The Story
“You must be unreasonable because logical practical thinking says, you can’t do it today. But if you want to produce unreasonable results in your life, like living your dream and taking charge of your destiny, you’ve got to be an unreasonable person” - Les Brown
Introduction
My name is Jon, I am the sole operator of Truckee Surplus. I have been drawn to used auto parts since I was a teenager. At 51 years of age, I am liberated in my work as I apply my innate and learned skills to mitigate the losses of useful auto parts to the massive West Coast automotive metals recycling industry. What you find for sale on this website as well as my eBay store are the parts I harvest in my daily hustle that covers most of Northern California and Northern Nevada. Although it took decades to overcome self-doubt, failure, and the opinions of others, today I live a working life on my terms. I operate like an eagle. That is, mostly in solitude, with total focus, perched only to consider my next move, and in harmony with all that share my environment.
The journey that brought me to this point of vocational clarity is told below for those who have expressed so much curiosity about my unusual mode of living. A way of life that represents a 180 degree turnaround from my previous career as a misplaced graphic designer in Silicon Valley. An ironic comeback story after being forced out of my own startup company, ROW52.com. But most importantly, the account of how one man's inner voice finally defeated the preconceptions of what constitutes a valid career and silenced the noise of external influence.
I am hopeful my personal triumph inspires those just getting started or anyone feeling that soul-crushing despair from a job out of tune with you. For my customers, I extend a special thank you. We are connected through the auto parts we save together. It is important for me to express that from the moment I begin removing a part, I am imagining you perform the installation.
What is Wealth?
For some wealth comes in the form of money and status. For me, wealth is incorporating patience, wisdom, and spirituality into my work. Wealth is waking up invigorated at 5:00 am each day, measuring my environment, developing a plan over good coffee, and taking consistent action at what I term “3/4 Throttle”. Wealth is being free to say, “This isn't working right now, I'm going to apply my energy to something else”. Wealth is taking a one hour run on a moment’s notice knowing the action will provide the energy I need to work with greater clarity. Wealth is understanding the observations I make in nature add value to my business in civilization. Wealth is having faith that my idiosyncratic tendencies are my competitive advantage. Wealth is working from my conscience without requesting authorization or seeking consensus.
While I work alone, I am not alone. I am indebted to the organizations that provide the systems that make working in a fashion consistent with my spirit possible. I consider the employees of these organizations my coworkers. You are all integral to my sense of wealth.
Personal Ideal
Every core business function including parts removal, inspection, cleaning, listing, and fulfillment are my daily responsibilities at Truckee Surplus. Surrounding those duties are customer service, restoration, research, data analytics, strategy, traveling, website development, and managing my eBay store. No function here is subject to disenfranchised or offshore labor. This means should you ever have a question or concern with Truckee Surplus, I am your fully-vested point of contact.
Despite societal work pressures to specialize, scale, and analyze the cost-benefit of every decision and movement, at Truckee Surplus I hold myself to my own ideal; “Fragmented routine labor is the enemy of personal dignity and time is only an ingredient in imperfect work.” By creating my own work, each day gives me the opportunity to blend analog trade skills with the technological benefits of data-rich mobile applications and the global reach of e-commerce.
Physical strength, endurance, and flexibility are also components of my work. I derive ultimate satisfaction knowing all are required with Truckee Surplus and must be well-maintained to perform. I compromised much of myself during my 18 year career in the office but I always built a fort around my fitness. Choosing the gym over happy hour with the team was normal for me back then. When asked to attend the yearly corporate tradeshow, I was on the treadmill instead of at the networking banquet. I did not expect this commitment to reveal itself in my work beyond age 50. I knew those workouts were impacting my upward mobility and likability in the corporate office. I have come to realize my unique mashup of personal faculties was made possible by my space in time and the region of the world I was raised. Leveraging this circumstance is a key factor in maximizing my utility.
Automotive Shredder Residue
ASR or Automotive Shredder Residue is jargon for the byproducts of the automotive metals recycling process. These byproducts include all the materials deemed useless within the industry such as foam, plastic, rubber, and glass. What tailings are to an ore miner, ASR is to an automotive metal recycler. For some, ASR is just what it might look like at first, trash.
I've always thought “trash” or “residue” are callous ways to refer to the parts I place great value on and direct so much energy toward. The same parts that many others also derive joy and satisfaction from whether that be in automotive repair, maintenance, preservation, or restoration. It's my belief such material is best re-marketed upstream from the shredder than immediately assumed to be downstream waste that the environment must be forced to deal with.
The rate at which ELVs or End-of-Life Vehicles are recycled means there is no shortage of A-Grade used auto parts I can bring to market. When the industry says “foam”, I think obsolete window seal. When the industry says “plastic”, I think rare center console. When the industry says “glass”, I think discontinued vent window. And the beat goes on and on, as does the opportunity for greater mitigation of automotive shredder residue.
Self-Service Auto Recycling
I am not the only person who regularly follows his urge to scavenge the inventory of a Self-Service Auto Recycler (SSAR). For many men, and certainly some women, this action taps right into 1.8 million years of human evolution subsisting as hunter-gatherers. A way of life only recently displaced by agricultural, industrial, and technological forces. Within this context, SSARs provide a unique opportunity for every degree of automotive enthusiast and mechanic. There is an allure to the acres of ELVs that even the most modern retail store cannot replicate in terms of customer experience and retention. I appreciate the energy put forth to set these vehicles to the retail floor, SSARs provide one of the very systems for which I depend to source my products. I believe I have done and am doing my part to help them persist well into the 21st century.
SSARs are an impressive river of high volume and standardized processes driven by the global appetite for the key ingredient required to produce consumer and industrial goods, steel. They were recycling before recycling was cool. The famous quote by Greek philosopher Heraclitus applies perfectly to a SSAR facility; “No man steps into the same river twice”. This has kept me and many others coming back for more treasure since the proliferation of the industry-changing SSAR model around 1984 in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. Personally, it was a natural progression to migrate from hiking the East Bay hillsides in search of artifacts left by early settlers and the native Ohlone to foraging my closest self-service yard, the Newark, California PICK-n-PULL. That is, once I was determined have my first car at around age 17.
The Earning Years
My working life after college coincided with the dawn of the internet, it was 1996. Rather than having any sort of career plan, I simply let the current economy and other people's objectives dictate my path. I went along for the ride. My attention to detail and ability to organize information in a pleasing manner lead me to work in “graphic design”, although I had no education in this area. I never saw myself as a legitimate graphic designer although that is how I was often titled. Really, I was just good at arranging text and images to achieve an optimum “visual hierarchy” in whatever medium was required. It wasn't my passion but it came natural. Since my name was on it, I was serious about it.
I moved from job to job in an upward progression. I started doing catalogs, then websites, then apps as the media industry rapidly evolved from desktop publishing to web development. The market’s need for “User Interface Design” quickly outweighed its’ need for “Page Layout” as the dotcom boom was beginning to ramp up. I adapted with each new challenge, again with no schooling. To this day I am proud to claim I performed all the required work operating off of my Grammar School education, specifically “outlining” techniques taught in 5th grade English at Warm Springs Elementary School in Fremont, California. My college education, sadly, was completely irrelevant but I am sure it helped get me hired.
Designing for the web never completed me, the final product was like an ooze I could not gather or ever call my own. I wanted to use my hands, I wanted to feel the work, I wanted to touch the outcome or at least determine the exact boundaries of what I created. I identified with Thoreau as quoted in Walden;
“Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the furring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction.”
Typical skilled trade work was implicitly discouraged within my family and I was just a few years out of college. Making no perceived use of an education that my father paid for in full would be deceit, even though my marketing degree was already obsoleted by the pace of technology. The promise of joining the right startup in Silicon Valley around this time did have some appeal. Besides, it was kind of a rush learning on the fly at work each day and Google’ing myself out of every jam I got into.
As the years went by the energy of being a part of the “next big startup” faded. I was left facing my own reality; the sedentary consensus-seeking world of modern office work was at odds with my physicality, vision, and conscience. This conflict made me appear difficult and impatient within almost every company willing to employ me, but my work product was good so they usually tolerated spells of compromised character. Whoever the employer, the points I raised within any “all hands” meeting I was invited to left rooms silent. This occurred despite coworkers whispering “I believe in what you said Jon” or “You’re a brave man” to me shortly after each meeting adjourned. I found that peculiar, and upon reflection, I still do.
My mind was stuck on automotive as my skillset was becoming more of a commodity year after year. I knew I had more to give, I knew there was something special about me, I knew the right organization needed someone just like me. I could never find it.
Entrepreneurship
As an employee, I struggled to find work satisfaction for the 18 year period between 1996 and 2014. For the first few years and in order to cope, my college roommate Chirag and I met regularly for lunch to share our distaste for corporate work, we often discussed business concepts. I was back living in Fremont again. Chirag and I shared a common interest in classic Fords and working with our hands but we were products of our San Francisco Bay Area environment and the expected trajectories of college graduates living in Silicon Valley in the late 1990's and early 2000's.
I won't forget Chirag saying during lunch at Erik's Deli in Pleasanton, California one afternoon; “There are streams of money flowing above us in every direction, we just have to reach up and grab some”. The simplicity of that statement made entrepreneurship seem possible and my Dad's investment into my college education was now bearing fruit since Chirag and I had met at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Automotive and the web would become a logical place for the two of us to align forces.
Chirag and I continued to toss around business ideas. I leaned toward a commerce model and he toward a content model. Fortunately, he took the first step without me knowing and created a subscription-based online magazine called FordMuscle. This was 1998. He had managed to accrue 100 subscribers on his own, not users, real paying customers. When he revealed his progress to me I took no offense, I was excited. I knew with my layout skills and ability to create additional editorial, we could make FordMuscle appear much more professional, double the content, increase the subscriber count, and ultimately be free of the corporate mire. We neglected establishing any business contract between ourselves, we didn't care.
In 1998, nobody believed anyone would pay for internet content. However, we believed if editorial was done right within an enthusiast niche, enthusiasts would pay. They did, although Chirag and I never made a full commitment to this project. We both kept our day jobs. Together we pushed FordMuscle along for 10 years while raising our young families, behaving as best we could at regular work, and going hard during the 3 hour bookends every workday and weekends.
FordMuscle was a beautiful project for the time, nobody could match our content and understanding of this niche. After all, we were members of our own target market. FordMuscle ran its' course, we exhausted ourselves since our attention was divided between normal careers and what felt like a hobby that paid well. In 2009, a niche forums aggregator provided us a real good reason to get out. Chirag and I split the modest bounty without an ounce of ill-will toward one another. I was officially done with FordMuscle and I was out of entrepreneurship. We both took a break.
Just Do It Again
After the FordMuscle sale I languished for a few months. I was deflated without having my own business to bolster my sense of self, even in solitude. Sadly, the most painful part was no longer having FordMuscle as a sensible component of my answer when somebody asked "So what do you do?" I found myself awkwardly answering as if I had been asked "So what DID you do?", citing all the past highlights of our niche website and the subsequent sale. It sounded desperate and was the calling card of someone looking backward not forward.
My regular job as a graphic designer was always my safety net and there it was for me to fall back into in order to maintain the status quo. The safety net was like a womb, I was all cozy and safe but man I was barely living. When my first son was born I had added running back into my daily fitness routine. I was running further and more often now since I had an instant surplus of time without the moonlighting demands of FordMuscle.
After completing a half marathon in October of 2009, I proceeded to get a weight workout in at the hotel fitness center. Like so many other hotel gyms, that day at the Fairmont in San Jose, California, the gym was empty. After 15 minutes, in walked a short but hardened man with dark leathered skin, long receding bleach blond hair, mid 50's I guessed. I knew who this celebrity was immediately. Having a conversation with him was unavoidable being in such tight quarters, but I remained to myself anyway. Eventually he passed by me and asked "Are you military?" I simply said, "No, are you?" in a dismissive tone. He followed up with "You've seen my show, right?" I said, "Yeah, you're Duane Dog Chapman."
Duane was in San Jose on a road trip with Tony Robbins learning and practicing the art of motivational speaking. We proceeded to workout for the next hour while carrying a light conversation between sets. Not one guest entered the gym that entire time. Our conversation was relaxed and like most people who encounter a celebrity, I felt he was surprisingly down-to-earth. I did not realize at the time how this chance encounter would positively impact my life. Besides, this was a little more than an encounter, it proved to be more like a short therapy session.
I knew it was coming and I cringed when Duane inquired about my mode of living. I mean, this was a guy that for all-intents-and-purposes was a badass. While I have always been physically fit and generally athletic, my association with tech made me soft in comparison to a guy who served time, actively pursued serious criminals, and had his own TV Show. I kept my answer simple in order to maintain the reciprocal conversation we had going.
Dog: "So what do you do?"
Me: "At this very moment? (sigh) I'm lost. I'm in technology. I design catalogs, webpages, things like that."
Dog: "What do you mean by lost?"
Me: "Well, my business partner and I just sold our little creation, it was a website magazine sorta thing. Think Hot Rod Magazine, but for the internet. Got a fair deal but now I don't know what the *#^$&*! to do. It all happened fast."
Duane: "So you guys created this outta nothing and another business found enough value in it to just buy it? A website? Haha.
Me: "That just about sums it up."
Duane: "Just do it again. I don't know #^$&*! about computers. Never graduated High School."
The contrast of this character advising me to simply "just do it again" within the context of the hallowed ground of computer history for which we stood, had impact. Apple, eBay, Google, and Adobe Headquarters were within a 15 minute drive and here I was taking unsolicited but welcome career advice from a guy that ran away from home at 15 to join the Devils Disciples Motorcycle Club. I ended that weekend a little bolder.
ROW52
In no time Chirag and I were trading texts and emails trying to force the next idea while at work. Feeling each other out on concepts, searching for that enthusiasm we had with FordMuscle, only to find it doesn't work that way. My regular job was essentially torture at this point. I drew an analogy in my mind like I was imprisoned on Alcatraz, each day scratching another 3 inches through masonry with a nail file in search of sunlight.
I was energetic in my spare time, home remodeling, running hard, playing futbol, working on my cars again. I had to be. This was also a good time to list on ebay all the excess auto parts I had received from former FordMuscle advertising clients. Most of this stuff was hardly used since it was just installed to build editorial. Everything sold quickly. Around this time I got my first smartphone, an iPhone 4. Ironically, I had always been a late adopter of technology. The eBay app was one of my first installs.
There was a PICK-n-PULL Self-Service Auto Parts about 5 miles from my house in Sparks, NV. I might have visited the physical yard once in the 10 years between 1999 and 2009. During the same period, I had never pulled up picknpull.com a single time. One day at work, I visited picknpull.com to see if they had a car in inventory matching my needs. I expected to have a user experience consistent with modern e-commerce, something like a photo inventory lookup of every car at all 65 yards in North America. Maybe the ability to save a search and receive text alerts? After all, PICK-n-PULL's parent company, Schnitzer Steel, was a member of the Fortune 1000, they must have the resources to implement these common web retail functions. As you can guess, the website was archaic by Silicon Valley standards, but I was able to conduct a rudimentary inventory query. I found a match and headed to the yard the next day to locate the car I was after.
After paying my $2.00 entry fee I proceeded to row 59, found the 1976 Thunderbird I was looking for and sure enough it had the center console I needed. After removing this part, I began the tempting walk through the cars that shared my interest back then, 70's Fords. On row 52 I found a 1979 Ford Fairmont, it was in incredible condition. I usually peek at interiors first and on this car the steering wheel was immaculate. However, I did not need a Fairmont steering wheel. It was a small but significant thought when I said to myself, "I don't need this, but somebody does, and this car will be crushed without them knowing it was ever here." It was still 2010, and this would be the first time I used the eBay app in reverse as a little recommendation tool to indicate a market opportunity. I bought the Fairmont steering wheel only for the purpose of finding it an owner.
As I made my way down the long main aisle of ELVs, roughly 1000 of them, I was no longer just a classic Ford enthusiast. I saw every car as a donor of 30,000-50,000 possible parts, all of which were stored perfectly on a “rack.” That hypothetical rack being the full assembly of each ELV, every one of them holding all the parts that made up a specific year, make, and model. PICK-n-PULL had 61 locations at the time. Observing the average yard turned over 1300 vehicles every 90 days, this meant PICK-n-PULL as a company processed 300,000 - 400,000 ELVs every year. This indicated to me a large opportunity for a peer-to-peer network connectingPICK-n-PULL customers as suppliers to online buyers.
My next step was to perform a test, so after I sold the Fairmont steering wheel on eBay, I replicated the process 20 times on vehicles I had no emotional feeling for and with parts from PICK-n-PULL. Mostly stuff I never worked on or would ever consider owning. I compiled my data, broke down the basic email structure of the guy with the most relevant automotive experience on the Schnitzer Executive Team, and drafted a simple email. This was the now former PICK-n-PULL President. I heard back. Then I was granted a 10 minute call. After that call I was granted a 1 hour meeting with the President, Vice President, and the CFO.
At this point I got Chirag involved, I needed him to pull this off. We nailed every meeting riding on exuberance, insight, and preparation. I drafted my entire vision screen-by-screen, pixel by pixel, user-case by user-case. I covered it ALL in beautiful Photoshop mockups that served as presentation slides, the design spec, and the functionality spec. This was how I worked even though it trampled across three predetermined disciplines in web development. Just like FordMuscle, all my work was completed during the exhausting bookends of each day and weekends. The vision was clear to anyone who looked at it. Eventually the Schnitzer Executive Team funded the concept with Chirag and I as minority partners.
I would be specifically listed as “inventor” for this concept within all the contractual documentation written by Schnitzer legal counsel, although that title unsettled my conscience. I just went with it because now, finally, I could quit my day job to be a full-time entrepreneur. This felt like a huge achievement for me, I could finally work when I wanted and where I wanted. My first week I polished up my home office, had a beautiful reproduction of American Progress framed and hung it on my home office wall. The classic image depicted Westward Expansion showing the angelic image of Columbia carrying a schoolbook while stringing telegraph wire across the United States. I found inspiration and connected metaphors between this artwork and what we were about to build. I was full of energy.
We called it ROW52 since that was the row I was on at the Sparks, Nevada PICK-n-PULL the day I found the 1979 Fairmont. And from there a 6 year saga began that would take me on a wild ride exposing me to powerful corporate executives, trademark lawyers, and global business consultants. More people I can count wanted their part and influence into what they called an invention, but found the person behind it like a very demanding Forrest Gump. For corporate types whose careers depended mostly on quarterly performance metrics, my allegiance to a customer base made up of scavengers like myself may have seemed too ideal and silly. This was not Silicon Valley venture capital, this was the U.S. Steel Industry. I was ignorant with how business was done at this level and I refused to adjust my values and commitment to my vision.
In the end, both Chirag and I were forcefully bought out of ROW52 by our investor, Schnitzer Steel. My phone no longer rang. Almost every contractor and agency we had hired was and still does work on ROW52 for Schnitzer, but I was now irrelevant. They had done a clever job of convincing me they found no value in the product citing that their customer base doesn’t use smartphones and that a photo inventory was cannibalizing the $2.00 entry fee at their 65 North American retail locations. I knew otherwise but that did not matter.
I hit the lowest point of my life at this point. It was 2016, I had two mortgages and two young boys. My last job title of “Founder” made getting related work next to impossible. You cannot go backwards in this economy unless you are willing completely rebuild yourself. By this time graphic design contract work had been beaten down to $10 per hour by overseas Upwork contractors. It was time to face the truth. I had taken the maximum risk and I had failed. For the sake of emphasis and should any member of this past project be reading this, I had failed. My back was completely against the wall, I saw no way out.
Serving the Ungrateful Master
The next three years were rough. I was closing in on 50, I had nothing meaningful to contribute to the economy, and no regular job to fall back on. I patched together a living doing whatever design work I could find but it was sparse and frustrating knowing a skilled tradesman could demand 50% payment upfront and my college education provided me the joy of being strung out 60 days after I completed a design project. I read often, played a lot of pickup futbol, and fly fished. Futbol provided a place to feel connected and useful, even at my age. I am certain the game kept me from dipping into depression. The role of physical activity in my life was more valuable than ever at this point. All the typical advice from concerned friends and family meant nothing to me, despite people wanting to be helpful.
I did not know it was happening at the time, but this period was the start of a spiritual awakening. My old business partner Chirag and I shared much of what we were both reading at the time. We advanced our philosophical awareness at a steady rate connecting American philosophers to their eastern influences. I followed a trail of authors starting with a compelling quote by Alexis De Toqueville used in the opening scene of The Donner Party, an incredible documentary from the series called American Experience. A story that is closely related to American Progress, the depiction of Manifest Destiny which still hung on my office wall. The documentary opened with this:
“It is odd to watch with what feverish ardour Americans pursue prosperity, ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they might not have chosen the shortest route to get it. They cleave to the things of this world as if assured they will never die, and yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach, as if they expected to stop living before relishing them. Death steps in, in the end, and stops them, before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes them."
The quote was taken from De Toqueville’s two part volume Democracy in America which educated me about many of our cultural and social tendencies that were at odds with my own nature. A quote that took aim at the American obsession for material gain at the expense of spirituality. An observation made during the Industrial Revolution into ways of thinking that are so baked into being American that working outside of them creates the impression that you are un-American today. There were countless observations made in De Toqueville’s short visit to America in 1835 worth contemplating. I was impacted by his insight into our urge to organize immediately when setting out to accomplish even the smallest objective, citing that Americans seem to believe nothing great can be built in isolation. To apply De Toqueville’s observation to modernity, I believe this justifies the American attitude that nothing has value unless it is branded. The greatest example being Nature.
From here I found Henry David Thoreau, namely his masterpiece Walden. I was determined to stay offline during this search for knowledge. Again, sticking with used book stores which played right into my instinct to forage. The Book Gallery was my local source, a 34 year old staple of central Sparks, Nevada which is now permanently closed. I was intrigued by philosophy for the first time in my life and was really enjoying how inexpensive it was. The value was like nothing I ever experienced. After so many years working in the ether of web development, the tactile nature of used books was welcoming.
I found the conclusion of Walden could be read independently from the entire book, I read it repeatedly. Within every two pages of the conclusion I felt the embers within the caverns of my mind suddenly glowing white bright. I shook my head realizing that this was all published in 1854. I wondered how I made it through college only being vaguely aware of Walden and completely unaware of Transcendentalist thought.
On a subsequent visit to the same used book store in my hometown I was eager to find more enlightenment. By this time I was on to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau’s friend, mentor, and probably the greatest American philosopher to ever live. I was two years into my journey still but it is here where one passage from Emerson’s Essays changed my life. It was now 2018. On this day I pulled a very thin pocket book from the top shelf of the philosophy section at The Book Gallery. The pocket book contained just three of Emerson’s essays; The American Scholar, Nature, and Compensation. I found Compensation to be the most intriguing, starting with the fact this essay had very little to do with monetary compensation. Instead, Emerson expands upon the duality of the Universe. Simply put, he challenged me to see the ebb and flow of all action. Like the conclusion of Walden, every two pages contained bombs of enlightenment. Philosophy so meaningful and relevant to my nature that I felt a spiritual connection to Emerson. The following passage liberated my mind, immediately clearing the clouds of vindication, bitterness, and perceived injustice brought on by the ROW52 buyout:
“If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Should the meaning of Emerson's philosophy be too cryptic to comprehend, I interpret it this way; If you feel you are controlled by a cruel person or have been wronged by anything, continue to serve them in a divine manner. Don't expect an immediate return on services rendered or appreciation. Be content if your payment is beyond overdue and you are ignored. Why? Because when you are finally paid, in this life, your reward will be exponentially greater than you ever imagined.
It was at this point, almost 10 years since I had discovered the market opportunity on row 52 of the Sparks, Nevada PICK-n-PULL, that I decided to try again. This time however, it would be done without investors, partners, or anyone to critique my execution. I needed to do this alone, I needed to go full out, and most importantly I needed to get primal. It meant unlearning how I had been conditioned to approach work in the digital world. I felt an energy in my decision to go analog.
I proceeded to neatly sever the few graphic design clients I had left and I bought a 2003 Mazda B2300 to begin making parts harvesting runs from Reno into the Sacramento Valley to turn my eBay store in something much more serious. My loved ones cautiously supported me. It did not matter either way, I had to do this.
Conclusion
In the 3 years since I committed myself full time to Truckee Surplus I have shipped over 35,000 pounds of used auto parts that would have otherwise become automotive shredder residue. My absolute commitment has earned me volume buyer status at two self-service recyclers giving me access to 25 retail locations within the Northern California and Northern Nevada region. Each location within the circuit having its' own unique inventory offering, nuance, and reason to stay spiritually grounded. A critical resource in this endeavor is the same entity that forced me out of my own company 7 years ago, PICK-n-PULL. A master I now serve with contentment.
