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Welcome to this week's episode of the Molder Life podcast. A live show featuring your questions about all things landscaping, equipment, business and life. Join our live show weekly on Instagram oderoutdoors Monday nights 8:30pm Central Standard Time to ask your questions or tune in here for the replay.
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And now from the Incon Studios Incon, a world leading manufacturer of tilt rotators and attachments enhancing your business. Here's your host, Andy Mulder.
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What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Motor Life podcast. We are here live about 8:30 Monday night in the ncon studios and I am excited to be here with you all tonight. I want to first say a shout out to our sponsors for this week's episode of Pave Tool Innovators. Pave Tool.com they are not a stranger to the podcast and I'm thankful for their support. Go check out pavetool.com and use the coupon code molder outdoors50 and you can save yourself 50 off of a purchase of 500 or more, their edging and suction equipment, all kinds of tools to make hardscaping easier. I'm really thankful for their support of the podcast also this week. Ad Equipment, they are a sponsor this week and I'm super grateful to have them as support of the podcast. And actually tonight we are joined by a guest that is one of the parts of AD equipment, Anthony LaFara. And so we are joined by him tonight and we're going to talk about attachments and how they can increase your bottom line, how to charge for them. Anthony's been in the industry, well, excavating industry his whole life and I'll let him talk about that. But Anthony, thanks for being here.
C
Thank you for having me.
A
Yeah. So me and Anthony, we were talking before we went on here and we said there's usually not any shortage of things we can talk about. But I thank you for being here tonight and I'd love for you to just tell the listeners who you are and kind of what you do. And obviously you're one of the owners of ad Equipment and also Lofata and Sons Excavating. I had the opportunity to go and see some of your operation a little bit. When I came out there for what was that show that I came out there for? It was like a, it was an equipment show.
C
It was Dirt Tech.
A
Dirt Tech, that's what it was. Yeah, yeah.
C
With the third tech at a Site one facility here in Windsor, you know, we had, it was a typical like kind of like a demo day Live demos with multiple manufacturers there and equipment dealers. Dealers as well. And it was really great to see some pretty cool stuff and. And it was really awesome to have you be a part of that, Andy. That was a great turnout we had that week.
A
Yeah, it was awesome. I also got to enjoy my first lobster roll ever. And it was a life changing experience, so.
C
That's right. I forgot about that.
A
I'm not going to lie.
C
I literally had two that night.
A
I still talk about that. Like, I just. It was the. One of the best meals I've ever had. It was phenomenal.
C
Yeah, I think you had two lobster rolls that night. It was pretty awesome.
A
Yeah, I, I want another one right now.
C
Okay.
A
But yeah,
C
we'll have to bring one out when we come out to see you in July.
A
Oh, there you go. Yeah. For the Mulder outdoors grand opening kind of open house and Nkan demo day. And ad equipment is going to be there with the rotostar screening bucket and the MB crushing bucket. And so we're here to talk about attachments and. But yeah, and I think it'd be cool, Anthony, just to I guess say a little bit about your company and ad equipment and, and I guess, I don't know, it's. It's never a short thing, but you know, how you got brought up in the industry and whatever you want to talk about, we're here to talk about.
C
But yeah, so my background is, you know, I'm a second generation owner of an excavation company that my father had started. My father's an immigrant, Italy and still alive today, 84 years old. He started our. He started as a landscaper, you know, back in the, in the, in the late 50s, into the 60s as an immigrant with his brother Peter. And as they moved towards the 70s, in the early 70s, my uncle and my father kind of split apart. My father kind of doing some site work with some small equipment like a John Deere 350 and a little rubber tired John Deere 510 backhoe load. By the 1980s, we had grown to a point where we had quite a few pieces of equipment and projects. And at that point my father had started purchasing properties and developing his own residential and commercial projects as well as doing the excavation side for other customers as well. By 1983, I had graduated high school and gone into for civil engineering for college as well as continuing to work for Lafada and Son. And I ran around 19, I think it was probably 1981 when I first had my taste of some cool stuff out there. And the con Expo show that we know today in Las Vegas used to be a traveling show, but it used to be a small show that would go from city to city. It wasn't what it was today.
A
All right, I did not know that.
C
Yeah, it was a construction show that kind of traveled. So in Hartford, Connecticut, they had this little con Expo show. And, and you'd go there. It was in the, it was in the, I forget what you call it, conference center or convention center. And they would have this little show and you go down there and it's, you know, a little bit of everything from pipe suppliers to people who had little trucks and excavators and dozers and stuff like that. And one of the cool things I saw there was an attachment that you could put at the end of an excavator. And back then everything was pinned on right. And nobody had, nobody had thumbs. And if you had a thumb, it was a mechanical thumb that you had to manually drop down and hook up a stiff arm to have a hydraulic cylinder on there. You were like, you know, somebody that was very wealthy and you couldn't talk to them. So we, I saw this thing made by this company which is still around today in Canada called Nye Equipment. And Nye had this really cool thing that you could put at the end of the boom and you could switch out from one bucket to the next. And it wasn't a pin grabber like we know today, or an S style coupling system, but it was like a wedge system that was low profile. It was heavy duty. You couldn't spin the bucket around backwards. But it was, nobody had anything at that time, at least around and on the east Coast. And I, I, I looked at my father and I said, wow. I said, if we could have, instead of digging a 18, you know, digging a, a trench for a conduit, a couple conduits that only needs to be 18 to 24 inches wide. Every bucket we had was 48 inches wide.
A
So whatever it was, you dug it.
C
That's it. That was it. You just dug it. And you know, there was no, there was no changing buckets. If you want to change your buckets, you had to drive the pins out.
A
Yeah.
C
And if we did that, we didn't have a different bucket for every machine had its own bucket and that was it.
A
Yeah.
C
And boy, my father was against it. He was like, nope, can't do that. That's too many moving parts, too many things to do. Just dig.
A
Yeah.
C
So I, I took my summer savings of money and I bought that attachment myself.
A
No way.
C
I did, I bought, I bought the head, the, the male head that goes on the machine and I bought two weld on adapters and I, I spent all week on taking two buckets, cutting the airs off and welding it all on there. And when I got all done I, I hooked up the bucket and then I was able to get out of the cab. It was all manual, it wasn't hydraulic and. Right. I took this little bar out, I took the bar out and I tapped the bucket on the back and I was able to go to the next bucket. Well, my parents were away that weekend and my father had come back and he had saw what I did and he said show me what you did. And I showed him what I did and he was happier than a clam. So you know what he says? He calls, he says Carol, which is my mother, Carol, you got to come see this. And she comes down and shows. He says look what I got, look what you got. That's where it kind of started. That was my little taste of doing something. And, and just that little change in the, in, in our company allowed us to dig two foot trenches which we could never do before. We didn't have. There was no mini excavators back then. There was, you know, nobody really had skid steers and art what we do. And so everything was, you know, a 30,000 pound excavator up to 100,000 pound machine. And you know, we did everything from small residential jobs to commercial jobs, water mains, sewer mains to septic systems and whatnot.
A
You know, all with up until that time.
C
Oh yeah, I go in the back of somebody's yard with a 50,000 pound excavator and go put a septic system. So you know, things have come a long way, my lord. Yeah, so that's kind of my bug. And then as we move forward, you know, we've always bought different kinds of equipment, screening plants and crushing plants and we'd move from job site to job site. You know, we're very, very fortunate as a company to acquire, you know, properties where we could process all our materials and have natural materials to sell and whatnot. Which is a huge thing as a company. If you can have properties to be able to do that, that really gives your company the standing that most companies don't have. If you're renting all the time. Right.
A
Yeah.
C
But you know you have to start somewhere, right.
A
And you have built. So eventually your dad stepped out of the business and you continued on. Right. So this has been going on for how many years now?
C
Oh, my Lord. Lafada and Son, we started excavating right around, you know, 1970.
A
Okay.
C
By 1976, Lafada and Son became incorporated. By 1985, I had finished my associates in civil engineering and came back to work for the company full time. And then by 1986, I had basically taken over the excavation operations as we grew more into our own development side, which my. My mother and my father mostly ran. So as excavators, Lafada and Son would do all the site work, the road work, the road construction, and my father and my mother were always there doing everything as well as, you know, making sure the development side of it. So, you know, at one point we were. I don't know, we were doing probably 40 homes a year.
A
Wow.
C
And just. I mean, we just moved so much earth.
A
Wow. And as. And you are a civil engineer. Were you doing your own civil engineering work for the whole.
C
Okay. I never. I never became a civil engineer. I just want. I wanted to go there just be. Just for my associate's degree, but I really wanted to go there to understand more about surveying and that part of it, because we were spending so much money on civil engineers to do our. Our layout work, our design work for road construction, you know, water management, whatnot. But, you know, a lot of times, you know, knowledge is power. To have better knowledge of what the engineer needs at his end was a capability not to eliminate the engineers, but give us a more comprehensive understanding of what happens on a job site from start to finish. And I really loved that part of it, and I loved interacting with, you know, matter of fact, that we just had a retirement party for an engineer that's been doing our work for 45 years.
A
Wow.
C
So it's really cool to work with those guys that build those relationships.
A
Oh, yeah.
C
That was, you know, I'm super proud to have. You know, my father was the guy who says you need to build relationships. You know, if you're out of sight, you're out of mind, and there's enough work within 20 miles of our facility for the rest of your life.
A
Isn't that incredible? That's. And. And when I went there and you drive and basically we rode around and you're like, yeah, I mean, that's what you said. It's. You haven't had to go very far for this entire time for work.
C
If I have to travel 30 minutes to a job site, I. I'm. I'm exhausted.
A
Yeah.
C
It's just, you know, there really is. If you really Build your relationships with your local communities. You know, you give back, it's a big deal and it pays off, not just for you, but for the community and the well being of your employees and whatnot. It's, it's really a cool thing that my father always kind of instilled in me is just be a part of the community, give back and it'll pay you in return. So, yeah, I'm super proud to have that instilled in me and an immigrant to this day that, you know, my father speaks spoken English, so yeah, he says, you know, to have the success he has and for me to carry that on has been super awesome for me.
A
Yeah. Totally.
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A
so you, as you guys grew, you acquired property to start processing equipment or processing materials?
C
Yeah, so I mean, the big thing with us is, you know, as you, as you grow through the thing. By the time we got to the 90s, I was, I was looking for different ways to do things. And you know, you're always, you know, you're, you're still young, you're energetic and you're energetic and trying to figure out different things. Trying to figure out, you know, how do I move this screening plant from point A to point B? You know, because every time you move a plant, you have to clean it meticulously because stones and dirt and conveyor Belts drop all over the place. And the timing doesn't have to be early in the morning. They're wide loads or high wires or, you know, you're pushing the limits of height at 13, 13, 6 high. And um. So what's out there? And I stumbled across a product that we purchased and we tried it. It worked really well. And it was the beginning of. This was a screening bucket I bought back in the day. And you know, the serial number on it. 002. So. And I still have that bucket today.
A
Wow.
C
So it wasn't something that was really out there and I, I didn't know if it would work. And we use that product. We use several other products in the industry. And then, you know, and then I met Matt Lloyd from Lloyd Industries in England and we became good friends and he made this first screening bucket and we have collaborated on that ever since. And it has grown to be something that has drawn me to like, oh my God. Other people, other people ask me like, and you get me one of these. And somewhere along the line, A and D equipment was born. You know, and we would have other manufacturers say to us, would you sell our stuff? And you know, we never meant for it to grow to what it is today, but it has, it has really blown up. I mean, I never thought I would be someone that would be in the. We're still do site work and excavation work. We still do a lot of consulting with companies around the country for, you know, material management, pile management, which helps us bring technology to the table that maybe they haven't thought of. And you know, so we've. We try to do those kinds of things with the different manufacturers that we represent as an attachment company to be able to work with. You know, I guess one of my strangest phone calls was a gentleman from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, who would. Said to me, I think. I think your product might work for me. And today we, we work alongside with the military and using our buckets for landmine retrieval and munitions retrieval.
A
Oh, yeah, you were telling me about that.
C
Yeah. So that's, that's something that has really. It's near and dear to my heart and, you know, we're saving lives and a little aspect of that and, you know, it really, it really makes a difference then, you know, we've been dealing with them for 15 years and they're a great. They're a great entity to deal with and be a part of. A part of the branch of the military that collaborates with other armed forces in the UN around the world to Help pull these items out from the earth or from the water is pretty cool to be a part of.
A
And you're screening dirt to find landmines, correct?
C
Yeah.
A
Wow.
C
Yeah. Yeah, It's. It's. So the buckets we build for them is, you know, obviously a little bit different than the ones we sell to the general public. It's built for it to absorb that energy when. When one does go off in the bucket. Goodness sakes. So, yeah, and two years ago, we built the first underwater screening bucket in the world.
A
Really?
C
Yeah, yeah. So we use that to go to waterways where munitions and whatnot have been tossed in the water. So we help them with that as well.
A
Wow, that's crazy.
C
So that's the benefit of being a part of this and working with companies and helping them manage their piles and whatnot with products like the screening bucket. Companies like MB Crusher or Eccentric. Also other companies we represent here in the US to help them move along. I mean, MB has been around in the industry for many, many years, since the. Since the late 90s, actually. They're the first ones to invent a crushing bucket.
A
And so you saw these at con. At a Con Expo. Like, how do you. How do you get in? Like, how do you. How did you find it? Like, I mean, for me, I had never seen one until I saw your guys's. And it's just. I just. I'm like, oh, I didn't know you could even do that. And. And It's. This is 2026, so.
C
Right. I mean, this. I. You know, it's crazy. You go to different parts of the country, you're like, you do it this way. That's pretty cool. Or, you know, that's ridiculous. It may go either way, right?
A
Yeah, yeah, sure.
C
Or the. The MV was a product that I saw many years ago. They were. You know, back then, nobody really had websites. Nobody used that kind of stuff. It was just one guy. I forget his name. He was out of New Jersey and he was. He was pushing this MV product here in the US and we tried it. We. Matter of fact, I tried it. We bought one and we never really used it for a while. For some reason, when we bought it, it just didn't work for us. And many years later, the. The gentleman who owns MB, Guido, happened to be here in the U.S. he's an Italian guy, and it was here in the US he came to visit me and he. He barely spoke any English. He had an interpreter with him and we chatted a bit. So he rolled his sleeves up and and at that time there was a miscommunication as to the proper pressures and flows that the thing needed and my inability back then to understand that kind of adjustments I needed to make to my machine. So we never really used it because it didn't work the. Well, well, after he left, it worked really well and started using it. And you know, he, he called me up and through his translator said, you know, if you would like to sell our product, we'd be happy to give you a dealership. And I said, sure. And here we are, many years later, we still sell their product and it works well and no serves a purpose for, from very large companies to very small companies. As long as it's, it's like anything else used correctly, it's, it's a great tool. Any, any attachment used correctly is a great tool. If, if it's not used correctly, it's. It's a boat anchor. Right? You know, so no, we love the MV crusher. And along the way we've, we've learned how to integrate other technology with it. One of the, one of my favorite, I mean, I love the Rotor Star, don't get me wrong, it's my favorite attachment and brushing buckets are amazing. But along the way we, you know, we're a company that has machines and lots of hammers and we'd hammer all the time or you know, we've been using the indeco products for 30 plus years. But what we didn't realize is that there's a product out there called the Polarizer. And when I put the first one on one of our machines and started pulverizing concrete, I suddenly realized, my God, this MB crusher is now going to be more versatile tool. So if you've ever run a hammer before in your life, whether it's a small hammer or a large hammer, and you're demoing concrete, the concrete has rebar in it. How hard is it to get all the concrete off the rebar?
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Right. Very hard.
C
It's very hard. And you're aiming for that little piece of concrete and you keep missing and you drop the tool and you know, it's, it's frustrating. And to be able to have a pulverizer allows you to capture that material, crush it, it releases all that concrete from that rebar. And today's most pulverizers are made with a rebar cutter built into the throat of it. So you can pulverize all this stuff. You can release all that steel, you can chop the steel all up and set it aside. So now You've prepped all the material so your crushing bucket doesn't have to struggle to get a big piece into it. You've already prepped it. The pressuring bucket just takes it from that, makes it a beautiful, uniform material. You can use crushed concrete for road base or backfill material or, you know, compacted material and say, in a garage or a basement or commercial road, we go so far as to actually take our pulverized concrete. We pulverize it and then crush it, and then we'll take it and blend it with Portland cement. We make all our mafia blocks out of it.
A
I forgot you told me that.
C
Yeah, yeah, we do a lot with it. And landscapers will take it, crush it up, blend it with cement, and pour footings for landscape walls and sidewalks and stuff like that. Yeah, you know, it's. It's not going to be a spec material you're going to use on a highway bridge, but it's going to be a satisfactory material that you can use in most places. We did some comprehensive testing with taking different concrete samples from, say, a residential footing to sidewalks to concrete commercial barriers, and blended those materials together, use them individually and tested them, and they all test out. When you put the proper Portland cement in, they all test out between 4 and 6000 psi,
A
which is what you're buying to put in anyways, you know,
C
and, you know, it's. It's one of those things, if used correctly, those tools will. Will increase your bottom line, your revenue stream.
A
Yeah.
C
I think what's most important too, no matter what you. What you're thinking of considering adding to your fleet, is, you know, some research, obviously. But, you know, where is your company going and how can this make your company grow and where are you struggling? You know, here on the East Coast, a lot of companies struggle with getting rid of their waste, whether it be demolition debris, concrete, you know, soils that aren't processed in some form or fashion. And so they have to deal with, we call it here on the east coast, tipping fees. So you might pay, you know, 10, 11, $12 a ton to dump material. It could be the most beautiful topsoil. But if. If it's. If it's rendered with roots and rocks and thought and whatnot, it's useless to your job. Right. And if you don't have the technology to process that, so you're going to have to pay to get rid of it. You're going to have to not just pay to dump it, but you're going to have to put it in the truck and Drive it to the location and dump it, and then you're going to buy screen material, bring it back and listen, a lot of companies do that and they do very well at it. But if you could take technology and process it some form or fashion, well, why not? And then how does that increase your bottom line? So those are some of the things that you can look at that way when it comes to maybe screening technology or even small bucket crusher technology when it comes to doing that. I mean, how many pavers do you get rid of in a year?
D
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A
That's the thing that I'm the most interested in at this point in, in the business as far as like what's the next bigger attachment is something like that. Because now we have a yard and now I bring all I before I would just pay crazy amounts of money to get rid of the brick and concrete that would pull out or cut offs or if we remove a paver patio or remove a retaining wall. And before I would just pay a bunch of money to get rid of it and now I have somewhere to dump it. And so now I'm looking at the last year we've been using it as just base for to extend our parking lot. But now I'm to the point where, okay, now we're going to keep bringing this material in and I, I want to figure out A way to. Now how can I use this and, and process it in a way that I either can sell it to somebody else or put it back on our jobs or somehow make money with it by, you know, because it's, it's all going away anyways, so why not try and do something with it?
C
So, yeah, I mean, I mean, material management and, and pile management is huge. And, and it's. I remember going to a Con Expo show many, many years ago back in the. And probably around the mid. Probably like 2005 or something like that. And you know, when we go to these beautiful equipment shows that are put on and we forget that there's also education involved. There's, you know, many, many shows will have education built into the. The show. Right. So I remember sitting in on a conference about, you know, managing your business and a gentleman getting up there and speaking about, you know, how to look at a job and whatnot. And back then we didn't have the big fancy computers that we have today. So this gentleman would take a piece of plexiglass and put it over a set of prints and we'd use a dry eraser and he would literally show you how to lay out the job. And then if it didn't work, you just, you'd erase it and try it again. You know, back in the day when we did a lot of drainage, we would, we would order all our pipe and all our catch basins, whatnot, and have it delivered to the job. And then we'd, we'd set it all up at one end of the job. Then we, we do all our bring and start blowing the road out. Then we'd pick all the material up again and we'd start laying alongside the trench and then pick it up again and start putting in the trench and laying down. And this gentleman came up with one little thing that just changed my outlook on how to do road work. And you know, he said, get it all ready. Work with your supplier to get it delivered to the site. When the roads are basically, you know, when everything's all prepped and everything's cut out. When the, when the truck comes along and he starts dropping the pipe behind. We're talking about reinforced concrete pipe.
A
Yep.
C
And as he dumps the pipe, we were literally, we. We timed it so well that we would sit there and actually take it off the truck and put it right in the truck, right?
A
Yeah.
C
You know, and we just, we situated that way where we got the pipe companies, they loved it because they no longer had to roll it off the Truck, we would literally pick it off. We had one guy in the truck and another guy in the hole in the machine, and we just sit there and pop them off one by one. And they loved us for it. Because their trucks weren't damaged. We didn't have to worry about breaking pipe. Same thing with our catch basin. It's just that simple little thing, learning, that education. And the same thing now goes, as we move forward into our attachment world that we're in today. There's many different companies and products and manufacturers out there in the world. Which one's right for me, which one's not right for me. But, you know, you take, for example, what you're doing now, and if you have your yard, your property, which is looking amazing, by the way.
A
Thank you. It's awesome.
C
I can't wait to see it. Thanks.
A
Yeah, it's awesome.
C
You know, you have that beautiful piece of property where if you're. If you can bring stuff back and process it, you can. But one of the things to look at, too, is to be able to process the material right on the job. If you're. If you have. Let's say. Let's say you're doing crushing, for example, if you're peeling up an old patio and as the guys are peeling it all up and they can run it through the crushing bucket, and you can literally crush it right in the back of your truck if you wanted to. And now that truck can go deliver that process material to another job site, or at least when they go back to the yard, it gets put in the proper bin that's already processed every
A
time you handle it. I see what you're saying, because you're handling it once then.
C
Right. I mean, you're on the job anyways. Now, that's not perfect for every job, but if you could do that for 30% or 50% of your jobs, imagine how much money saving. And you're not tying up your yard with unsuitable materials.
A
Yeah.
C
In other words, you tie up a lot of real estate with raw material that you now have to process.
A
Yeah. Not to mention you can haul more when it's crushed. Like, there's that. Right. I mean, it's not as much air space.
C
It's easier on your truck.
A
Yep. Big time. You could.
C
No, that. That goes for, you know, even. Even if you're screening. Let's say if you're screening and you're screening material, maybe you don't need all this material. We'll screen it anyways. Like, that's what we do on our site. So all our guys know. And that's another thing too, with your crews and whatnot. It's important to give them as much information about a project or an attachment prior to its use or prior to the job. I'll tell you a quick story about when I was 16 and 1, my first job, I bid on. And I bid on this little boat ramp and boat launch, and I won the job by like a couple hundred bucks. And we went out to the job, and I'm 16 years old, dumb as a doornail, but I. We went and did the job and I sat there in the morning, six o' clock in the morning. I can remember Clarice's day and Mark Risconi and George Simpson and I, okay, we're gonna do this, this, this, that. Boom, boom, boom. I explained it all about the job, what we're gonna do. And it worked for us out for that whole day. And at the end of the day, I was, I was angry. And my father sat there with his little smile and he said, he said, what are you mad about? I'm like, well, it didn't go as well as I planned and this and that. And I was, I was just not happy with what happened that day. And he says, well, he said, you just learned a valuable lesson. And I said, what's that? And he says, well, he said, you have looked at this job, you have thought about this job, you had start and finish this job in your head a thousand times for the last six months, and now you have the job and you literally tried to transfer all that information to the guys five minutes before it started. Right?
A
It's so true. I.
C
So, five minutes. You're expecting these guys to understand this whole job from start to finish in five minutes at 6 o' clock in the morning?
A
Yeah. So he's just so hard because I do that. I design the jobs, we meet with the customer, we measure the job out, everything. I've built the job 16 times before. I. Before my crew gets there for the first time ever that morning. Yep, I, I know.
C
And as we make them more inclusive in our daily workload, or you know, like, hey, we have this job coming up in three weeks, we have this shop coming up in a week, we have the shop coming up in six months, those guys now have an opportunity to think about it. And you'd be remarkable how they come to you with so pretty cool ideas. Some dumb ideas too, don't get me wrong. But, you know, at least they're thinking about it. And, you know, your guys will really Surprise you sometimes. And I have been surprised many, many times over the years. And the same thing that goes with attachments or even equipment purchases. Having them inclusive has been a huge thing. You know, they. You know, I'll drive up to the job some days and I'll see like, holy crap, how come I didn't think of that? Yeah, there. There are some. There's some pretty cool things that. That can happen when you make them inclusive well before a project starts or well before an equipment purchase, whether it be an attachment or even a machine for that matter. Yeah, so it's good to get them feedback and bounce things off of guys. But, yeah, I mean, the material management is huge. We try to process everything on a job site, whether it's a form of pulverizing or crushing or screening or whatever it is. This way, if it has to leave the job, it tries to leave processed. This way, it goes to the next job or back to your yard as a process material. Now, that. That doesn't happen for every job. And it's obviously, you know, it's obviously something that we shoot for. But you'd be surprised how more. How often it happens more and more as the guys understand that. For me, it's not always about speed, because sometimes speed will cost you money. I'd rather take a day or two. Yeah. I'd like to take an extra day or two to do a job and have it done right. And go back.
A
Yeah, that's right.
C
You know, I had a gentleman out of another conference asked me about the 5 rule, and I don't know. Did I explain this to you?
A
Five.
C
You said five. The number five rule.
A
Okay.
C
Or the five or whatever he calls it. Okay. He says, for example, if you do a job and you're like, if I just do this, I can get out of here today. But you, you know, you do something that now isn't exactly the way it is, and then three months down the road, the customer calls you up, say, well, this. This is happening. I need you to come back and fix it, and say at that moment, that job cost you 5,000 to do from start to finish, materials and labor, and now you got to go back and fix it. What does it cost your company to fix that $5,000 job? You know, if it's a full replacement? Most people say, well, five grand, right?
A
More than that.
C
Well, yeah. And he's saying, whatever the number was for you to put it in, just multiply that by five. And I'm like, how so? And he's like, well, he said, you spent five to do it. Now you're spending five to go back. What aren't you doing? You're not doing another job, right. For five. And then that how has interrupted your. Your schedule for the year. That's another five. And the bottom line turns out to be it's. It's five. And he's right. And I, I've always said to the guys, like, they'll be. They'll push sometimes, and they know today that they know. Listen, we're gonna spend one more day here. Yeah, go ahead. I don't want to go back.
A
Yeah, right.
C
I don't want to go back.
A
I always. The last day is the most important day. And don't. You know what I mean? We all. It always is like, oh, no, maybe we could try to get it done today. Why do we do that? Just go the next day, right?
C
One extra day, a couple hours the next morning to finish up. Just whatever it takes to, to make it nice. And that's. That's what for me, what, how we try to run our facilities and our job sites on the excavation side, you know, and on the attachments. And on the attachment side, I try to bring as much of that information that we've learned about using these attachments in our daily routines. I'm happy to share that with any company that, you know, has questions or answers or questions that they may come along like, how do I do this and how do I do that? I always tell everybody who buys our stuff, don't be afraid to call. If I can help you, I'd love to help you. You know, my job is to make sure you make money off the stuff that I do. Right.
A
Well, I think that's something that has drawn me to your attachments and, and our friendship is your, Your willingness to share information. And I mean, it's such an honor to be able to talk to somebody like you here. But then anytime I ever want to call you and ask you a question about something that you have so many years of experience ahead of me, and it's. And you're willing to share that. And it's just such a blessing to be able to do that. And then it's so relatable for anybody that is looking at purchasing one of these, because, you know, you are not. You and I both know that if we're going to buy something that we never bought before, I'd rather talk to somebody that has owned it before, had experience with it. The amount of times that I've just had to talk with somebody about, I mean, even the road to start screening bucket. You've had customers call me and I can just explain to them what my experience has been. I don't know why them talking to me makes a difference, but it's just having, having, having that, you know, somebody, somebody you can relate to or talk to or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, it just makes a huge difference. And I really appreciate that about you guys.
C
Well, thank you. No, it's, it's great to have people, you know, people call in. You know, there's always hesitation and I'm, listen, I'm the guy on the job site. Back in the day, when a salesman walked onto a job site, you just shrugged your shoulder and said, oh, I don't have time for this. Right, right.
A
Yeah, I do it all the time, you know?
C
You know, and I, I never thought my wildest dreams I would be a part of sales, but I really don't think of us as a sales company. We're just, we're just a, an excavation company that has the benefits of helping other companies grow with the products that we use. And you know, as you've seen, you've been here, you've seen that the equipment we have and the technology we have and everything we sell, we use. It's not like we don't use it.
A
Correct.
C
I'm not going to say something that's, that's a, it's all hype. My job is to make sure you, you increase your bottom line. And, you know, there's been times when I've had, I had a company call the other day for a product and, you know, they, they really wanted to buy this thing and I had to, I had to talk them out of it. And they, they were like, well, you sure you don't want. I'm like, no, this isn't right for you. It's not going to suit your company or your team. It's just not gonna, it's not an increase your bottom line. And at the end of the day, it's, it's, it's gonna be a problem for them and me. So we were able to hook them up with actually another attachment company that suit their needs better than, than we could.
A
Interesting.
C
So, you know, it's. For me, it's our name and you know, it's everything to me. I'm not, it's not about, it's not always about the money. Obviously we need to make money to, to grow and live, but it's, it's not always about the money. Sure. And that's that. That's what we try to do for companies. And, and we try to. We try to pick out the manufacturers that build a good product that we can help people grow with. And it's, you know, we've. We all have that cool stuff that we use. I mean, my God, where would we be today without the stuff we have?
A
I seriously, I just posted a video like, two days ago of us placing stone into a landscape bed, and I literally placed 4 tons of stone, arguably almost exactly where it needs to go in 10 minutes. That was the real time of the video. And it was like, do you realize how much that is such a game changer in our industry just for that little task, like, it literally would have taken three guys four times as long.
C
And.
A
And it was 90 degrees and super humid. You know what I mean? Like, it just literally changes everything. Like, it's just. Yeah, I. I mean, I've been. I've been doing landscaping for 23 years, and I will. I will say that, like, it is now the easiest. It's the easiest it's ever been. It's still hard, but it's the easiest it's ever been now because of the different attachments that we've been invested in to do this. And it. And it improves our company morale. The guys are excited about it. It's. It mean, clients even love it. I mean, they just. They're just like, wow, I can't believe you can do that, or whatever, you know, like, Like, I mean, just placing outcropping rocks throughout the landscape and like, did with. With grapples and different things like that. It's just like, what used to be so hard is now so easy. And it's. I'm very grateful to be where we are in this time of life.
C
Imagine. Imagine someone coming up to you on a job site and giving you an excavator with no thumb and just a bucket and saying, do that same thing we did in 10 minutes, right?
A
I'd be like, well, now I can't. I'll just get the wheelbarrow or we'll get the straps out to lift the boulders or, like, just whatever. It just. It's so different and. But there's still people that. It's. It's. I don't know, it's hard to. It's hard to. If. If you get it, you get it. And I'll never forget the first time I saw a till rotator was Tom gardaki on his YouTube channel. And I had never seen one in my life. And I'm like, what in the world is that? And then I watched him put it on his John Deere excavator and then he showed how it works. And I literally laying in my bed at night watching this YouTube video and I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to get that, but I have to have that. And that's what. That was the beginning. That was the beginning of it all. I had never seen it before until he put it online. And up until that point, I was watching all his videos on how to use a laser and how to set up a slope on a laser and dig on a slope from the excavator by himself. And like all those things is just like, I grew up working for a company that we just did it the way it's always been done and it was hard and then my eyes were just opened by starting to see things and I just immediately was like. And it's been like that now for 12 years is when I see technology or things that I think could help what we do. I want to invest in that. And it's not always been a win, but most of the time it improves what we do. And I will continue to invest in things like that.
C
Yeah, it's amazing how some companies do buy machines and, or attachments and then don't utilize them correctly. They buy them either on a whim or they don't have the crew or the atmosphere for them to use that technology incorporated into their daily use. And I've seen that many times where, where they've, they buy stuff and they, you know, they're like, oh, this thing doesn't work, it doesn't do that. Or they don't utilize it. They just, a lot of times it just doesn't work for them and they shouldn't have bought it the first place or when they did buy it, they just didn't take the time or energy to, to learn about it and understand what it can do for them. So that's, that's a big thing when it comes to attachments is education. Right. Is understanding them what they can do. Today we still have, you know, on our ROTOR Star units now when we send them out, we now send them out with a tag on it that says do not run until you call this number.
A
And that's your cell phone or something.
C
Yeah, it's either me or Timmy, right?
A
Yeah.
C
We had a guy today from Texas call in and he says, we, we blew the red bun. I said, did you read the book? Did you read the tag? No. Oh, God. Okay, so no big deal. But it was like just, just take a moment and read. Yeah, yeah. But all good.
B
You're listening to the Molder Life podcast because you want to get better at your craft. Andy is always working hard to improve himself and pass on that knowledge to you. He's even improved his molderoutdoors.com website to make it easier to use and to give you several ways to support the podcast. When you visit molderoutdoors.com click on the shop link to pick up some of the coolest merch around. Choose from camo hats and beanies to fluorescent work shirts and super warm hoodies. While on that page, scroll down and check out the video courses, contracts and worksheets. To make you and your company highly effective and profitable, I recommend the Everything bundle which gives you access to all the training and forms while saving you money. If you need to book a one on one consultation, you can do that as well@molderoutdoors.com support the show while growing your business. There's also a link you can use in the show description.
A
I remember when we, when I was at your place, you told me about. Well, it'd be hard. I mean, I'm sure you can explain it as best you can, but of these, I don't remember if it was in Nevada or somewhere where they had, were doing this massive trench through this mountain and you, you came up with this massive ripper or something that like, like that's an incredible. To me, it's almost like I didn't even realize that attachments could be that big.
C
Oh yeah, that's. That. That was an XR82. It's an eccentric ripper that was on a Cat 374 which is 180,000 pound excavator, if you can imagine. A little bit bigger than your 80.
A
I can't even fathom the size. I really can. Those are, I mean that's got to be a rare machine. I mean you don't.
C
No. I mean it depends on the job sites though. They had a bunch of 374s out there. I mean that was. You can actually read about that site. It's. It's called the Sanzia site in New Mexico and it's one of the largest, if not the largest windmill site in the world. And so what they were having issues with is the company we were working with was, you know, they were in, in charge of installing all the transmission lines underground from windmill to windmill and erecting all these large windmills and you know, These windmills are pretty massive. The, each wind blade is 255ft long. That's a rate that's a diameter of 510ft, if you can imagine.
A
That's wild.
C
So they were dealing with. Yeah, it's, it's when you stand underneath these things, you say to yourself, self, how is this even possible?
A
Yeah, yeah.
C
But they, they did it, they did an amazing job at it. And they did. I forget how many miles and miles of trenching. I feel like it was like 3000 miles of trenching. It was a lot. And they, they were using all kinds of technology from hammers to grinding machines to trench. They needed to get down like four feet in the ground. And you know, we wanted to try the eccentric ripper and we did and it was hugely successful there to increase their, their footage daily, daily use. And they ended up finishing the job, that portion of the job, I think about six months ahead of time.
A
That's wild.
C
Yeah.
A
And how, how did the connection, how did you make that connection? Like how would they possibly find you?
C
They just found us on the Internet and they, they literally just corporate called up, we started having this conversation and um, you know those, those companies are, I mean this company here is pretty large. They're over 10,000 employees. And you know, you, you have to sit there and explain to them, you know, the importance of these tools and, and if we put this on the machine, how it's very sensitive to pressures and flows and the correct operator. And I'll tell you what, they nailed it on the head. And we went out there, we flew out there several times to train people and they own, I think, I think two or three of those XR82s and an XR52. And today they use them for ripping out windmills and doing all kinds of stuff. And they, they love the product. That's incredible. It's an, it's an expensive product, but the, the, the production rate out. Outweighs the cost.
A
Yeah.
C
So.
A
And on the next sentient ripper. Is it vibrating? Like what, how, what is the. Is like what is. Why is it called an eccentric? Is that the brand?
C
Yeah, well, the brand is eccentric and they use, they use two eccentric custom made weights that are in the unit and it basically uses vibration to vibrate the tooth down inside to the rock. Now, you know, it's very important to understand the, the ideology of the rock that you're trying to rip out with this product. It's not, it's not the perfect product for every rock job, but for Some if you know the, the geology of the rock matches with the, the eccentric product and the harmonics and, and the vibration that it generates if it, if it's suitable and which it was in this job and it performed immensely and immensely well. You know, it's not the perfect solution for every job, but for this one it was, was, was really cool to see the smiles on their face.
A
I can't even imagine, I can't even imagine. I really can't. I mean, how do you even find out that it's going to be the right geo. The right. How do you, you went there and like got rock samples. I mean like that's crazy.
C
Correct. So it's, it's a matter of talking to them and understanding it. They give me the geology reports we give the manufacturer, we tell them, we, we, we're in constant contact. And what I really love about doing with the manufacturers that we sell for is they allow a lot of collaboration. Like you know, they listen to us, they'll change items or modify items for us and allow us to customize a product for a certain individual or company, depending on what that may be. You know, we've, we've done that with many different companies throughout the years. And you know, I try to find. I'm, I'm a ding dong sometimes, sometimes I should shut my mouth. But I'm trying to, you know, I'm always trying to figure out a better solution or a better way and you know, sometimes it's to, not to my well being, but if I can help a company grow or get through a problem, I will do that. And if it means me going back to the manufacturer and say, hey, can we do this? And you know, of course they're going to ask well, why should I change it for you? And I say, well, if it, if it works here, can you imagine what it'll do throughout the world? And now you open the doors to another aspect of what your tool can do and you know, it's about explaining it not just to the customer but also to the manufacturer and how it's beneficial for both parties. Yeah, so it's, we've done that with companies like this and so many other companies in the world. So it's, it's been huge to be a part of that.
A
Yeah, well, I mean just going back to that military thing that you said that you guys have done with, with screening soil to sift out mines, I mean that's just, that's wild. I mean. Yeah, that is really wild.
C
That is something that I never thought I'd be a part of. So it's, it's a really blessing to know that our product is out there doing that.
A
Yeah. So are there things? I mean, I don't know how you could possibly explain, but what are things? What do you feel like is some of the future of attachments and like where things are going to go technology wise and things that you're excited about or things that you saw at Con Expo? I don't know, I'm just asking like, what's next? What. You know what I mean? Like.
C
Well, I mean it's, you know, it's pretty scary. I mean, I'm 61 years old and to see the acceleration of attachments in the last 15 years has been pretty wild. To see what companies are doing with existing attachments, modifying them, incorporating technology. You know, the control systems that are available that, you know, companies are putting in machines to be able to talk to their tilt rotators or whatever it may be, are pretty remarkable. And I just can't imagine what we're looking at as AI starts to grow. And what will that do for us? How will that help us benefit? Will the machine be able to tell us what to do today? You know, sure. But we do have those autonomous machines out there. I mean, the first time I saw an autonomous excavator was probably six years ago, maybe eight years ago at Trimble's Dimension. And they had an excavator and dozer out there working without a person in them. You know, at that time it was prototypes, right. Today it's becoming more and more of a reality. We, we all saw it at Con Expo this year, right? Yeah, there was many machines out there running without. They don't even put the cabs on them anymore.
A
It's crazy.
C
You know, look at Devlon. Devlon's making some cool products out there with there's no cab on the Dozer, there's no cab on the machine. It just the technology takes over and figures it out. Is it perfect? I don't know. But you know, AI is moving so fast through just our daily use. Right. I can't imagine what it's going to do for us in our industry as we move forward.
A
Yeah, I would agree. I mean, just cameras and just how things can be, you know, see what's in, you know, it's like in your car, right? Like it's, it's when you're backing up, it can see what's there and it stops you automatically. And how does that getting incorporated into equipment as technology improves, it's all going to come.
C
And I mean this, the safety aspect, it alone is huge.
A
Absolutely. I, I couldn't agree more. Yep.
C
You know, if we can say if that that technology saves, you know, saves lives or injuries, you know, that just by itself will be huge.
A
Yeah.
C
One of the things I, you know, as a, as a, as an older operator running on a heavy equipment, you know, you never put your seatbelt on because that was. You weren't a man when you're running the machine. Right. And, and you know, I still see that from time to time people say ah, you don't put your seatbelt on. But you know, I learned many, many years ago to put your seatbelt on. And when you're running a dozer on a 45 degree angle, you don't have to sit there and hold yourself in the seat with your feet. You, you can now use the controls. The same thing with an excavator. There is a young gentleman who lost his life a couple years ago here in Bridgeport, Connecticut where he wasn't wearing a seatbelt and he was jackhammering off the edge of the bridge and the machine jerked and it he. Because his feet, it was a small machine and because his feet are back a little bit, this, his balance isn't there. Right. And so when the machine jerked, it literally didn't send him, didn't send him out of the machine, but it sent him over the track controls which then walk the machine right off the bridge. Oh my word. So, you know, if he had a seatbelt on, he wouldn't have had to reach his arms out to grab the ropes of the machine or anything like that. He could have been in full control.
A
Yeah. Right.
C
That stupid little piece of nylon across your belly is really a tool more than it is a safety feature.
A
And that's a good idea.
C
You take that. Yeah, you take that. I mean I have on my equipment it says put your seatbelt on.
A
Yeah.
C
Because it really makes a difference. Especially if you're going down slopes or working on parts. You don't have to focus on holding yourself in that seat. Yeah. Just focus on what you need to do.
A
Yeah, for sure.
C
Especially when the small equipment like those little machines where your, your feet aren't out in front of you anymore, they're kind of either 90 degrees or even back a little bit. And that kind of doesn't give you the, the leverage. You need to stay where you need to stay. Yeah.
A
How, how often are you operating these days?
C
Oh my God, I wish I could operate every day. I mean it's such a blessing to jump in a machine from time to time, but. Yeah, I would say maybe once a week, maybe.
A
Yeah.
C
You know, there's some times where I. If I'm not traveling, I'm. I'm back here and I can. My favorite places are transfer station where I can go and play. And it's like my little. My little way to go away and process materials and play. Just like a happy place.
A
Yeah. Yeah.
C
In a machine to be able to focus and think about things. Yeah, but. Yeah, not as much as I'd like to.
A
Yeah. But you're. You still bid all the jobs and. Or are used mostly with ad equipment. Side.
C
I haven't been a job in 26 years.
A
Oh, okay. I did not know that. Okay.
C
Yeah. We built relationships with companies and in our area that we're very fortunate, you know, that that was a big thing with my father, as I told you before, is build these relationships.
A
Yes.
C
You know, when we're. When you're bidding work and going out to get work, that's great. And all that needs to happen. But at the same time, if you're building relationships with companies and people, they come to you and they work with you as one of their team members. Anthony, how are we going to get this done? How can we maintain a budget here? And, you know, my job is. Again, my father always said, our job is to make sure the people that we work for make money off the things that we do. If they can. If you can get them to recognize the fact that we're going to do something in a way that will help you profit from it, benefit from it, you're going to come back to us from time to time. We've had people leave. You know, customers say, well, we're going to. We're going to go a different way. And I think out of all the years I've been doing this, everyone has always come back interesting. Which is. No, it's not like the other people are horrible by any means. It's just that we do things and we do things in a way where we're personable and to the point where we're gonna try to do it again. Our job is to make sure that you make money off what we do so we can all move forward. We're not trying to rip you off. We're not trying to, you know, in the bidding game, it's about. I've met all different kinds of truck contractors where I met a contractor that does a lot of state work, and he used to say to me, he says, I don't bid the job. I bid the mistakes. And I said, what do you mean? He's like, well, I. I look through the whole job, and I see all the mistakes, the architects and engineers and. And everybody's made, and I don't say a word. I did the job, get the job, and then I hit him with change orders. Wow. No, that's. That's a business model. Right or wrong, that's a business model.
A
Sure.
C
That's not. That's not how we look at it.
A
Sure.
C
I've gone and pointed out to different projects that were going out to bid in the past, and, you know, not to my benefit. It's pointed out, hey, you know, this design could be this way. Or when I've done this in the past, this doesn't work. And, you know, I'll say it foolishly in front of other bidders, you know, and, well, whatever. It's all good. I still sleep well at night, and I get up the next morning and keep going to work.
A
That's right.
C
But, yeah, I haven't been a job in years. I have. Our customers are a good base. Most of our customers have been with us 30, 40 years.
A
That's so cool.
C
We're just building projects together. Yeah. And they come up to you, what do you think about this? And they'll drive you around, and I'm thinking about buying this property, and you'll be like, you'll just be a part of that system. And I can't tell you how many projects I've been a part of here on the shoreline. And it's been something that, you know, I can drive. I was driving past the job the other day, and I drove past. This is way back when we first started doing water mains. I think I was like 9 or 10 years old, and my mother would drop me off on the jobs after school. And I remember driving past this job yesterday, and I was like, I. I put that water main with my dad years ago,
A
so that's so cool.
C
It's still there. Our name is under the ground. Although you can't see it above. It's always under the ground. Right?
A
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. That's really cool. Well, I think I feel like I've kept you up late. I know it's now 10:30 by you, so that's all right. I think we'll. We'll try and land the plan here. Anthony, I really appreciate you being on today and sharing your wisdom and knowledge and years of experience and talking about attachments, and I don't Think this will be the last time that we talk talk about equipment or anything in general. But where can the listeners find you and your wife Donna? Share that or whatever else you want to share. I'd appreciate that. Or you know, you're welcome to do that.
C
So yeah, no, I mean people can find us at you know a and the equipment.com and just type in a. You could type in a&d equipment.or Equipment Inc. And it'll come up that way or A and then the word and the equipment.com and you can find us there. From there you can explore all kinds of stuff. And our attachments and the manufacturers we represent some pretty cool companies like the Endeco product which is an amazing product. MB and other products as well in there. You know, if you're looking at we're going to expand it. Did you ever look at our. Our revenue calculator?
A
I did originally. You showed me it a little bit. I haven't spent a ton of time on that yet.
C
But it's something we're going to expand upon in the coming months is. But right now you can go on there. It's really geared towards our Rotor Star but we want to gear it as we move forward to other products like the crushing bucket and stuff like that. And basically it's if you go into our services, if you go into the drop down menu and pick services in there, there's a revenue calculator in there. You can pick out a product and you can see what it generates, how many tons per hour and you can put in all these things and basically it gives you a small window as to what your return on investment could be giving guys, you know, because guys will say well you know, what is this going to do for me? So I, I wanted to create something that would give back to them prior to even calling us. They could go on the revenue calculator. There's no cost to it. They could punch a maintenance. No ad gonna pop up and say give me your name and number. It's just a simple calculator that allows you to generate or calculate possible revenue. So those are little things you can go on there. Obviously you can go onto our YouTube and Instagram pages and see some product and ideas and processing there as well.
A
Yeah. And if anybody again on July 25th we're having an open house at our shop with an encon demo day and there's ad equipment will be there with the rotostar screen bucket and a crushing bucket and you can see them in action and try things out and meet Anthony and Donna and the many other vendors that will be there. And so that I'm really looking forward to that. That's going to be a cool thing.
C
So, yeah, I can't wait. Awesome.
A
Yeah. Well, Anthony, I really appreciate you being on the podcast today and yeah, thanks for having me.
C
And this has been awesome.
A
Yeah, sounds good. So, yeah, thanks for tuning in, everybody. Thanks. Watching for our sponsors, ad equipment being one of them, and Pave Tool innovators. And we will catch you all on the next one. Thanks.
B
This has been a molder outdoors and Mr. Producer production.
Date: June 10, 2026
In this episode of The Mulder Life Podcast, host Andy Mulder dives deep into the business-transforming potential of advanced excavation attachments with guest Anthony LaFata, owner of A&D Equipment and LaFata and Sons Excavating. The conversation spans Anthony’s multi-generational journey in excavation, the evolution and business impact of attachments like screening and crushing buckets, practical tips for material management, and the future of technology in the industry. Listeners gain both technical insight and philosophical business guidance rooted in authenticity, relationships, and forward-thinking operations.
The episode offers a masterclass in maximizing profit and efficiency in excavation through both cutting-edge attachments and long-term business relationships. It highlights the value of continuous learning, honest guidance, and technological adaptation as keys to thriving in a rapidly evolving industry.