Entrepreneur makes living shredding documents for Montana businesses

Sometimes the best ideas come when you least expect them.

For business owner Greg Terry, the idea for his mobile shredding business came while watching TV and, ironically, burning paper.

By ROD DANIEL Staff Reporter

Terry, a former production worker at Kaiser Aluminum in Spokane, was tending to his recently deceased grandmother’s estate when he caught wind of one of the fastest growing industries in the United States.

"I was actually burning a lot of Granny’s papers in the wood stove and watching the news at the same time," Terry recalled. "I saw a segment on a shred truck in New York. I wasn’t thinking of starting a business, but I filed it away."

Later Terry said he found out the best manufacturer of the big, custom-made, paper-shredding trucks was located in his hometown of Spokane. But Terry intended to go back to his production job, and since he had never considered owning his own business, he again filed the information away.

Getting his job back at the aluminum plant seemed less likely as time went on, he said, because of a workers strike and further layoffs, so he and his wife, Monica, began discussing other options on how the family of four could make a living.

"My wife always dreamed of going to pharmacy school," he said, "so we began looking at moving to a town or city with a pharmacy program."

The Terrys wanted to stay in the Northwest, but neither really wanted to live in a big city, so Missoula soon rose to the top of the list on where they might relocate. By then, Terry said, he was looking at his own work options, and the idea of owning his own shredder truck surfaced.

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Big Sky Shredding

Greg and Monica Terry, Owner

PO Box 322

Frenchtown MT 59834

(406)370-6070 Fax: (406)626-4133

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In order for him to buy a such a truck and start a business, Terry said, three key ingredients had to be in place.

"We had to be in an area without much competition that was a good place to live," he said, "the town had to have a pharmacy school and there had to be a Christian school for our son and daughter."

The Missoula area offered all those amenities, so last year the Terrys bought a home in Frenchtown, Monica started school at the University of Montana, their two kids enrolled at Valley Christian School and Greg purchased his very own shredder truck and started Big Sky Shredding.

The Mack truck is 33 feet long and 13 feet high and sports a 330-horsepower machine that can shred roughly 6,000 pounds of paper per hour. Terry drives his air-conditioned truck all over Montana, stopping at businesses that need on-site shredding.

"Most of my time is spent driving," he said. "The actual shredding doesn’t take very long."

On Tuesday, after a morning of shredding in Missoula, Terry stopped in Hamilton at Ravalli County Bank to help them take care of more than 1,000 pounds of paper that had accumulated over the last month. According to bank vice-president and cashier Geraldine Solander, bank officials decided to try Terry’s services after their own document shredder gave out last month.

"We had our own shredder that curled up and died," Solander said. "So we’re looking for other options. We’re hoping to have him on a regular basis."

His 8-year-old son Benjamin helping, Terry emptied the dozen or so paper-filled bags into his bins, each one weighing close to 200 pounds when full.

"One of the best parts of being self-employed," he said while wheeling the bin out the door to the awaiting truck, "is getting to take my son along."

Always ready to help, Benjamin said he enjoys getting to go to work with his dad, but doesn’t always like getting out of bed in the morning.

"Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I’m tired," the 8-year-old said. "But it’s still pretty fun."

With six of the plastic bins next to the curb, Terry wrapped a custom-made apron around the top of one of the bins and placed it next to the truck’s lift apparatus. Sewn by his wife, the apron, he said, prevents paper from blowing out of the bin as it is being emptied into the truck.

The lift works much like a regular garbage truck, carrying the 200-pound bin to the top of the hopper before dumping its contents into the giant shredder. In minutes, the computer sheets, bank statements and canceled checks are shredded into unrecognizable strips of paper less than a quarter inch wide.

After completing their shredding at the bank in less than an hour, the father-son team planned to head to Corvallis to deliver the low-grade office waste to a local dairy where it will be used as bedding for the cows, Terry said.

"Disposing of the stuff is the hard part," Terry said. "I like to give it to dairy farmers in Corvallis and Bozeman, but I still end up with more than I can get rid of."

Many of his customers, Terry said, insist that their paper shredding be recycled, so he regularly stops at Pacific Recycling in Missoula where they take it and bale it. But rather than receiving money for the recycled material, Terry must pay for it.

"I pay them to take it," he said, "which really stinks."

Terry said the service he offers is called on-site shredding and differs from the off-site shredding done by companies like BRI. Shredding material on site provides security advantages since all the material is reduced to strips before it leaves the property.

Because of his mobility, Terry gets calls from people all over the state, and it’s not uncommon to find him in towns as far away as Havre and Miles City. His accounts vary widely and include weekly, monthly and quarterly pick up with some people "calling when their bins are full."

As an industry, Terry said, shredding is relatively new and is growing by about 20 percent nationwide, and after a little more than a year in business, the first-time business owner is buying a second truck.

"Montana is so big and spaced out," he said. "I’ve got my hands full. It’s either turn away business or expand."

Terry has tried several forms of advertising his business including newspaper ads, radio and joining the chambers of commerce in Missoula and Helena, but the best form of marketing, he said, "is going out and meeting people."

The production worker-turned-enterpreneur said, aside from being able to take his children on drives around the state, it’s the personal contact that he enjoys most about his new venture. And when his wife finishes pharmacy school, he’ll probably continue driving the mobile shredder.

"The people in Montana are fantastic," he said. "I’ll probably stick with this business unless someone wants to buy me out."

http://www.ravallinews.com/articles/2003/07/23/features/91-business.txt