Bracken Recycling, located in San Antonio, Texas, has slowly been making the transition to green, having recently welcomed a 340G to their fleet.
Taking care of anyone from the general public to larger companies, Bracken Recycling will weigh customer’s scrap metal, pay them, and offload it onto their facility with SENNEBOGEN material handlers. The material is then sorted and processed to prepare for mills and refineries. A Sennebogen 818 was the first to begin their SENNEBOGEN fleet, which was then followed by an 821, 835, and most recently, a 340G.
Bracken’s Fleet
“We started off leasing our 818 because we didn’t have much experience with Sennebogen. When the lease was up, we loved it so much that we bought it. That was the start of everything,” explained Dominic Rundio, General Manager of Bracken Recycling. Their 818 is
equipped with a magnet to unload trucks and trailers, material ranging from heavy steel to shreddable materials.
Bracken’s 821 has a demolition attachment in order to grab specific materials and sort, and their SENNEBOGEN 340G assists the yard through moving material around to make it easier to pick up. “Our big material handler is our 835; we use it to load all of our trucks and our logger bailer shear. It’s running almost all day every day, it’s a workhorse that’s been a big game changer.” “They’re great machines. You can tell that they listen, the way they are put together from an operator’s standpoint just makes sense,” said Dominic.
Bringing Autonomy Back to Service
“The fact that we have been able to get our mechanic we have used for years certified as an ASP by SENNEBOGEN makes it so much nicer. We know exactly what’s going on and can get the job done,” explained Dominic. “For us, especially on the finance side, the ability to have the mechanic we trust able to come in, diagnose the problem, and fix it saves us money. Now, we don’t have to go through a dealer, who is going to cost hundreds of dollars to look at the problem, let alone fix it and deal with their lead times.” “You can design the best equipment in the world, but if you can’t fix it when it breaks or have someone who can, it doesn’t matter. There are some companies that I have to call every couple of days to say, ‘Hey, what’s going on? When are you guys going to get the machine up and running?’ and I don’t have that problem with SENNEBOGEN.”
Family-Owned Values
One of the biggest aspects that Dominic appreciates about SENNEBOGEN is that they see beyond the machine and build personal relationships with their customers. “We can call almost anyone in the company, and they will listen to us and actually care about what’s happening. Erich Sennebogen, Constantino, and Colleen were here, and we just talked. They wanted to personally make sure everything
was okay. I can’t think of another company as big as SENNEBOGEN where the founder has sat down in our office and had a conversation with us.”
“The owner came here on a Saturday after we had closed, got up on the deck of our 835, and got married right here in the scrap yard. I think the fact that he got married on a SENNEBOGEN says how much he loves the equipment and company.
“SENNEBOGEN Cares”
“Having parts on hand, making it so that our own mechanics can become ASPs, being able to pick up the phone and talk to a person right away is a game-changer. A company wouldn’t do those things unless they cared,” said Dominic “They care about their customers, how their product is being used, when it gets to the end user, and beyond that. The bottom line is SENNEBOGEN cares. There aren’t a lot of companies like that.”