Welcome to Monmouth monthly a peek into the heart of the Willamette Valley. Each month we will bring you updates of the things happening in and around town brought to you by the people who helped make it happen. I am your host Sabra Jewell
And welcome back to another episode of mammoth monthly. This month I am talking trash with my good friend Josh Brandt. welcome Josh to the podcast.
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, it is my pleasure.
Now I have known Josh for a couple of years as far as being the leadership of brands. But Josh, tell us your origin story are you are from this community Central High School graduate.
That is correct. I born and raised here came from great two families. So I was able to basically live quite the life growing up, I was heavily involved in sports aunts, uncles played, grandparents played. So it was really easy for me to get introduced to that at an early age. So started doing that love. The team side of everything was fortunate to play with some great athletes and make state tournaments and do a lot of playoff games had great coaches. So yeah, just being from here, went on and played a little bit in college and went to Concordia University and Portland, played baseball there for four years and came back to the old hometown. I love it so much. It does seem to be a pretty great place to grow up.
Now. You mentioned the two families and that's the brand side and what's the other side of Howard's
Howard's
Are both of these families just long folks from Polk County?
Yeah, we've the Brandt side moved here in 1953. Could have been the tail end of '52-'53. That's when we got the first franchise which was independence first, I believe. And then we got Monmouth maybe about four to six months after that. So that worked out really well in the Howard side. And that was probably right around that same time. Grandfather on that side on the Howard side was a logger and then my grandmother Joan worked for the city of Monmouth for 35 years. So yeah, we've been involved in this community seeing it when a man it felt like it was about 2000 people each and then shoot now we're both over 10,000 It definitely great place for me to grow up. I was I loved being able to ride my bike everywhere. It was always a super comfortable, clean, secure cities never really had a problem wherever I went, you know, little bit of a latchkey kid, not my parents were busy. But they also kind of put a lot of responsibility on me early and helped me grow up and I got in a little bit of trouble when I was young. I was you know, I wasn't the best. I never wanted to upset upset mom and dad and definitely not grandma and grandpa on either side. But for the most part, I got my I got my act together. And sports became such a big part of my life about well, forever. But 6/7 grade, that's when it really jumped and that's when I was like, probably better start focusing on school and they get about better things to do with my time than out roaming around town. So are you an only child, I am an only child I know hard to believe right now everybody picks out on me right away. So only child, my parents I mean they were young. And so I had a lot of aunts and uncles that are really close to me and age. Both sides had unbelievable upbringing, super tons of support from both sides. I was fortunate. I'm a very fortunate individual. I was blessed with the families that I've gotten and that they've supported me. Basically, in every endeavor I've ever done, whether it be sports, whether it be relationships, whether it be business, I was often allowed to kind of pursue the things that I was interested in. And I'm super grateful for that.
Now, you mentioned your grandmother, Joan Howard. We've heard a fun fact about her when you presented at Rotary the other day. Do you remember what the Rotarians told you about your grandmother?
She was one of the first female presidents of rotary I believe they call the president. Yeah, like in the world, right. Yeah, you know, world so it's not it and I could see that out of her. She was she was a fighter. She lost her life a little bit too early. You know, it's, I think about her often, but that's one thing for her. She was insanely supportive of all of her children, all of her grandchildren. She was she was a fighter. She'd be orney she'd be tough, you know, having to get those power bills or whatever it was in Monmouth and getting all that stuff she find a way, you know, but every time at the end of the day, you know, most of the community she had left friends, a lot of people knew who she was, but she was heavily involved. That's the part that I tried to represent from her is try to get involved as best I can, whether it be associations, you know, whether it be Chamber of Commerce, whether it be, you know, Rotary, all these other clubs, she was always involved in the city. And I always felt like that was something that power but it was like it was some that allowed her to be involved on another level, you know, versus just a lot of talk. You know, a lot of the time we Everybody has problems with what communities do. And the best way to help with some of those things is to get involved. And it's not easy, and it's can be stressful for people and create anxiety. But you'd be very surprised how supportive especially both of our communities, and almost any association that I've ever been involved in, it's the amount of people you meet is quite amazing. So she I don't know if there was a time, she didn't have something to do. I have three children. I can barely survive my day. And my wife is the one that just she's the champion of it all. She keeps it online. Me. I just tried to get by and then I look back on my grandmother, my mom, my aunts, I don't know how they do it, or did it? I mean, it was nonstop, and we didn't have just close family meals, like our immediate family. No, no, no, no, this was like, aunts, uncles, it was 20 people friends, and that was two, three times a week. And I'm like, I can barely make a grilled cheese for myself. So you know, it's those are the things that I always go back and remember her with. And you know, my, I mean, everybody the brand side, they all have a ton of very supportive, tough women. It was it was pretty easy to kind of kind of see a lot of their leadership roles. I guess it took me a long time to learn. Like I said, I was kind of a punk little kid and took me a little while to learn. But as I got older, you start to see, you know, my great grandmother Murray, on the brand side, she she didn't weigh more than 81 pound she was tiny, was born in 1912, handled the Great Depression. And she was a tough ornery, son of a gun, same thing she'd always the house was always clean, there was always food on the table wasn't much coming from the Great Depression, she held a lot of money close to her in the sense of you know, they always knew don't spend a lot you never know if you're gonna keep it. And so that was part of the reason to that kind of go in the origin story of brands, it's kind of the reason, you know, we've been able to now serve Polk County for 71 years, and we've been in business for 76. So 1948 and Portland was our was our first kind of partnered route with some friends and then it hit and Monmouth and independence in 1953. And we haven't screwed it up yet.
And you know, you mentioned involvement in the community. It makes me think of how I came to know you and your family. It was through your philanthropy with Western Oregon University and your support for Western Oregon. Why was your family involved in western what what made them want to support the university?
Yeah, so not only that, being obviously a big part of our community. My aunt attended my uncle's attended, and my grandfather, Darrell Brant, he went and played basketball and baseball and is in the Hall of Fame, Western Oregon, then OC, but he originally started at the University of Oregon. He went into the Coast Guard for three years. And then when he came back, he and some buddies went to Western and became a pretty talented basketball team. And I think their tallest person was about six one. They have a few things in the newspaper for the mighty mites. I think they were called. And the man Allison, who's always been involved, that's on the Howard side. She's She's a teacher there now, actually. But she played basketball as well there. So you know, I think it's just, it was one we were a sports family. So having that there. It was not uncommon for us it was a high school game, whether anybody was playing or not. Usually it was because we have kids scattered across the age group to, oh, we have family and friends that are going to the Western Oregon games. And so my grandfather Darryl on that side, he's always felt like a way of being supportive and we focused a little bit on the sports side of things. Of course, we just a sports family. What can we do? It's always drawn our attention. And so we've tried to do our best to be able to, you know, support in the best way we can and I had a fantastic cousin that went through Western and played basketball Tanner omelette, who's now over season Portugal play in professional basketball. So it's just that that university just like this town has always had a big part of our lives be involved with it.
If
If you're just now joining us we are talking to Josh Brandt with Brandt's sanitation service who is talking to us a little bit about the Family History Origin Story in Monmouth. You mentioned Darryl Brandt, your grandfather, is he the first proprietor, a brand sanitation his dad his father. Yeah. So Edwin Brandt and Marie Brandt are my great grandparents. They came from Garland Nebraska, which is a town back then was probably 200 people and now 200 People they left a farm if I understand the story, correct, they basically through that great depression just got up, left the farm headed this way and made their way to Portland Northeast Portland actually. So that's where a lot of the ties for from Concordia where That's where Concordia is campus was located. Maria and Edwin had two sons, Dwayne and Darryl. And Dwayne is the older he was a college professor, both were pretty heavily involved in sports. Dwayne took the route of being a university professor, Darrell took the route of kind of fallen athletics a little bit more he did he loved farming, too. He's all my grandfather, Darrell. He has had such a connection to farming and did that quite a bit, even stopped working on the route a little bit to focus on farming, and then just did both? And yeah, so it starts with the great grandparents. So I'm fourth generation to be a part of it, which is crazy. But you know, you think in 76 years of being in business, it kind of makes sense. But grandfather, Darryl took it over probably about '33-'34. And took that and kind of grew the company into what it is now did a few other ventures as well. And then my dad is, man, my dad's work, there's probably since he was two, you know, you back in the day when it was really you know, we'd go into businesses and pull out their trash, it was a real family affair. Uncle's did the same thing. So they've been involved for ever. And I didn't get involved until about 2016. And part of that was just that love for sports. And my parents allowed me to pursue a bunch of different things. And it kind of came to the point we had an unfortunate passing of our general manager who worked for us for 40 years, he worked there since he was a kid his his dad worked for us when he was younger was another family affair. And it just was super fortunate to have that support. And he unfortunately passed and kind of came to the point where we're going to need to get a little bit more involved in the day to day and who's kind of eager to do it. So one day while we were sitting at the wine bar, I owned, he I just said, Hey, if you ever need help, I'm more than happy to help out. And he kind of looked at me goes, Oh, you'd be interested. I go, of course, why wouldn't I be It's a family business. And it kind of started from there. And so it's been now like I said, it's been since 2016. So, man, I'm going on. What is that? Eight years? My goodness. So yeah, time flies by I guess. So. Yeah, that actually answers one of the questions I was thinking of I think about folks who grow up in a family business. And did you have a choice to be a part of that business? But she says it seemed like you wanted the choice. It seems like that was something that you wanted to be a part of. Yeah, of course, I guess I was, I was so blessed with the support of my family to be able to do so many different things. So it's a great business to be involved in. Of course, I take pride in that we've done it for 76 years, I think it's important, I've always had the chaos and weird thing in my head bounced around that it would be awesome to see 100 years. So I always am fighting for that I care deeply about that. And I thought I could probably provide a little I don't know, I'm not youth anymore. I'm getting old, I'm getting up there. But a little bit of a different idea, since I hadn't been involved every bit of it. And the other side to a family business, of course, that family dynamic that's inside of it. And you know, that's always hard when you're trying to make decisions. And there's three or four family members involved. It's a learning process. And I was fortunate to be able to kind of go in, I learned a lot running the wine bar for eight to 10 years, kind of took that from, you know, entry level to maybe sinking to thriving there for a little bit. And so I think that was a big key in me also saying something to him say, Hey, maybe I can do this. Maybe this is an area of something I would love to get into. I want everybody and understand to we know we're fortunate. We understand it's a great job to have in our community. We understand that. But I also want everybody to understand that I and we take that very seriously, you know, and the goal is to be able to provide as many services that I possibly can. You know, within reason, and that's all of them, I'll do them all, there's just the hard conversation is, there's a price to a lot. And that's the tough thing to have the money conversations all the time. But, you know, again, we have a very supportive community, very supportive councils. It's, it's been kind of a run, it's awesome. It's fun. It's and it's, you know, I don't get a chance to talk about it this often, you know, and so, kind of reminiscing a little bit on it, it, you know, I get that. And that nostalgia of me too, is like just thinking about how it was before I was there, and how the trucks have changed and how our business has changed. And it's like, man, it's kind of come a long ways.
You know, Josh, when you've presented at city council, you really are great about talking about ways that customer behavior, our own personal shopping behavior and trash disposal behavior, it can make a difference in the cost overall. And I was wondering if you could talk about some of those behaviors that your your crews are out? And about? What are they seeing? What differences can we make at home, that would make a difference for the industry overall, our pocketbooks eventually and for just not having as much waste,
Yeah, of course. So you know, the biggest conversations I have are with recycling, you know, on the trash side of things, it's pretty self explanatory. You know, we we could darn near take anything as as long as long as it's not a hazardous chemical, we can find a way to get it to the landfill and get rid of it. But ultimately, the goal in our job as well, is the recycle, reuse, you know, model, that is, you know, I get that there may be a desk or a dresser that you're done with, you know, some of the great ways of instead of reducing the amount of trash that we're taking the landfill, is to reuse that whether it's a secondhand store, whether it's selling it on Facebook marketplace, whatever it may be is somebody, there's probably a potential person that is going to be able to enjoy that item. Now, of course, that takes a little bit of effort, some people don't want money for it, some people, it's hard to just get rid of it, we understand that. And that's where we come into play. And that's why we provide that service. But the biggest one, of course, is going to be recycling, that's my, my largest conversations are always recycling, I think for the most part, the community has a really good understanding of it, we do a great job. When we take trucks in every once in a while they are selected, basically to look at contamination. So they actually sort through that truck, we tend to always have a number under 10%, which is really good. I think the biggest misconception of recycling is that me Josh sitting right here, make all the decisions on what we take why we take it, money, all that it's a state ran program, recycling is required by the state of Oregon, not to mention our county, and I have rules of what I need to follow to recycle and what materials is not something that I wake up and go, You know what those clam shells, I don't want to take them anymore, you know, that's, you know, I don't get to wake up and make those decisions. I just try to follow it as best I can. I take it all as recycling to garden services and Salem, they have a bunch of conveyor belts that take it, it's an interesting thing that give tours, if anybody's interested, I'm more than happy to take somebody on a tour and chat about it. But you know, when those contamination levels started arise, the first idea is we've got to get this under control. And one of the best ways to get under control is high problem items. We need to reduce that getting into the stream.
So that's like pizza boxes, which are going to have grease on any kind of to go container that has the food that has touched it, especially grease, right? Grease is a big, big thing with Donald's bags with the fry grease on it. The tendency is to throw that in recycling that really you're just now contaminating other things in that bin. Yeah, yeah, I'm saying now you're causing more grief at the recycling processor. And it's more labor intensive on that. And so that's one of the things that we really can be thoughtful of with our recycling, right is keeping those things out of recycling. Yep. Okay.
To list of items, and it's universal across the board, so that's on your website, right? If you have that stuff listed out not only the names of things, but some pictures, right? Because that really helps me. Yeah, when I approach a recycling container, if there's kind of that iconography, and go, Oh, I cannot put this in there. You can even get on our app and type in something on the widget, you can type in styrofoam, and it'll actually drop down, show you a picture of what it looks like, and where to dispose of that. And if we can't take it a lot of the time. We have items underneath that that'll say, oh, Marion County hazardous waste facility takes that or And, you know, eventually, hopefully, that will, there will be a program introduced, where we can take some of those materials. It's just now when you're trying to manage it on a scale, it's really hard and in order to kind of meet everybody's needs, and there's all walks of life. There's, we have several, you know, just insane recyclers. I mean, you'll see their counter and they've cleaned every single thing and shoot, they got them itemized, they got them sized out and they're clean and perfect. And then we have the casual one, the wishful one that's just kind of like, oh, this is looks like a bag, paper bag, whatever. Well, that's paper that goes in. I understand. I get where they're coming from, and I don't even think it's malicious. I think it's easy. One of the things that the state's now done is basically create a To list of items, and it's universal across the board, so that's on your website, right? If you have that stuff listed out not only the names of things, but some pictures, right? Because that really helps me. Yeah, when I approach a recycling container, if there's kind of that iconography, and go, Oh, I cannot put this in there. You can even get on our app and type in something on the widget, you can type in styrofoam, and it'll actually drop down, show you a picture of what it looks like, and where to dispose of that. And if we can't take it a lot of the time. We have items underneath that that'll say, oh, Marion County hazardous waste facility takes that or first source market on Center Street will take Styrofoam, you know, try to be a smart purchaser, you know, really look at the items that you're buying and, and what comes of the waste of that how the packaging is, you know, can you at the grocery stores have done a great job with getting rid of, you know, plastic bags. Now, you laugh because some of the stores still have plastic bags, and they say, this item, it's made from recycled material. It's not recyclable. The idea of those tough white plastic bags is they're tough, so that you can reuse them, not because they're recyclable, they were made from recycled material. Now use those more times. And one, it's, you know, it's trying to get to figure that out.
I use them personally to for cleaning up the litter box. They're great litter box bags, you know, for disposing, but they're not recyclable people. That's a great point that you mentioned the app for brands, and you'll have a great app there. Because if you are lucky enough to be a brand's customer, you should be using this app, because every week I can look to see what trash is getting picked up that week. So if it's commingle or if it's my recycling or yard waste. And so I do recommend that folks use that app, it's very easy to check, just put in your address. And it'll tell you what your what services you're signed up for. And it connects you to the website where you're able to check this list of items. Now composting, I do have a compost bin, tell me about food waste. Tell me about composting. People have a lot of questions about that. Give me a brief overview.
Yeah, of course. So we just implemented the program for food waste, we started that kind of middle of last year, I did a few talks at Council and we sent out some inserts of a did you know, and new programs. And part of that, again, is we're fortunate to have a facility called PRC that's located down by coffin view landfill that takes composting, the idea is, that's another useful tool for you to be able to pull those materials out of your trash and get it into that yard waste bin. You know, if, if you like to garden, which is a great tool, great way is to create your own compost pile and back and, and there's a tons of ways to show you how to do that online. If you food waste can go in that, you know your leaves your grass, things like that, and you kind of create this natural, you know, fertilizer in a sense, that's going to help nurture a lot of these plants and gardens and potential food, that's the best way to do it. The second best way to do it is of course is to utilize our yard debris bin and get rid of those materials. But when you're doing on a large scale, I get that you're going to have some some frustrations, because the goal is when you're outside work, and you got those two beautiful days, like we just add, your goal is to get rid of as much as you can, and you want that to be yard waste. And then of course, this week's recycling, I gotta sit on it, I can't get more totally understand people's concern. It's just again, it's all managing those things on scale. And, you know, as we as we continue to grow, as we continue to get more efficient as we first source market on Center Street will take Styrofoam, you know, try to be a smart purchaser, you know, really look at the items that you're buying and, and what comes of the waste of that how the packaging is, you know, can you at the grocery stores have done a great job with getting rid of, you know, plastic bags. Now, you laugh because some of the stores still have plastic bags, and they say, this item, it's made from recycled material. It's not recyclable. The idea of those tough white plastic bags is they're tough, so that you can reuse them, not because they're recyclable, they were made from recycled material. Now use those more times. And one, it's, you know, it's trying to get to figure that out.
more times. And one, it's, you know, it's trying to get to figure that out.
I use them personally to for cleaning up the litter box. They're great litter box bags, you know, for disposing, but they're not recyclable people. That's a great point that you mentioned the app for brands, and you'll have a great app there. Because if you are lucky enough to be a brand's customer, you should be using this app, because every week I can look to see what trash is getting picked up that week. So if it's commingle or if it's my recycling or yard waste. And so I do recommend that folks use that app, it's very easy to check, just put in your address. And it'll tell you what your what services you're signed up for. And it connects you to the website where you're able to check this list of items. Now composting, I do have a compost bin, tell me about food waste. Tell me about composting. People have a lot of questions about that. Give me a brief overview.
Yeah, of course. So we just implemented the program for food waste, we started that kind of middle of last year, I did a few talks at Council and we sent out some inserts of a did you know, and new programs. And part of that, again, is we're fortunate to have a facility called PRC that's located down by coffin view landfill that takes composting, the idea is, that's another useful tool for you to be able to pull those materials out of your trash and get it into that yard waste bin. You know, if, if you like to garden, which is a great tool, great way is to create your own compost pile and back and, and there's a tons of ways to show you how to do that online. If you food waste can go in that, you know your leaves your grass, things like that, and you kind of create this natural, you know, fertilizer in a sense, that's going to help nurture a lot of these plants and gardens and potential food, that's the best way to do it. The second best way to do it is of course is to utilize our yard debris bin and get rid of those materials. But when you're doing on a large scale, I get that you're going to have some some frustrations, because the goal is when you're outside work, and you got those two beautiful days, like we just add, your goal is to get rid of as much as you can, and you want that to be yard waste. And then of course, this week's recycling, I gotta sit on it, I can't get more totally understand people's concern. It's just again, it's all managing those things on scale. And, you know, as we as we continue to grow, as we continue to get more efficient as we keep moving forward our goals, those are the some of the things that we're constantly looking at, that's what my job is, is to kind of see what the needs of our community are. And start finding ways that we can help the community by providing a service and you know, sometimes it takes six months to a year to kind of figure out how what's the best way to manage this, you know, there's a little bit of learning that I have to do, I have to get a little bit better at it. But that's why I always suggest to people, I give out my cell phone almost always shoot, I think my cell phones, the one on our website, and I always say reach out, I'm more than happy to chat about it. I'm more than happy to get together with whether it's a community association, whether it's a neighborhood, and somebody wants to chat about it, I'm more than happy to come up with ideas or think of ways that we can do and if I can hear those concerns. And I can even if somebody has a suggestion for the type of service, that's awesome, that helps me that makes my job a whole heck of a lot easier when understand the needs and what people are looking for. I'm really happy that we're able to get the food waste program going I kind of pulled one more thing out of that garbage can and into a recycle part and then we get to recycle all that material and you know those are great to see those numbers. We have certain numbers we need to hit from a state level but more importantly, it's what we're doing for the environment and hopefully we're trying to do the right thing my industry all the way through, you know, but what I could try to do is speak for myself and, and we try to provide as much as we can and get rid of that material to the right appropriate places.
Well, once again, I want to thank my guest, Josh Brandt from Brandt's sanitary services to for coming by today to give us a little update on what's going on in the community with the industry, what we can do as consumers to be more responsible and keep those costs low. And a little bit about the brands and the Howard's family history. I love talking to folks who have been members of this community for a long time and have helped build so many of the great things that we all enjoy. Now. I will tell folks to please visit brands website to learn more about some of the items that we've talked about today to get a breakdown of what's compostable what's not what you should or should not be recycling and other ways that you can help with the services that are provided. Josh is also incredibly happy to come speak to your group if your alliance group or rotary group or just want to learn more about the work that's going on in town please reach out to him he would love to talk more he he actually could have talked all day about this stuff if we would have let him so please reach out there is so much more to cover in this world. We just scratched the surface. We are finally going to be enjoying some beautiful weather coming up. Once those sunny days start please go out and enjoy your Monmouth parks. We have so many parks for people to enjoy so many different options all around town. Please check the Monmouth city website for more events that are happening. And stay tuned to us on all of our social media accounts. If you're not signed up for our literary or E newsletter. I hope that you will do that soon. Visit our website to learn more. Thanks again for listening to Monmouth monthly we will see you again next month. Again don't forget to rate review subscribe, tell a friend tell a friend out of the country too. We'll talk to you guys again next month. Thank you for joining us
thank you for joining us for Monmouth monthly My name is Sabra Jewell. Our music is catching up by chill Study and we record at Indy Commons which is a co working community and independence Oregon. Please find us wherever you find podcasts rate review, tell a friend and we will see you next month.
