decided, two things, one, I didn't wanna uproot my family again and two, I really wasn't super excited about the idea of being an employee again. so I just, when I made that decision,
Again, luckily, ⁓ one man in particular gave me a chance that I had not realized where it was going to take me. a guy by the name of Bruce Moore, senior with Eastern Land Management ⁓ said, well, if you don't want to come work here, would you consult? And I said, gosh, I've never considered that. And so ⁓ we tried it out and. ⁓
That was about 14 years ago and I'm proud to say I still work with that company today. So it's kind of like, I think I'm like the second or third longest standing person in the company there besides the owners. And I worked very closely with Bruce Moore Jr. there now who purchased the company from his father. And anyway, that was the start of it. And then really what that's inspired is ⁓
you know, sort of enabling a better way for the industry, right? And then ⁓ very quickly along with that, ⁓ the whole road salt thing started popping up and I was already tuned into it, already trying to study it. ⁓ I actually ⁓ decided to go back to school a couple of times and my graduate works in
sustainability, environmental management. I've written a thesis on this whole salt use issue and that sort of just brings us up to where we are today really. But that's really sort of the backstory is I guess. So that's like 30 plus years that I'm trying to give to you and I don't know how long that just took but a little bit. Yeah.
Nick Arndt (13:14)
Not long.
it's definitely a unique background because you jumped into it, but you said, know, luck had something to do with it. But most of our listeners and most of the snow industry is made up or snow and landscape industries made up of small companies. you right away, you had exposure to these large organizations and were able to see the inner workings of it and get exposure that way, which which probably taught you a lot about people management, about managing employees, about managing everything in a large business.
So that's pretty unique. ⁓ Yeah, and let's not skip this. When you went back to school, like your graduate research, and I've seen this on the WID Advisors website, you did your ⁓ thesis at Harvard, right?
Phill Sexton (14:03)
I did, yeah. Which again, I feel as though I was really lucky there too because that all sort of happened a little bit by accident as well in that ⁓ I was trying to study independently. ⁓
sort of during the last six months of my career at Brickman and then after I left, like I was very, I was getting very passionate about sustainable, what the heck was it called, Tim? But it was basically principles of landscape management and design, ⁓ sustainable landscape management and design. And as I was kind of reading books and looking for things up online,
this at Harvard, this sustainability environmental management program kept popping up. And so good for them. mean, I guess they market well or whatever, you know, you know, guy like me, I always used to say that really just struggled to get excited about being in the classroom. I'm like, well that, you know, like that's not a thing. But what happened was there was a class that was offered by Harvard.
that you could just, anybody could take. So I said, okay, I'm gonna sign up for it. And then this guy, Bob Pajasic, I always give credit for. ⁓ He's not a, you know, lot of the folks that are instructors there in this particular program are not like, most of them are not ⁓ typical lifetime professors. They're more professionals that come in and adjunct. So they're like, you know,
people with practical knowledge, particularly that also run businesses, that just happened to also get paid for, give their time to teach some of this. So I give Bob Pajas a lot of credit because he paid attention to what I was trying to learn. And he just asked me a lot of questions like, so what do you, like, what do you hear for? You're like, why, why was this class interesting to you? ⁓
And he basically pulled me aside. like, I think you should, he goes, you're the type of person that should be a candidate for this graduate program here. ⁓ It's a, master's program. Right. And I said, well, I said, gee, ⁓ I need to tell you a little bit about me. And they're like, there's no way in hell I'm getting in Harvard. He goes, I wouldn't be so sure. goes, because there's a different way you get in here. He goes, you just, actually have to ace.
Nick Arndt (16:42)
Yeah, man
Phill Sexton (16:52)
these three classes, you have to actually do Harvard work to prove that you can do Harvard work. I'm like, so I thought about it and I took them up on the challenge and then lo and behold, I got in ⁓ and then that's where I got lucky again. Then I ran into a couple other really ⁓ amazing mentors including this guy, ⁓ Mark Layton who, you know, I'm.
I'm still engaged with today's very good. still engaging with me and that is really fast forwarding. I learned so much there so quickly and it taught me including what the heck to do with this business of mine that I started that I didn't really have a clear direction about its true purpose. And so that few years of study
you know, along with trying to still make a living. So it was, was not the easiest thing for me to do. ⁓ that just taught me a tremendous amount about what our purpose, should be and how the heck to make money at it. And so one of the most important things that this guy, Mark Layton told me after I wrote the thesis about salt, cause he, he actually totally redirected me. thought my thesis was going to be about the alternatives to salt.
and that whole thing. He goes, you know what? There's so much knowledge, practical knowledge and experience you have about what the actual issue is. You may be the only person that can truly write about it and let people understand what the issue is first and what drives it. And so he totally redirected me, you know, to the point where it actually extended my my time by about six months because I sort of had to start over again. But
It was a very important redirection in that that's really what the next decade of my life and career has been about is ⁓ helping people, governments, agencies, municipalities, contractors, properties, whoever, helping them really understand the crux of the issue and how to solve it, right? And so, ⁓
And that's really where my partnership with Metal Plus quite frankly started because I became friends with Paul Vanderson who was with you guys for years ⁓ as a rep. He and I met while I was ⁓ working ⁓ with the Snow and Ice Management Association for a period of time. was there, the person that was helping ⁓ develop education and ⁓ outreach.
And, you know, I just started then linking up with all these folks that, were, were like-minded about trying to, you know, not only understand the, the issue of road salt pollution, but then, you know, how do we solve it? And so that's why I go back to Mark Layton at Harvard, because after I wrote the thesis, after I completed it, I'll never forget. sat me down and he said, now, Phil, here's the important thing to understand though, like,
these theses, ⁓ most of them, you know, they get written here at Harvard, this is where they come to die also. So he's like, so it's your job. So I just, I just thought it was incredible because he, you know, he is a Harvard guy. is a sort of a full-time professor, but he was very honest with me about, ⁓ you know, this could be.
Bob Green (20:23)
You
Phill Sexton (20:38)
I sort of took it as you've done really important work here. It was good use of your time, but it's going to be huge waste of your time if you don't do something with it moving forward, because it's just going to get archived here and nobody's going to read it. And I'm like, huh, holy shit. So really that that thesis was the Genesis. It was really the foundation of knowledge in the Genesis of what today is the sustainable winter management standards or swim standards, which we then
Bob Green (20:47)
Makes sense. Yep. Yep.
Phill Sexton (21:08)
created a whole program, know, a systematic programmatic way of approaching ⁓ winter maintenance or winter management and you know, a way to monetize it quite frankly. And that was one of the things he said, goes, you know, you're allowed to try to sort of figure out how to monetize this thing now, right? And so that's exactly what I did with it. And so it was a very important experience that
Man, if you told me the year before that, starting that, would have been, I would have said you were completely insane. Right? So, but you just, you just never know when a door opens, you know, what, what happens when you go in it.
Bob Green (21:51)
Phil, back up a little bit. mean, that's a great background story and you keep talking about luck. don't think it's luck. I think it was meant to happen. Talk a little bit about, you called it the problem. Talk about the problem and then let's get into what you're doing to help resolve the problem.
Phill Sexton (22:05)
Yeah.
Well, okay. And it's, good timing. Cause I was, I literally just had a dinner meeting last night with some, with some folks that, we're working with to help solve the problem in New York state. I, I. little bit quick little background too, because of my knowledge experience, I was fortunate to be, I was both fortunate and also was very frustrating at time, but as I was appointed by our governor in New York to sit on ⁓ a salt reduction task force and.
So I spent, you know, three year period of time, you know, on and off with that to come out with a really a comprehensive report on here's the problem, here's the suggested solutions. So the problem is this, the problem with road salt is it's road salt typically is sodium chloride, NaCl. There's also MagCl, which is MgCl2.
There's calcium chloride, MgCl2, or I mean CaCl2. It's the chloride primarily in those salts. It's the chloride anion in those salts is a pollutant to fresh watersheds, whether it's groundwater, surface waters, you you name it, lakes, streams, ponds.
that unlike any other pollutant ⁓ does not biodegrade, it does not dilute. the solution, the pollution in this case is not dilution. generally accumulates in water bodies. So because it's heavier than water, it will sit at the bottom of a watershed and it will accumulate over time. And so a lot of these chlorides have been
been accurately and consistently measured scientifically since, well, really the 60s, but really started paying attention to it in the 80s. then suddenly there was this dramatic increase in accumulated chloride levels in these watersheds, kind of anywhere that it's been been measured. so where it's gotten real attention is ⁓ it's now influencing and affecting ⁓
drinking water. So just like most other problems, as human beings naturally react versus proact, I always say. So ⁓ it's like a lot of other problems. We've known the problem for years. We've been forewarned for years that it's going to be a problem and then we kind of don't do something about it till it is a problem, right? So rather than prevent it, but it is what it is. anyway,
Bob Green (24:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Phill Sexton (25:05)
It's a problem ⁓ that really significantly and really permanently will alter an ecosystem, a watershed ecosystem so that phytoplankton and other aquatic life is also affected. So it's a contributor to harmful algal bloom development now in watersheds. But again, maybe even more importantly, we're finding out like here in New York, the New York City, there's a New York City ⁓
It's the Croton Reservoir, is one of the major New York City reservoirs. ⁓ The New York Department of Environmental Protection has proclaimed that if something isn't started to solve the accumulated chlorides in that watershed, it's going to be a big problem by 2050. So that's only 25 years from now. Right. And so.
And it's so interesting because I was invited to a roundtable discussion on this by the New York legislature a couple of weeks ago and that came up. It still doesn't seem to be serious enough of a problem yet that people will react to even more proactively. But anyway, it is what it is. the problem is road salt ⁓ pollution, the primary contributor, that is the chlorides in it.
And then what's also interesting about this problem is it is a recognized pollutant by the Environmental Protection Agency here in the states, right? That is also allowable to use. But what's interesting is really almost, almost if not entirely unregulated. So isn't it interesting that
Bob Green (26:54)
Okay.
Phill Sexton (26:58)
For some reason, we've figured out how to try to, like in Canada, like you can't even use glyphosate now, I don't think, right? Which is Roundup. ⁓ And here.
Bob Green (27:06)
No. Yeah. No pesticides,
no pesticides in Canada for unless you're a farmer.
Phill Sexton (27:14)
Yeah.
And so in here in the U.S. it is regulated. At least there is regulated use. You have to be licensed on all this. And yeah, if if you were caught like putting down copious amounts for no apparent reason, I mean, you'd be getting fined out of the ass and maybe even get thrown in jail. You could dump an entire truckload of salt in a parking lot and just let it sit there and there's no consequence. So it's just a very it's it's so interesting to me that.
It's such a significant problem yet there's zero regulation behind it and and we're also still allowed to sell it By the amount like by the ton or by the bag or by the pound Yet we're allowed to sell it by the amount yet We're not required to have any any kind of metering to say how much we actually use so it's all it's all guessing So I always say it's like it's like telling people they have to follow a speed limit, but but
Bob Green (27:54)
Mm-hmm.
Phill Sexton (28:11)
but you don't need a speedometer. And it's kind of like selling gasoline.
Nick Arndt (28:13)
Yeah. And there's no one handing out tickets
and there's no one handing out reckless driving tickets. Yeah.
Phill Sexton (28:19)
Yeah,
it's just it's so weird man and it's like You know like I I also like like here here in the state and in the and in the states in general I mean there's there's a ⁓ There's regulations for measuring right so like if you go buy gasoline by a volume Or by an amount there's a meter that says this is how much you just pumped ⁓ and so so that everybody's actually paying equally, right but
that that's not required for salts for some reason. It's really it's really a bizarre and interesting problem. I'll say and that's why I get so excited about because there's there's still so much to solve with it.
Bob Green (29:00)
I mean part of the problem too, I mean I It's something I found funny when I went to I was called to New York DOT a few years ago because they have a few of our plows running up and down the interstate so ⁓ They were saying, you know the major interstates in New York have to be blacktop 24-7 because people Need to get the work. need to go to the mall. So part of the problem is average average Joe
because they need to go out during the snow event. Then we become so spoiled. 30, 40 years ago, if it was snowing, you stayed home, you know, until the roads were clear. But now it's like then the guy at the DOT was like, they have to be going 75 miles an hour during a snow event. I'm like, that's ridiculous. Like, well, why? And he just said, and if somebody goes off the ditch into the ditch or someone dies, it's our fault. So we as the consumer create the problem.
Phill Sexton (29:48)
Yeah.
Nick Arndt (29:59)
It's a zero tolerance culture in snow removal where nothing's tolerated.
Bob Green (29:59)
and the governments have to.
⁓ it's ridiculous.
Why do you have to go to Walmart during a during a blizzard?
Phill Sexton (30:05)
Right.
Well, I think so. it goes back to your original question, like state the problem. like when I, when I studied this, you know, through the scientific method, you know, ⁓ through the thesis process, you know, the problem statement was road salt is a contaminant, ⁓ you know, fresh water. That's the problem. ⁓ and then my primary hypothesis.
It's been a while. wrote this in 2017, so I got to think about it for a second. the primary hypothesis was ⁓ liability was the primary driver of the salt use. And I believed that. I mean, as a contractor, I believed that from my own experience. And then that's what was so important about the thesis process is it actually debunked my hypothesis because
Bob Green (30:49)
There you go.
Phill Sexton (31:06)
through a lot of survey and statistics and a lot of things that I had to do, which still makes my head hurt thinking about how I had to do it. But it actually confirmed though that the number one driver, which is what you're actually, believe it not, talking about, the number one driver was economics. because it's...
The blacktop is the expectation. The reason for the blacktop is for business continuity. Because we have become an Amazon Prime society that expects our package to be there the next day and then when it's not, everybody gets upset. So it's a very deeply culturally embedded issue and that's where
Again, when I was advised in my graduate work how to approach this thesis, the other thing I remember vividly Mark telling me was, hey, just so you know, what you're actually chasing after here is a human behavior issue. It's not a technology thing. It's not actually the salt.
it's the human behavior that drives the salt use because to your point, we used to be okay with in some ways not even ever using salt. So salt.
Bob Green (32:42)
Okay,
that's another one. When did, when did the, I think I heard it at Lake George, the symposium one time, but when did they start using so much road salt and where was it? Where did it start?
Phill Sexton (32:55)
Yeah, we're going
to the same place. So ⁓ road salt started getting used sort of on a semi-regular basis in New Hampshire in the 1950s. And then what was interesting, because you were in Lake Placid last year when you heard this, what would actually drove New York State where I am, and I actually live right near Lake Placid now, by the way, but ⁓
What drove it in New York State was the 1980 Olympics when they needed blacktop. so, you know, New York basically said, hey, the stuff that New Hampshire is using, like, why don't we try that here? And so they were trying to get people up what's now called the Northway, but they're trying to get people sort of flying in from Albany two hours north into the mountains, the high peaks of Lake Placid and
Wilmington and you know, Whiteface Mountain is the big mountain, the big Olympic ski mountain here. So that's what they're trying to do. And then it's like everything else. Once once that precedent got set, you know, that expectation then was desired more often, if not more consistently. And then it just expands from there. So it's like I've always I've always compared it to ⁓ lawn care like
If you look back in like the 1970s and 80s at some old film of like Major League Baseball, the turf actually looked like shit back then. And then somebody started, you know, pounding it with fertilizers and pesticides and made it look like a beautiful carpet with nice stripes and then everybody else followed. And then golf courses were doing the same thing. And then before you know it,
Bob Green (34:35)
Yeah.
Phill Sexton (34:51)
Every Mrs. Jones and Mr. Jones wants it in their back. They expect it in their own backyard. And so that's how that that, you evolved. And so this is the same. This is the same way it evolved. It's just like. And so then we're very much a ⁓ again, this is where it's a culturally embedded behavior issue thing. We're a very entitled society. And so we expect to get out of our cars in the parking lot and not get our
Bob Green (34:56)
Yeah.
Phill Sexton (35:19)
penny loafers wet or whatever it is, right? So that's where the black top. So everybody likes to say, I don't disagree, like liability, slip and fall liability is certainly a thing, but that got invented too because that got invented by the legal system, right? And it's enabled by the legal system. Like we weren't suing each other for slipping on snow years ago. It just became its own industry. So it's all economically driven again.
Bob Green (35:22)
Right.
Right.
Nick Arndt (35:50)
And I'm sure that kind of became a thing after the black top zero tolerance started and people could compare lot to lot. Now that people were getting it perfectly clean compared to the next business, that's when it clicked in lawyers heads to going, they're not doing something they should be doing. And we the problem was created ⁓ right then and there. So that man that's
Phill Sexton (36:06)
in
Right.
Amen. then
that expectation, you know, as a contractor, I learned years ago about client expectation creep is what we used to call. So like this is what I expect today. But then tomorrow I expect more for the same dollar or maybe even less. And then I expect more for the same dollar or maybe even less. And so then then this whole less is more sort of philosophy came into play and and salt essentially became an efficiency tool. ⁓
that when you're also getting paid by the amount for it, it's like there's no incentive to use less. And so that's where even last night in this dinner meeting, we're talking about what the next line of legislation is gonna be. And I keep saying, think time and material contracts, paying for salt, time and material, I think it should be outlawed. ⁓ It shouldn't be allowed.
Nick Arndt (37:10)
Yeah, we hear that,
that's something that we see at trade shows all the time because people will walk up to us and we're seeing people from all walks of life, contractors from all over the country, all over Canada too, is they come up and go, Metal Plus, I can't use one. And they go, tell me why not? And they say, well, I get paid to, I make my money spread in salt. If I use a live edge blade,
I'm spreading way less salt and I don't have a reaction to that other than that's a sad way to look at things. Sorry environment or sorry future children. ⁓ That's something on the plow side we actually have people literally tell us, we can't use your plows because they work too good. And it's a, boy it's a.
Bob Green (37:38)
Yeah.
You
You
Yeah, yeah, they either get paid by
the push or they're using buckets still because they want to put as many loaders on the lot as they can. So. Yeah.
Nick Arndt (38:04)
Yeah, more inputs is better. Whereas like
the study you did, take into account all the inputs and looked at the true environmental fact of it. You know, I guess that's sad for me to think about and it's all clicking now. The Miracle on Ice, the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, there to blame for the beginning of the salt craze. Like, never should have happened. Oh man.
Phill Sexton (38:25)
A little bit, Yep.
Bob Green (38:26)
You
Phill Sexton (38:32)
Well, they certainly were a trigger, right? It was definitely a trigger for sure. Yeah.
Nick Arndt (38:36)
Yeah.
But it does make sense. That 80s period in the United States, looking back, I was just a little guy, but ⁓ my family was involved in the lawn care industry. Salt, and it worked hand in hand with lawn fertilizer. There were companies spreading lawn fertilizer like crazy, and they're popping up, you know, spraying all day long. ⁓ same environmental problem. You do that too much to a lawn. It's not natural.
just like a golf course that has to replace the greens every whatever five seasons that it's not sustainable. Let's get into this though. So there are environmental or there are economic factors driving this that seem like the government, whoever, consultants, people are gonna have to deal with. What are the practical things that if there is a contractor that says, I get it.
Phill Sexton (39:08)
Yeah.
Nick Arndt (39:31)
I don't want to be a part of this. I want to use as little salt as possible. I'm going to take personal responsibility for what my company does. What are the practical things that you at WIT Advisors does, offers them, and what does that look like when you start working with a company that gets it?
Phill Sexton (39:48)
Well, we work through, it's really a system, right? So it's just a systematic way of implementing ⁓ what are the known best management practices in the industry. We don't claim to have invented any of the best practices. All we've invented is an organized way to approach it, right? And to do it really with efficiency in mind, with some innovation in mind, and then
with some practicality in mind. Like you can't necessarily solve the problem overnight, but you can sort of baby step your way through it. And so, you know, every company, every contractor, every property owner, whatever, like they're all their own little subset of cultures and understanding and constraints. And so we try to work within that. so,
The standards of policy though, there's a few things that are what I would call non-negotiable, right? So the standards of policy are non-negotiable. It's standards of policy for measure, calibrate, prevent, analyze, and prove optimize. that's all been ⁓ not only... ⁓
very well studied or researched and that was really sort of the basis of the thesis research. But then, you know, we've got many years if not decades of knowledge and, you know, making mistakes and experience to then, you know, today we have a lot of proof cases. It's like anywhere where we deploy these standards. ⁓
we've been able to reduce salt use by at least 50%. Our target used to be 50%, but I mean, why stop there if there's more to be had? I mean, for quite a few of like our retail type clients, ⁓ we've found, know, just being able to convert from like time material to performance-based contracts, ⁓ there's been like three times the amount of salt savings. So,
It's always funny to me, like even now we're trying to onboard some new contractors for one of our retail clients and they've always been a T contractor and like, okay, well I understand, you know, I need to try to figure out how to estimate a seasonal contract, like, but what if the salt prices go up?
I'm like, well, what if they do? Who gives a shit? Because you're just going to keep using less anyway. So you're hedging your bet by being able to measure the salt. And that's the first standard of policy that is non-negotiable. If you're not willing to measure it, if you're not willing to meter it, then we can't help you because it's been said, you know, Peter Drucker years ago was coined with saying it's something like this, but it's like that, that which is measured can be improved.
Right? That which is measured can be improved. If you're not willing to measure it, then to me, you're not willing to improve it. Because if you can't see where you're at and be able to see where you're going, then we're wasting our time here. Right? ⁓ so that's where it starts. And, ⁓ again, for contractors in particular, I think the two.
Well, here's the first thing it's like awareness is key, right? So it's like, you know, I learned years ago There's there's two things that inspire change and that's pain and awareness, right? so the pain The pain that they're fearful of is economics, right? and so it's like they're you know, they're fearful of changing to something other than time and material because Like you said the the money's in the salt spreading right now. It's like
Yeah, but you got to be able to change your mindset, shift your mindset to the idea that it's likely no longer going to be allowable at some point. Because now that state governments are aware of this issue, ⁓ and I'll just say, mean, I'm a contractor, right? So like, I'm not looking to hurt any contract. I want to help them. It's just that I'm also very passionate about outlawing time and material contracts in snow because it's a big driver. It's a big
sort of mechanism that drives this thing still, right? So I guarantee you it's gonna get outlawed. And in a lot of cases, the clients have already become savvy enough to like, cause we talk with all of the clients, right? And we make them aware of it's like, so okay, so you're still a time material. You're really concerned about what it's costing you. So like, how do you actually know that that's how much the contractor put down?
Bob Green (44:38)
Exactly.
Phill Sexton (44:40)
That's a good question. don't know. I mean, they must have scales or something. I'm like, do they?
Bob Green (44:46)
You
Nick Arndt (44:47)
You should go to one of the salt loading facilities, they're ⁓
Phill Sexton (44:49)
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I know the answer, but I'm just asking them. I'm just posing as a question. Like, do they? ⁓ No, I don't know. I guess I should ask them. Yeah, maybe you should ask them. But yeah, so it's like, it's silly that and this is the thing. I think this whole salt thing is going to be very helpful for industry because we're still looked upon, particularly by clients is like a bunch of cowboys that
Nick Arndt (44:51)
It's very approximate.
Bob Green (44:56)
Yep. Yep.
Nick Arndt (44:56)
Yep.
Phill Sexton (45:18)
kind of don't know what we're doing sometimes. And I think this particular issue helps to elevate the level of professionalism and science and decision making that should go into a profession like this. mean, this is a very important service that we're providing the industry. I've said it for years, we are the first responders of the first responders. Right? And so,
I believe we need to take it that seriously. But that also comes with a responsibility of we should not be the ones that are polluting drinking water. Otherwise, we just go back to being looked at as just a big problem industry again, right? And so, and I don't believe in a lot of, in most cases, I don't believe that contractors, I don't believe that we're actually the problem. think...
I think we are perceived as the problem because they're the putting down the salt, but we're putting down the salt for people that are asking us to, they're paying us to. And so a lot of times those are the people, the clients and the property owners are really the ones that driving the salt usage because they think more is better. They think crunch is better. They think seeing the salt is sort of a perceived level of safety and service, which is completely false. Right?
Nick Arndt (46:46)
Yeah, this seems like a really, really, really tricky problem. ⁓ Bob, I'm thinking of a marketing of time and material to ban time and materials. I think we got some potential marketing there because metal plus metal plus is the is the opposite of time and materials. It's how do you do the most amount of work with the least amount of inputs? And ⁓ the metal plus plow is that solution. And ⁓
Phill Sexton (46:53)
Yeah.
Nick Arndt (47:15)
Yeah, people just have to be willing to move away from the time and materials. And that's the conversation that we have that finishes off the, wanna spread more salt, is, well then, did you know that a wing plow, this is the other conversation, a wing plow can replace this machine and this machine and this operator and this operator and this plow, know, three machines can become one. Then they go, well, I also don't wanna do that because I get paid per machine.
Phill Sexton (47:38)
It's an efficiency tool. R9.
Nick Arndt (47:43)
So there has to be a shift in the industry of looking ⁓ at reducing the overall amount of inputs. And if there's one thing that everybody can agree on, which is what I like about the salt problem, if there's anything to like about it is, no matter how you feel about the environment, global warming, whatever, all that stuff that we see or don't see up in the air and we have our theories or whatever, we can look at the water and go,
The salt is bad, we see this, this is bad. Like there's no denying it. There's no theories, there's no, you know, conspiracy theorying it away. The salt in the water is not good.
Phill Sexton (48:24)
Yeah. Well, nor nor is the the infrastructure damage. mean, I just I just I watched, you know, part of, you know, them reconstructing the whole infrastructure in Montreal a few years ago, and it was all related to salt billions of dollars, all related to, you know, just corroding bridges and overpasses and that whole thing. Like there's that.
Bob Green (48:43)
Mm-hmm. ⁓
They're
still laying down mountains of salt here. Nick came to visit last December and we're walking through a Walmart parking lot and it was like crunch crunch crunch crunch and Nick goes there's so much salt. You Canadians, you're all about innovation and snow removal but you haven't figured out the icing.
Nick Arndt (49:01)
Yeah. Yeah. my gosh, how much can we melt? How much can we melt?
How much can we burn off? gosh, it's incredible.
Phill Sexton (49:12)
Yeah, so it's bizarre, but there's
that, you know, I was just in a meeting this morning with another state DOT that we work with and we've sort of created, helped create a small proof case that they just need to simply scale. you know, they could easily cut their salt use by half from what we've able to study there. And it's worth multiple millions of dollars, right? And yet,
They struggle as a bureaucracy to even envision how to make that shift. So it's like even when it's multiple like tens of millions of dollars. Yeah, it'd be hard though, right? It's sort of like act of Congress kind of stuff. It's like, okay. So again, that's where I go back to. It's a very culturally embedded thing that it takes time to shift these mindsets, right? And yeah.
You know, again, we've been at it for over a decade and I could see, I think we're just hitting the tip of the iceberg of it.
Nick Arndt (50:16)
So you feel optimistic, you feel that contractors and governments are moving in the right direction.
Phill Sexton (50:23)
I believe so. think more so than I've seen. I've seen more so in probably the last two to three years than I have seen over the past 10. So there definitely seems to be a bit of an adoption curve that's happening. ⁓ My concern is because you see this with lot of other problems, like you could kind of hit a pinnacle if you will that ⁓
You gotta get over that hump though, because there's a lot of laggards too, right? Like, you know, it seems like 50 % of society just either doesn't wanna believe or wants to resist shifting their mindsets on a lot of issues, right? Yeah, and so it's just, and that's my concern is, I mean, I see huge opportunity. ⁓ It's also my concern that, ⁓ you know, you only have so much time though when it comes to water.
Bob Green (51:07)
Changes change is difficult, right? No link
Phill Sexton (51:22)
Right. And then because then it's it's it's virtually untreatable. Right. I mean, yes, reverse osmosis is is a real solution to it. It's just that it's it's completely unaffordable, though, at any kind of scale. Any kind of volume. Right. And so so it's not it's not a reasonable solution, but I just think I think we is.
sort of a human race have gotten accustomed to well well there'll be a technology gets invented that solves this ⁓ i don't i don't think so in our lifetime for this one yeah doesn't seem possible anyway
Nick Arndt (51:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's one of those things where 15 years ago they were saying, we're gonna run out of oil. And then it's like, well, no, we're not. We're good for 75 years. But with the water, like you're saying, we're gonna hit a point where there's no fixin' it. There's no, yeah, that's not good. Well, at least things seem to be trending in the right direction. As we start to wrap up here, if folks out there in the government side or on the commercial side,
Bob Green (52:13)
Yeah, let's, yeah.
Phill Sexton (52:18)
Yeah.
Nick Arndt (52:31)
wanna take responsibility, want to start working to improve the problem, what can they do, can they reach out to WIT advisors, are you taking new clients, what does that process look like, and what's the first step if they want help?
Phill Sexton (52:45)
Yeah, I mean, I appreciate you asking. Yeah, I mean, we're we're up for helping anyone. ⁓ We're we're you know, we've already we scale up whenever we need to on this. We the way that we start those really just having a conversation, no strings attached. There's no money tied to it's just let's just have a conversation and understand where you are with this and let's make sure that we're a good fit to help you first and then.
If and when we decide together that ⁓ there is a good fit and there's some willingness on both sides, then we start what we call our discovery process, just to understand the lay of the land, what are the constraints that are sort of tying you down in the moment. then from there, we develop, it's a discovery to solutions process really to say, so then.
Where within this framework of standards are you now? You could be at zero, you could be at 50%, don't know. But then, you know, there's always, as long as there's a willingness to admit that there's always waste in the system, we're usually always able to help them. And we've got a good track record of that. And it's not just about saving the amount of solids. you know, it...
boils down to dollars. it's like, so whatever you end up paying us generally is a pretty simple, you know, benefit cost return, you know, on what you're going to save in the long run. So it's an upfront investment commitment that then, you know, has, I think in all cases where we've worked so far, there's an annuity to that, you know, on the backend. So there's just, you know,
recurring savings on a seasonal basis, let's call it from there. ⁓
Bob Green (54:35)
All right.
Nick Arndt (54:36)
It's just like a metal plus plow I've never met someone that said it didn't pay for itself in you know a short amount of time So as we wrap up here I would really encourage folks to go to the wit advisors website the Harvard thesis That we've talked about is is posted there There's a lot of interesting articles posted there as PDFs and people do ask us customers ask us that that are metal plus customers if you're a metal plus customer that wants to
Phill Sexton (54:41)
Yeah.
Nick Arndt (55:03)
They ask, how do I tell my clients I'm moving away from time and materials? Start by looking at some of these studies that Phil, in articles Phil has written. If you wanna educate yourself, step one is to, when you're talking to ⁓ potential accounts, use some of this knowledge. There's a lot of good stuff in that Harvard study, that Harvard thesis, that you can sound educated and educate yourself so that when you do approach contracts with this new.
Alternative to time and materials, spending a half an hour looking at that stuff will help you a lot. So reach out to Whit Advisors, we'll put links in the show notes of all the stuff we've talked about. And we'd like to thank Phil for being here and talking to us today. Again, we can.
Bob Green (55:50)
Yeah,
we'll have to get you back because I don't think we've even scratched the surfaces with you yet.
Phill Sexton (55:54)
Hahaha
Nick Arndt (55:54)
Yeah, this is the issue
that we're facing as an industry. We're all pushing snow and we're all trying to make money, but there's a bigger opportunity here. So we'll have you on again, Phil. Thanks again. And this has been another episode of the Born to Be a Snowfighter podcast. Thanks to Phil, thanks to Whit Advisors, and for Bob, I'd just like to say thank you for listening and we'll see you in the next one.
Phill Sexton (56:05)
Amen.
Yeah, thanks for having me, fellas. And thanks to the Snow Fighters. You know, it's a very important job that you're playing a role in. So thanks for being heroes out there at two o'clock in the morning.
Nick Arndt (56:33)
Awesome. Thanks, Phil.