8: Aaron Smith - "Real Snow" Stories from Vermont

On the eve of the first New England snow event of the season, Bob and Nick sat down with Aaron Smith ("The Professor of Snow Removal," as Bob and Nick like to say), of S&D Snowblowing in Essex Junction, Vermont.

Aaron is well-known throughout the industry for his intellectual approach to snow removal operations, and his progressive use of snow removal technology. Aaron started one of the first "inverted snowblowing" services in the US, and today runs a hybrid residential/commercial snow removal company utilizing a variety of Metal Pless blades.

Hear stories of how Aaron got his start in snow removal, how both equipment and SIMA have shaped the way he operates his family business, and how he's most looking forward to developing the next "Big Nicholas" in the future generation of snow removal operators.

Will Aaron and the crew be ready? Tune in to find out!

Come see Metal Pless at upcoming trade shows in North America, including CONEXPO 2026 in Las Vegas, NV and remember - Metal Pless™ is always copied, never duplicated!

FROM THIS EPISODE:

Watch the famous "S&D Snowblowing YouTube video" mentioned in the episode:

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Follow S&D Snowblowing on Facebook:

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Meet Aaron at the 2026 SIMA Snow and Ice Symposium in Cincinnati, OH:

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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:

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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

Transcript

Nick Arndt (00:13)
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Born to be a Snowfighter podcast, the Metal Plus Family podcast. I'm your host, Nick Arndt of Metal Plus along with my co-host, Bob Green. Say hi, Bob. Hello. Today we have a very special guest, an exciting guest we know very well, Mr. Aaron Smith of S &D Snow Blowing, S &D Landscapes out of Essex Junction, Vermont.

Bob Green (00:26)
Hello.

Nick Arndt (00:40)
We've known Aaron for many years. He's well known in the industry, not just for pushing snow, but for blowing snow. ⁓ Inverted blowers, that's something me and Bob are very interested in from back in the day. So we're just gonna sit down with Aaron, have a conversation about his history in landscaping and snow removal and his history in equipment really. And ⁓ just have you guys out there get to know Aaron. This is the type of person we wanna interview for the Metal Plus Born to be a Snowfighter podcast. So Aaron, welcome and thank you for taking the time today.

Aaron Smith (01:10)
Thank you for having me, Nick and Bob.

Bob Green (01:13)
Since since day one that we were gonna do this podcast there and you're like at the top of the list because you're you're so So smart and obviously very very interesting Your stories are always fun. Yeah the professor known Affectually known as the mayor where he where he works and lives and walks every day ⁓ so welcome to the podcast and Let's let's do this

Nick Arndt (01:24)
The professor, the professor of snow removal.

The mayor?

Aaron Smith (01:36)
Thank you.

Nick Arndt (01:39)
Yeah,

Aaron Smith (01:39)
Okay.

Nick Arndt (01:39)
so, Aaron, ⁓ you're Essex Junction, Vermont. Let's set the scene here. I was just looking this up on the map today. Explain where Essex Junction is, and then I have some comments to make. Go for it.

Aaron Smith (01:55)
All right, let me see if I can lay it out here. Essex Junction is a village formerly located in the town of Essex. We've suffered a divorce recently, so now we're all by ourself. And ⁓ it ⁓ is a suburb of Burlington in Chittenden County. ⁓ By population, the entire state of Vermont is roughly 650,000.

Nick Arndt (02:08)
my.

Aaron Smith (02:21)
The greater Burlington area is a little north of 100,000 and Essex and Essex junction together, pre-divorce, was the second largest municipality in the state with a population of about 22,000.

Nick Arndt (02:36)
22,000. So let me get this straight. You're in Essex, no longer Essex Junction. Okay, you're in the junction.

Aaron Smith (02:40)
No, I'm in the junction. I grew up

in the town, but I'm from the junction. Which, it's... let's not get carried away.

Nick Arndt (02:47)
Okay, from the junction, that sounds tough tougher.

It's still Vermont after all. So you're way up north. My point is you are way up north and you are actually not that far from Quebec and you are not that far from the metal plus factory in Plessisville. This is like two and a half hours, three hours from from Quebec or from Plessisville, correct?

Aaron Smith (02:57)
There you go.

⁓ yes, plus or minus. In a past life with Bob, I could be in their door yard in less than two hours at the Vanderson shop.

Bob Green (03:23)
At the van der Zand garage.

Yeah. Yeah, I used to be able to go down and buy air and breakfast in less than two hours

Nick Arndt (03:25)
of Anderson and Grush.

Aaron Smith (03:30)
Yes.

Nick Arndt (03:30)
It's crazy. forget, you know, being from now in the Midwest, I forget the geography of how North those states are up there. But you're what we talk about it on this podcast is as Quebec or Montreal, Quebec City, Montreal, in particular, being like the epicenter of snow removal equipment, history and development. You're you're you're getting that same effect of snow. So what's an average what's an average snowfall season like in Essex Junction, Vermont?

Aaron Smith (03:59)
Uh, so the closest national weather service, uh, is going to be the Burlington airport. And depending on which slice of time you take, uh, anywhere from 81 to 88 inches on the average in Burlington. And then as you head east into Essex junction, I usually add comfortably 20 % to that number. Um, that may be more realistic for the town. Like the farther east you go in the town, the

is higher. Uh,

I don't have any qualms saying that we are in the 90 to 95 inch a year category.

Nick Arndt (04:36)
Okay, so serious, serious snow and enough, enough snow frequently enough where driveway snow removal is a thing. And this is probably what you're known for. If someone has just come across you, the name Aaron Smith in the industry, I'll do a little back, back history here. Backstory is that you made a video for your company, S and D snow blowing 11 years ago. I watched it again today. It's 11 years old. I couldn't believe it.

but it is a summary of the driveway service you offer and still offer today. ⁓ That video, man, was so good and it is still so good. Tell us a little bit about how you got into landscaping and snow removal, because you do it both, but this is born to be a snow fighter, so how were you born to be a snow fighter, Aaron? Because it seems like you were.

Aaron Smith (05:27)
Oh,

yeah, let's let's

just let's just stick with the snow side. It's much less complicated. I grew up in Essex town and had a relationship from a young age with a very early model Aryan snow blower, 1964. And so when you learned this, they did. I. Guys, I'm not kidding you.

Bob Green (05:49)
Hehehehehe

Nick Arndt (05:52)
They last forever. They last forever.

Aaron Smith (05:56)
I have my grandpa's 1974 Ariane Snowblower upstairs that I save as like a bit of a conversation piece. But that's where we got our start in grade school, middle school, high school. Just would do my own driveway, the city walk, path around the house, path to the mulch pile, and then go across to the neighbors, couple neighbors. They didn't even have to pay me. I got paid in cookies a lot.

Bob Green (06:24)
You

Aaron Smith (06:26)
What better way to use a snow day? But you learn on a 1964 Arians, there are no frills like we have today, know, handy dandy, quick spout movement, deflection that you don't have to, you know, stop, loosen a huge, you know, wing washer thing to get the, and then it flies up in your face again. Um,

Nick Arndt (06:47)
an

impeller about six inches, six inches in diameter. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (06:51)
The exposed augers out the front, which to be honest with you was great because you could dig into any pile with that thing. I mean, it would just go. Tire chains, it's kind of unfortunate. We'll circle back to this, but some of the primitive equipment, if you learn on primitive equipment, when you get something nice like a tractor snowblower, it's almost like cheating. So we did that. That was kind of growing up. I taught skiing. ⁓

Bob Green (06:56)
Yeah.

So that.

Aaron Smith (07:19)
I've always loved winter, everything in winter, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, sledding, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, to be out the winter is my time. I went to college kind of on a trajectory to be a chemical engineer. Didn't love being inside, breathing the canned air.

Nick Arndt (07:38)
and chemicals.

Aaron Smith (07:40)
Yeah, well, we still do that. Ended up going to grad school in Minnesota. ⁓

And really got into like serious commercial snow removal out there. lived there for, guess, four winters, three winters. For those, like I still kind of keep some attachments to that area. I work for prescription. And when we left there, I promised my wife that we would never do snow removal again, because I think our first Christmas as a couple married out there. I slept through Christmas and most of the day after because I had been on like a 25 hour snow removal vendor.

Bob Green (08:14)
You

Aaron Smith (08:19)
And we were able to hold that promise when we came back to Vermont in 2008. I did a couple of driveways to the walk behind snowblower. I could get up at five, have them all done before seven, jump in the car, go ski a few runs for myself and then teach skiing. And that's great, but there's zero money in teaching skiing. And there's even worse opportunity to hold good full-time employees without significant winter revenue.

So we had to revisit the snow removal promise. ⁓ The internet being what it was and exploding with message boards and that. That's where I met Paul online. I've made some great friends online. I have business partners from online. They said, don't meet people on the internet. My story says otherwise. ⁓

Bob Green (09:04)
Hehehehehe

Nick Arndt (09:06)
No,

that's all that's all of us here met. That was the only way. And that's how me and Bob met. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (09:10)
Right? I mean, it can't be all bad. It can't be all bad. So I met the Vandersons.

⁓ Paul came down on a whim because it was on his way home one night. I wasn't available. He met with my dad. He was like, this will be great. This will be great for the residential snowblowers. without even having much of a plan, we bought two tractors ⁓ in April of 2013. And we set off on a mission to start the residential business because we already had a few driveways and we figured

it would compliment our business pretty well. 2013, 2014, we learned a lot of stuff, you know, how to license plate a tractor, how to not piss off the local police force. There's just a lot of learning and it's grown since then. So I think this year will be our 13th season of doing residential driveways. About three years into that, it was growing but not fast enough.

to really meet the needs that we had in terms of staffing. wasn't the home run we thought it was gonna be. It's a good play, but it wasn't doing what we sort of set out for it to do. And we got into commercial, and I say commercial, but we are mostly like institutional and municipal. ⁓ Our customer mix looks mostly like doctor's offices, old folks homes.

college campuses and we work for the cities and towns. ⁓ And that complements the driveway business because we want to be in lockstep with them so that we're not chasing windrows all over creation at the end of the snowstorm. So in a nutshell, that's kind of how we are. This winter, ⁓ we will

have 20 seats rolling.

⁓ looks like tonight or tomorrow might be our first chance at a little something. ⁓ we're not entirely ready, but you know, we're going to do it. This is historic. It wouldn't be a season at S and D if it wasn't the night before the snowstorm still wrenching on something with flakes falling outside. Like I don't even know if we know how to do it.

Bob Green (11:23)
It's...

everybody does it.

Nick Arndt (11:27)
Yeah, that's the way

I wish I wish it were different for many reasons. But from California from Northern California to Vermont and Maine, it's the same story. And I'm sure it's the same story in Canada, too.

Bob Green (11:39)
So Aaron, you came up to the Vanders on Garage, what in 2013, 2014? That was your first visit to St. Bruno to visit us?

Aaron Smith (11:49)
Yeah,

I think maybe in the spring of 2014 was the first one. No, maybe winter 2013-14, because we were constantly buying parts and stuff from Paul's basement.

Nick Arndt (12:03)
This is literally a basement, right? There was stuff stored in the basement.

Aaron Smith (12:07)
Dude,

you could put a tractor in that basement. I don't know if you ever saw the old videos when they were driving out of the basement with tractors, but...

Bob Green (12:07)
In English it we used to

Yeah, we used

to we used to put the L 6060s in the 4066 is down there and the sidewalk machines. Yeah Yeah, and Paul had all kind Paul had all kinds of when he had his entrene age business He had he had curl plasti fiberglass pulls shovels pilots of shovels

Aaron Smith (12:19)
Yeah, Nick.

Nick Arndt (12:20)
I was once, yeah.

Aaron Smith (12:28)
⁓ dude, borderline hoarding, borderline hoarding. And everything

Nick Arndt (12:33)
Yeah, so I was

asking Bob. Yeah, I was asking Bob one time. He was telling he was telling me that Paul had a special Norman Snowblower and HG plus with the opening closing gate in the back. And he said, Yeah, yeah, Paul said, Yeah, yeah, Bob. Bob said, it's in Paul's basement. And I thought, basement? What What are we talking about? And I just, I won't ask any questions. They jammed it into a basement somehow.

Aaron Smith (12:34)
was for sale.

Bob Green (12:36)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (12:45)
Untouched in the basement.

Bob Green (12:46)
I used to steal parts off of it, yeah.

Yeah,

Tony bought that with the idea that it was going to be able to blow forward and backwards, but it's not. It's got the back blade to pull the snow at the garage door. And it was a monstrosity. was huge, way too big for any of the tractors he had. So we parked it and... Yeah, so we parked it and...

Aaron Smith (13:10)
The generation one was not good.

Nick Arndt (13:15)
Anyways, won't ask

too many questions about the physics of how this basement holds so much snow equipment, but... Basements are down! Yeah, okay, okay, okay.

Bob Green (13:19)
It was a huge, huge basement. was...

Aaron Smith (13:23)
What you need to know is the shop used to be a car dealership.

Bob Green (13:27)
Yeah, so the

Vanderson garage used to be a car dealership. So that's why we had all the bay doors, office section, and a basement that the car dealership used to store all its parts and everything in.

Nick Arndt (13:38)
All right.

So Aaron comes up and visits the basement slash dealership of Paul Vanderson. And what what is so what when you bought the first tractors in blowers, did you did the accounts come first and the tractors and blowers came second? Or did you say now I've got these tractors, I'm going to advertise this service? How did it get going?

Bob Green (13:41)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (13:58)
Yeah,

we did it absolutely backwards. we bought two tractors on the idea that this would work. ⁓ We bought the blower's ⁓ sight unseen. And I got to be honest with you, business in Vermont is, and Canada, and the Vander Zans are this way. And to this day, I try to do this as well. But ⁓ I bought the first, I negotiated on the first tractor actually at a funeral, at a wake ⁓ with

my dad's cousin.

⁓ That's a longer story, but we bought that one outright. He made us a huge deal on it. We used it a little bit for landscaping through the summer. And then we realized that we were selling insurance to these people and having only one tractor. We didn't even own a snow plow. To be honest with you guys, I did not even own a truck plow here in Vermont until...

Nick Arndt (14:31)
You

Aaron Smith (14:55)
maybe not even like 2018. Okay? So we had really no way to back this up other than walk down Snowblower and that was not gonna work at the scale that we were anticipating it to go. And so we were like, man, we need some insurance, ⁓ but I really can't fork out cash for another machine and I don't really want a payment. So I went back to my cousin and said, hey, you treated us well with this one. Is there any chance you have one you'd rent to us? And he's like, Aaron, I can't really rent it to you for like...

accounting purposes, but he's like, you know what? He's like, I know you're good for it. ⁓ He just delivered it to my door yard without even really saying anything. He just dropped it off and he said, you know, pay me for it in the spring, which we did. And Paul was kind of the same way with the snowblowers and which was amazing. So that's how we got our start. We didn't have any money that first year to do the chloroplast signs. We did just pickets and

We had these big loud tractors and we got them out to everything in the community. Historically, like I bought a snowmobile snow cone machine. We gave snow cones out in the summer with a tractor with snow blowers to people to generate conversation. We drove the tractors around. We'd help people that were like struggling to dig their driveway out. We just give them one and say, us a call. And so that first winter we only had 36 driveways. So we were pretty money upside down on the whole arrangement, but we had a vision for where it could go.

Nick Arndt (16:06)
That's cool. ⁓

Aaron Smith (16:24)
And I would tell you that the most important thing that we learned from the Vanderszans when I finally went and experienced San Bruno in sort of the after, I was up there in March or during the winter and I was able to see all the pickets. And I think the true magic of the Vanderszans business was not that ⁓ like they did residential or they did commercial or they did is understanding geography. They served a triangle.

of their city, not even the whole city, just a slice of it that was basically about a mile and a quarter across the east-west axis and about a mile on the north-south axis, and it was a triangle. And they stayed inside that, and because they stayed inside that, they were able to deliver a tremendous service at a very cost-competitive price and also make it a lot easier on their operation.

You can do it with less management, you can do it with less, which means more money in your pocket, more money in your pocket for the operators, which is really our goal is we've been trying to, we wanna take care of people. Like this is, if you're gonna get up in the middle of the night and do this, it's not just for fun. And so that's.

Bob Green (17:37)
Yeah.

Aaron came the

same. Yeah, he came not long after the the big reorganization of St. Bruno. There was two major players that dropped out 2008 dropped out. They sold their businesses and the remaining storm of companies bought. at that point, they sat at a table and said, you do this side of town. I'm going to do that side of town. And instead of having four different storm mobile companies on the street, you had one. Not everybody liked it. But, you know, people were calling saying it was a monopoly and whatnot, but they were

getting

way better service. It's just that if they didn't like your face, they were stuck with you. But service went down, it was safer, right? Because you didn't have four tractors on the street, you had one. And it made it a lot easier logistically for actual snow removal companies to stay at that ridiculously low price point that they were at at that point.

Nick Arndt (18:29)
So this is the principle of density, right? correct me if I'm wrong, but Aaron, you've talked about dense, get dense, right? Like, ⁓ do I remember seeing you with a t-shirt on that says get dense? Okay. Be dense, okay. I find that extra funny, because like we said before, you talk about things so cerebrally or whatever, the professor of snow removal, the...

Aaron Smith (18:29)
Yeah.

Bob Green (18:35)
You're wrong.

Aaron Smith (18:43)
I still have this shirt, I wear it every once in a while. It says, be dense.

Nick Arndt (18:58)
I can't remember when I saw you with a picture of the bee dense and I thought man, that's really funny. You should you should keep that one around. That's the opposite of Aaron the opposite of Aaron Smith.

Aaron Smith (19:05)
I do.

Nick Arndt (19:08)
So you're yeah, you're you're you're you get it when you go to the Vanders on you see wow, these guys are way dense like they're doing entire blocks. Now, as I've seen as contractors in Fargo where I'm at have tried to all jump in and do it at the same time.

It's hard to achieve this, right? Because you would think, because neighbor A has this service, neighbor B would say, no brainer. It isn't that easy. It takes a while to grow this type of thing, right?

Aaron Smith (19:38)
It does and I think, you know... ⁓

Bob Green (19:39)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (19:45)
There's a big differential in the way the Canadian mine works and the American mine works. And I think that comes into play significantly. We don't have what I would call a lot of competition on the residential side for all the aforementioned reasons. People, there's no money in it. You have to deal with all these people. And it can be difficult at times. I'm sure customers of mine are going to listen to this. If we only had some recordings of some of the phone calls and some of the emails that just...

Nick Arndt (20:14)
Yeah

Aaron Smith (20:15)
We

could write books. ⁓ But the truth is like, when Paul first came down, I think Paul came and visited me, we had lunch. The thing with the residential, ⁓ there's a couple of things I call it. It's personally impersonal. We write these updates, they know a lot about us. We have people that subscribe to it just for the updates. ⁓ This woman, Paul and I were eating lunch at a local restaurant and this woman,

heard us talking about snowblowers, because Paul and I could get a little animated. And she's like, are you the snowblowing guys? We love you. She gave us both a hug in the restaurant. We did not know her from Adam's Housecat. As it turns out, she was a customer. ⁓ But you have all these people you work for, and you just like, you're XYZ this street. It's personally impersonal. They know a lot about us. But it's neighbors working for neighbors.

We've chosen to work in the community in which we live. There are tractors that parked at my house. I'm sure my neighbor would prefer otherwise, but it is what it is. ⁓ And it just kind of helps keep the whole thing honest and community-based and it helps build the density, which is really the key to operational success and also profitability. A lot of people are chasing after these big glorious like

distribution centers and that's great. ⁓ Those are very rare here and it is a very red sea of competition for those. ⁓ And so why?

Nick Arndt (21:58)
Yeah. So you're still you're still going strong with residential, but now you're operating more of a hybrid model where you're into smaller commercial, it sounds like. And in the residential operation to tell us. And that's where metal plus comes into play, because I know you've had metal pluses from small tractors to big tractors to everywhere in between. What is your what is your mix of equipment and type of perfect account now?

and maybe describe some of the more interesting setups you've had, because you have a City Max, the tractor version of a Max Pro on a large ag tractor now, right? ⁓ it's a 1060, okay. It's 1016.

Aaron Smith (22:38)
No, we have an Agri-Max.

Bob Green (22:38)
It's just a 1016. It's just

yeah 1016

Aaron Smith (22:42)
⁓

I think where that has been is probably the more interesting part of that story and like what we follow that. ⁓ So yes. ⁓

Bob Green (22:54)
That's Aaron's tractor by

the way.

Aaron Smith (22:57)
Yeah.

Nick Arndt (22:57)
the operator.

Aaron Smith (23:00)
well, we, also have, we have Nicholas too, and we've broken some things that we were told were unbreakable and we've had to talk to Yannick about this. And then we said, well, what if we did this and made it stronger? And he's like, you're just going to break it further up. So we just, we just decided that we're going to break it. ⁓

Bob Green (23:16)
So

wait, anytime I've been around Aaron's shop or Aaron's equipment or seen S &D's parking lots, you gotta understand, there's a rust line on every curb, every cement post. Anything that he can rub his curb feelers on, he's done it.

Because they go wall to wall. They're like a Zamboni. They don't leave anything untouched. And to quote Aaron, Bob, we go fast.

Aaron Smith (23:42)
No, yeah, you're not close enough. you could...

Nick Arndt (23:47)
You

Aaron Smith (23:48)
Yeah,

if you can't smell a little burning curb line with that curb feeler, you're not close enough. Well, if the curb feeler needs to spark, that's for sure. But you know, I watch these people post these videos online and they're like, you know, doing the curb lines with a snow rater. I just like, that looks cold and very uncomfortable. And when you can have the wings and you just do it. And that's kind of one of our things is curb to curb clean. It should look crisp.

Bob Green (23:51)
I'm sure there's sparks flying everywhere when Aaron's flowing.

Aaron Smith (24:17)
No snow banks, crisp. You, you.

Nick Arndt (24:22)
You just made a comment

on something I posted in your you said something like, I'm going going through three sets of curb feelers a season. I'm like, what is it? What is he doing? Like

Bob Green (24:30)
He sharpens them to knife points. are weapons.

Aaron Smith (24:33)
yeah,

Bob Green (24:34)
They are paper thin when he's finished with them.

Aaron Smith (24:35)
I wish I could show a picture, but you can split wood with them. In fact, the curbs can get damaged as you get towards the end because they're so sharp and so pointy that it'll crack the concrete. So that's less than ideal. We're actually working on, I just spoke to a guy today, we're actually working on building a carbide enhanced curb feeler so they don't wear as quickly. It's too expensive.

Bob Green (24:48)
Ha ha ha.

my...

my... ⁓

Nick Arndt (24:59)
my, my.

We'll let you run with that project there. yeah, you mentioned Big Nicholas. You've got some characters working for you. So if anybody hasn't been to Syma, I'm gonna plug it right now. Come to Syma, you will get to meet interesting people. Aaron brings Big Nicholas along. And if you just meet Big Nicholas, you will be entertained and.

Bob Green (25:22)
Normally, yeah.

Nick Arndt (25:28)
Go away from Simon going, was worth it. That was time well spent. We've had many a dinner or lunch or whatever with the S &D folks, shoot. Yeah, shout out to Big Nicholas. I hope he listens.

Aaron Smith (25:37)
Yeah, for sure.

Bob Green (25:39)
Nicholas is great.

Aaron Smith (25:41)
And he's,

oh, I'm sure that he will. The Plow Maxes are both at his farm right now, getting the final touches. We'll see if we end up using them tonight or not, but they're operable. He said, quote, we can plow snow with them. It may not be pretty, but we can plow snow.

Nick Arndt (26:03)
with the wings changed it.

Bob Green (26:04)
Has he been using them to push up the manure pile though, or are they actually just sitting

Aaron Smith (26:08)
⁓

Bob Green (26:09)
there resting?

Aaron Smith (26:09)
No, because we don't have... The loaders are rentals, so we send the loaders away and the plows just sit for the summer and ⁓ we get to use them. You asked about clients. ⁓ An ideal client for us is going to be located in the Essex-Essex Junction area. At this point, it can be of any size, small or large. ⁓

Bob Green (26:14)
Okay.

Aaron Smith (26:33)
I think more specifically we're looking for the same level of service. You're going to have to buy in it because we deliver a very, a what this you either want us there and you want to be taken care of or we're not a, we're not a fit. Um, that's why it looks, that's why we do, you know, doctor's offices. We, uh, we have a salon. Um, if there are any young ladies listening, Nicholas is single and, we, he,

Nick Arndt (27:00)
Big

Nicholas, not Nick, not Nick the host.

Aaron Smith (27:02)
He always like, we always joke to

him about doing the salon. Like that might be an opportunity, but now Nicholas is, we do a college campus and Nicholas is sort of the chief of the college campus.

Bob Green (27:11)
Ooh. ⁓

Nick Arndt (27:14)
Snow Chief.

Aaron Smith (27:17)
Yes.

Nick Arndt (27:18)
Man, what equipment

is Big Nicholas running these days? What is your fleet of Metal Plus attached to right now?

Aaron Smith (27:26)
Yeah, so it's kind of whatever the rental du jour is for the season. We're in case right now. Shout out to Monroe Tractor for helping us with this, but he has a 621 case with a Plow Max 1042 18 on it. When we bought that plow, we had it on a 444 deer. I'll tell you it matches better with a 444 deer than it does with a 621, but it gets the job done.

Nick Arndt (27:37)
Great Metal Plus dealer.

Okay.

Aaron Smith (27:56)
We have a Sammo's loader is a 321 case with a Metal Plus 83013, kind of the classic live edge. That does a myriad of small places, just kind of all over the map. I have a John Deere 7230 Premium with a 103616 AgriMax.

Live Edge on it, that was my OG Metal Plus. That's got like a truck loading snow blower on the back. ⁓ We have a case.

Nick Arndt (28:31)
That's the rig that I'm picturing.

I just, cause it's got the truck loading snowblower, I'm picturing it as a bigger, a bigger setup, but the tent. Okay. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (28:36)
It started on a 6320. The 1036-16

started on a 6320. And you know what, it'll do it, but it just takes a lot of operational prowess that is tiring to operate. if you, ⁓ if we got deep snow, it, you know, it knew its limitations. But the 7230, the 7230 is a weapon. ⁓ We have a case 75C that's joining the fleet this year that has a boss plow on it.

⁓ we're looking for kind of the right, the kind of the right metal plus to put on that. It's, this is kind of an experiment, this whole idea. Cause that one does some houses too. And having the boss, you can, it's a V plow. can fold it up, tuck it in and you're not, it's, it's not too bad on the driveway still. Like you don't, you're not 10 blocks long in front of you, ⁓ swinging out. ⁓ we have a myriad of Normans. We have a live edge Norman. have regular Norman hybrids. have.

We still have the OG blowers from 2013 that go out. One's on the back of the K75C and one's on the back of the OG6320. And I sold this year, it was kind of a great sadness, I sold my original 5410. That was the tractor. And if you guys wanna see some cool videos, there's some videos of us doing some driveways with that.

Nick Arndt (29:38)
from the video.

Aaron Smith (30:01)
you could really move some snow in a hurry with that. Short wheelbase and all sorts of power. John Deere, you're listening, short wheelbase, all sorts of power. It doesn't exist anymore.

Nick Arndt (30:07)
Well,

I'll

post a link in the show notes to the S &D promo video from 11 years ago But both of those original tractors are in there and it is a awesome video just to get you pumped like the soundtrack is amazing The visuals are amazing Aaron does great explaining the service That's what I found most interesting back in the day was how concisely Aaron described the service Which is something I was trying to talk about promote at the same time and I was I ended up just saying Forward the video. I just sent the video and said

This explains what we're trying to do. Let Aaron tell you. I'll post the video in the show notes. again, awesome video. It's really good.

Aaron Smith (30:50)
I should

say that my wife has written like an email synopsis to help people understand what it is. Like this is a bus, it's not a taxi. It's not on demand. know, the bus starts when the bus starts and somebody's got to be first and somebody's got to be last. And there are a lot of people in the middle and there are perks to being

Nick Arndt (31:03)
Yeah.

Bob Green (31:08)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (31:09)
and there are perks to being last and there are perks to being in the middle. And sometimes those perks change based on how the snow is.

Nick Arndt (31:13)
And you, and you...

And you mentioned earlier, you described it as insurance. So that's something I always tried to coach my customers when I was selling tractors and inverted blowers to use that terminology as you see it as an insurance, right? Not not a on demand. You know what? This has to be exactly the way it is at all times. Yada yada yada. It's it's it's covering your butt for when it's terrible. But it also when when the snow isn't isn't such a huge season, it's the same thing in that.

That's how I always tried to promote it.

Aaron Smith (31:50)
Yeah, we tell, especially the commercial people, it's not so much about doing the work. Doing the work is actually easy and fun. What is not easy and fun is being ready to do the work. And if you could only, if I could only show a video of today of, you know, stress level high, you know, I can hear the forklift in there.

Nick Arndt (32:10)
So we're ⁓

recording this in November 10th. It's about time to have the first snow event in Vermont. as with everywhere else in the country where it's just starting to snow, the S &D garage is a flutter with activity.

Bob Green (32:26)
It's the same thing every year, right? mean, yesterday, you know, for about a week, they've been calling for an event in this area. So Aaron and I are about three and a half hours apart. So he's probably getting the tail end of the system, the blue here yesterday. And they were calling for six inches. So I went for a drive yesterday because I take great pleasure in watching other people suffer now, you know, that I don't have to do it anymore the day before. And literally drive through any industrial park, there's guys out trying to

pin on snowblowers running around like chickens with their heads cut off people moving equipment from A to A to B, you know, yeah, we're, we're, yeah. Where's the PTO shaft? How are these, are these plated yet? Cause in Quebec you take the license, you're, can store your equipment for the summer if you're not using them, but you have to re register them with the government, which you can't do on a Sunday. So it was, it's just chaos today before it snows. And then it didn't snow. got, we got a trace. So everybody just probably woke up a hundred times last night, looked out the window.

Nick Arndt (33:02)
Where's the PTO shaft? Yeah.

Bob Green (33:26)
in the snow close the blinds so that's what Aaron's gonna be doing tonight so BWAH!

Nick Arndt (33:29)
Bob, evil Bob was driving around town laughing at all these people.

Aaron Smith (33:31)
Yeah, you know, I don't anticipate going to sleep. I saw your

Tim Hortons and I was exceptionally jealous.

Bob Green (33:39)
Sorry Kathleen just went out and got a coffee for me.

Aaron Smith (33:45)
See, some things are better north of the line. That's one of them.

Bob Green (33:48)
Ha ha ha.

Nick Arndt (33:50)
So you're closer.

Aaron Smith (33:51)
I should say anecdotally, the

Vanderszons used to plow a plaza with a Tim Hortons in it. that was like, Ryerson and Chris always took me there. And I was like, man, if I plowed this place, would, that Tim Hortons would be so clean.

Bob Green (33:57)
Two, we two. We had two, Hortons.

Nick Arndt (34:03)
Can't get much more Canadian than that. He's snow plowing out of Tim Hortons.

Bob Green (34:05)
What went what one podcast will have

Rob Banders on on it? We'll talk about the winter that Tim Hortons closed at midnight. For what it was, the big winter is 2008 and for whatever reason, management decided they weren't going to go all night anymore. And Robin, I didn't know. And we showed up at like 12 o'clock and we grabbed we pulled on the door and we looked at each other and we're just like, can this winter get any worse? Like, what are they doing anyway?

So Aaron, I always affectionately call Vermont Canada Junior because of the French Canadian names, the second best maple syrup in the world. ⁓ A lot of Canadian isms going on down there and you really adapted to ⁓ Canadian style snow removal because I have to say when you drive through Essex, Williston, Essex Junction, Burlington, it's hard not to spot a metal plus at this point or and Eshul. Eshul had a big ⁓

following in the area for a few years with their extendable. They had a lot of

Nick Arndt (35:01)
it must be French then. Yeah, it must be French Canadian.

Aaron Smith (35:04)
⁓ it's

very French here. ⁓ I don't remember, Bob, if it was you or Pat and Andre came down and visited us and they were like looking at all the French Canadian names. You know, we have a guy that's one of our subs. worked for us years ago, Isaac Paquette. You know, that's very French. ⁓ But we've anglicized all the French and it's really, it's somewhat humorous. So, you know.

Bob Green (35:28)
Yeah.

Nick Arndt (35:29)
I like it.

Aaron Smith (35:32)
Benoit is Benoit. it's got a very Vermont vibe to it, but we do have a very rich French-Canadian history. ⁓ And up until recently, the border was simply like a line in the sand. It was kind of more of a suggestion than an international frontier. And I think that's the way we've always seen our neighbors to the north. It was in the time before...

Nick Arndt (35:35)
Yeah.

Bob Green (35:56)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (36:02)
It was very convenient for me to go up and see Bob and to see Paul and do what needed to be done. ⁓ It's still very easy to get to Canada. It can be a little more difficult to come home, ⁓ which it depends on the day. But yes, we have a, we have a deep French Canadian influence. ⁓ I would like to say we were some trendsetters with a metal plus. don't know. Landshape's got him right about the same time. And then once you see how well they scrape.

Bob Green (36:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (36:34)
you you kind of got to be nothing but hooked. ⁓ And then, you know, I want to say one thing about the, can I just say this quickly about the French Canadian influence and snow removal here and in, as I understand it to be in Quebec from your sort of recounting, it actually snows here more than it snows in Minneapolis, more than it snows in Chicago.

Bob Green (36:39)
Yep. Yep.

I think...

Of course. Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (37:03)
And because that's true, ⁓ the pricing is not perhaps as aggressive as what you might get for removing snow in Minneapolis. Fixed price contracts are definitely a thing. And that's where the metal plus came into play. If you're fixing the salt and you can reduce the salt on something that's going to last you for a very long time, then this is a, this is

helping you put money in your pocket. And if you want to talk about the Quebec influence on snow removal, that really should be what's conversed about. They've turned it into a certainty. They've turned it into contracts. They've taken uncertainty out of things for the customers. And there's good and bad. We could argue that up and down. ⁓ Ottawa, they have contracts with CAPS. That might be a slightly better thing. But I think if you're really good at your job and you're looking for

an ongoing relationship with customers so that we're taking the shopping out of it. That this is the way to go. This is the model where it allows predictable futures for the providers. It allows predictable futures for the consumers. ⁓ And it's, you know, it kind of, it makes a place in the marketplace for technological advancement because that's what it comes down to. And then also skill, ⁓ you know, as you develop your operators and you build that skill.

That's what it takes, because basically you're racing your abilities against the...

Bob Green (38:38)
Well said.

Nick Arndt (38:39)
Yeah, so again, like you mentioned earlier, you're getting 100 inches on average or a normal winter. And you mentioned Minneapolis a few times. Well, 90. OK, OK. Well, still, it's roughly double what we would get typically in Minneapolis, a little more in Fargo sometimes. And we do have drifting. So we move in the snow over many days, but it's roughly double. So what you're saying is that.

Aaron Smith (38:48)
Nine, let's not get carried away, Nick, 90.

Nick Arndt (39:05)
You can do more billing on a contract base versus time and materials And therefore the metal plus in savings of those resources has paid off for you. That'd a a good summary good

Aaron Smith (39:17)
Yes. Yep.

Nick Arndt (39:20)
We've we've

Bob Green (39:20)
⁓

Nick Arndt (39:21)
we've previously talked to other people where you know That's an environmental thing too If you're billing if you're billing on a contract and the contractor therefore has incentive to be efficient

It's environmentally more friendly to use less resources than where with time and materials, you don't, especially on a slow winter, you don't have much incentive to be efficient. So it's interesting to hear that from your part of the world.

Aaron Smith (39:48)
If it's truly environmentally sustainable, it has to be sustainable for the pocketbook. If it has to be subsidized, then it's not sustainable. And I think this is one of the things where the SALT initiative, I know you guys have talked to Phil, we've talked to Phil, we've been participating in the Lake George stuff and it's starting to come here. For as sort of progressive and environmentally forward as Vermont is, we're actually lagging significantly in the SALT awareness, though there seems to be some recent...

moving of the needle there, but we can do better. And if you can do better, then there's an opportunity fiscally there. ⁓ And so we're excited.

Bob Green (40:32)
Aaron, since I've known you, you've been a member of Syma. Tell me how that's helped you in your business.

Aaron Smith (40:42)
Well, I've got to thank Paul Van Der Zand for that. We've mentioned him a lot.

It's, I wouldn't have gone if it wasn't for him. And when I showed up to that first one in Chicago in 2015, ⁓ he said, Aaron, he's like, you're gonna meet your people. And I didn't quite understand what he meant by that, but some of my dearest friends are from that organization. And, know, in June we get to, you know, have a little reunion. ⁓ But the thing is the level of, you know,

I can call Paul Fried in Syracuse and bounce an idea off of him. And I can call Mossimo in Cleveland and bounce an idea off of him. And I can call Herm and Grand Rapids or, know, Bruce VanderVanden and a thing on Facebook or, you know, Jason Ealinger in Minnesota. These are all people. And that's just, that's just the surface of it. ⁓ that we can bounce ideas off and, Hey, we tried this and this worked for us. And that didn't work, you know,

A great example of Saima is we had a Sidemax V plow for a 2038. And I got to tell you, an amazing plow, way too much plow for a 2038. It ⁓ nearly destroyed the tractor because it was so strong. It was too violent. ⁓ And we sold it to Jake Audet in Maine. And he's got it on a little Bobcat loader and he loves it. And you know what, honestly, I love that plow too, but it wasn't...

Nick Arndt (42:06)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (42:20)
It wasn't for us. It wasn't for the application that we had. And so that's kind of the sign of advantage. Yes, they're classes. We use their training. I'm a CSP. this is an encouragement to you to finish your ASM. Aisham is an ASM.

Nick Arndt (42:41)
Hahaha!

So for those who don't know, CSP for Siam is certified snow professional. That's the first step, correct?

Aaron Smith (42:52)
⁓ Yeah, that's like the business, we'll call that like the management track and then like the operator track is more the ASM is to be the advanced snow manager. It talks more about the science and the art of snow removal. ⁓ So, we've been pushing people towards that. Like I said, I shouldn't finish his ASM. Nicholas needs to finish his ASM. ⁓

Nick Arndt (43:18)
You're on the clock,

Nicholas. ⁓

Aaron Smith (43:21)
as he has been for two years. ⁓

Bob Green (43:24)
Well, if Nick Nick

Nickless is listening, his good friend Christian got it. So what? So what's the holdup? Didn't they start at the same time?

Aaron Smith (43:30)
Good friend Christian.

Dude, those guys are brothers from another mother.

Bob Green (43:34)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Arndt (43:36)
These are the type of things you get to witness at Saima, people. Come to Saima purely for the entertainment and mixing of personalities or meshing of personalities.

Bob Green (43:46)
Aaron said it best and if it's Paul that said it first, let's give kudos to Paul, but you will meet your people at Syma. I was blown away at my first one, just how you're funneling all these people into their industry and what they do. ⁓ It's great conversations, it's great people, an eclectic bunch. I always call the snow removal crowd an eclectic bunch, but when they all come together, it's good conversations and it's a lot of fun.

Nick Arndt (44:14)
sure.

Aaron Smith (44:14)
It is, and

there's a lot of ⁓ free exchange of ideas. There's not a lot of pretense. There can be pretense, but for the most part, there's not. ⁓ Where you can learn something, you know? ⁓ Snow removal is different. Like I lived it, snow removal is different in Minneapolis than it is in Vermont. But there's stuff that I learned from my time out here that I apply here. And there was stuff that I knew from here that I applied there, and it works.

And there's different, can challenge the way that you think about things. And that's, I think that's a very, very powerful, powerful tool. So if you're listening to this, ⁓ obviously you're engaged on a metal plus level. That's a pretty serious level of snow removal, I would say. And Simon would be a great step, ⁓ not to sound like a shameless plug, but it is a shameless plug. And we would look forward to seeing you in June at the symposium.

Bob Green (45:11)
Cincinnati.

Nick Arndt (45:12)
Yeah, Cincinnati 2026. Make sure you're make sure that's on the radar for next year. Now now, Aaron, what what is the future hold for S &D in the snow game? What are you? What are you looking to do in the future? What are you looking forward to this season? Tell us. Tell us about. Tell us your favorite thing about this upcoming season. What's it going to be?

Aaron Smith (45:35)
You know, ⁓ it's interesting. We've complained in recent years about the unavailability of help. And I would be remiss to say that I'm not guilty of that as well. I've also complained about the quality of the quote kids coming in. And ⁓ this year I've just kind of adopted a different attitude about it. ⁓ We're including a younger crowd because

To be honest with you, my love for snow removal started when I was 10. And I was out there using equipment when I was 10. My 14-year-old son will be in a piece of equipment for some part of the year. ⁓ I've got a couple of high schoolers that are coming in before class in the morning. They're in the tech center. And I've made opportunities for them to have seats, even if it's not a full route, even if it's like maybe not.

fiscally awesome, but it's going to take some load off of big Nicholas and it's going to help move the team forward. But I think the biggest thing is I'm looking to develop the next Nicholas and we feel that you cannot do that unless you put that person in a seat and give them some level of responsibility and support then in that responsibility. And that's what I'm probably most excited for this season because it's

been really contagious to watch them, ⁓ come in with excitement. ⁓ you guys have seen on my Instagram, excuse me. ⁓ Charlie has been in here every night of the week for two hours a night starting at seven 30, you know, he's obviously getting paid just pushing leaves in that pusher up and down the street. So he knows where to set that pusher on the slip hitch every single time. And

This might be sadistic of me, but I think learning with equipment, like a metal plus is awesome.

But you can't really appreciate the functionality of a metal plus if you have not first appreciated some technology that's much more simple. And you know the theory of why this works. You will be a much better operator. And I think that's where maybe equipment is going wrong, in that we're trying to do more and more stuff for everybody and taking the thinking out of it. But if you take the thinking out of it, you are not developing the person. And that's where we want to add the value as the person. ⁓

because that's the heart and soul of this. And I think that's what I'm most excited about is to get these kids in the seats. And if it makes any difference, my kid's been out there since he was 12. We've had a little...

Nick Arndt (48:20)
There's

a story there. Oh boy.

Bob Green (48:22)
you

Aaron Smith (48:23)
There is a story. If the Essex Police Department

is listening to this, I'm just going to say if the farmers can use their 12 year old kids, ⁓ I'm going to use mine and we can just talk about that later. ⁓

Bob Green (48:27)
Hehehehehe

Nick Arndt (48:38)
yeah.

Aaron Smith (48:40)
So

yeah, no, think that's the most, I think that's what I'm most excited for this season. We have some bigger and exciting challenges this year. It's a new account with a pretty high degree of difficulty, certainly a low degree of tolerance, but I think it's gonna be really good. And yeah, I'm looking forward to, I have assigned myself less plowing. Some people will find that funny like, oh,

you out there doing it, you shouldn't be out there doing it. ⁓ we have a mantra here that you're not going to get asked to do something that somebody else is unwilling to do. In the summertime, we call it the leaders weed whack. ⁓ this is not, this is not, you know, the, the, the, half air, the boss gets to sit in the big fat thing. Like nobody's above a shovel here. And if that's what it comes down to, I've seen, I've seen Nicholas swing a shovel.

I've swung a shovel, like, I've seen some truly amazing things and I gotta say that we would not be where we are today without the team that we have. And we have some characters. And I think that's what it takes and we're looking at developing sort of the next generation of characters.

Bob Green (49:56)
Sweet.

Nick Arndt (49:57)
Excellent. So the younger generation That's something to be excited about I see that too where I always tried when I was selling equipment directly to end users I try to focus on that younger generation because they're the ones with the enthusiasm and you know, they're interested in doing it right from the beginning but You you mentioned your team I think I think we'd like to have you on again with some members of your team Maybe have big Nicholas on maybe have ⁓ yeah, your wife is involved with the business, correct?

Bob Green (50:22)
Indiana.

Aaron Smith (50:26)
Yes, yeah, she pretty much runs all the customer-facing side of the residential ⁓ business. She's a very gifted writer. And so the update she sends out, sometimes there's a little poetry, sometimes a little snark and sarcasm, because it's needed. If you can't poke fun at yourself, then this really isn't the job for you, because it's going to be ⁓ a tough road.

Nick Arndt (50:55)
know you can't take it too seriously Bob and I are you know as the snow season starting where you're at it's also starting everywhere and sort of we feel the we feel the stress from throughout North America and yeah if you can't have fun it's this is not the this is not the industry for you but

Aaron Smith (51:12)
Now if you can't turn around, it's very serious. To be clear, the stakes are high here. This is a safety-facing business. ⁓ But if you can't, at the end of all that, be serious and then turn to switch, ⁓ it's gonna be tough.

Nick Arndt (51:31)
Well, Aaron, think we'll wrap it up here. Again, we'd like to have you back on. Thank you for taking the time. And we also like to say thank you. This is the first episode we're recording since the podcast launched. And we've had great feedback from everyone about how the podcast sounds. we're looking to improve it too. So if you have any recommendations, please let us know. You can watch us on YouTube too. I want to make sure you know that on Spotify and all the normal places. But Aaron, thank you for taking the time today. Good luck.

potentially tonight right you you might be going out tonight all right well we'll look we'll look for your updates online but yeah for my co-host

Aaron Smith (52:02)
Yes, sir. Well, I'll let you know tomorrow. How's that sound?

Nick Arndt (52:13)
like to say thank you for listening to another episode of the born to be a snow fighter podcast and we'll see you in the next one

Bob Green (52:19)
Thank you.

Aaron Smith (52:20)
Thank you guys.