Starting with a shop vac in a Ford Ranger, DT built a grease trap company that now runs 14 trucks across Washington State with his sights set on going national before turning 40.

He's built a team that runs the business smoothly when he's not there, and employees talk up the company so much they're recruiting people from completely different industries.

We explore how unconventional leadership creates this level of ownership, why creative benefits matter when you can't compete with corporate packages, and what happens when you give people freedom to figure things out instead of controlling every process.

Highlights:

1. Why 13 years of trial and error taught DT that internal communication was the missing piece until hiring a CFO.
2. When employees ask for more responsibility, letting them take it and own it completely creates better results than telling them exactly how to do it.
3. Monthly company shutdowns for yard day and meals show employees you value spending time with them beyond just getting work done.
4. How DT's willingness to admit he screwed up 100 times makes employees want to help build the company instead of just collect paychecks.
5. Why mistakes are inevitable but what you do about them determines whether your team fears failure or learns from it.

Make sure to subscribe to the Blue Collar BS podcast where we talk about the real gaps between generations in blue collar work and what it takes to lead across different age groups in today's trades.

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Steve Doyle:

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Brad Herda:

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