ASCA Executive Summit

Xtreme’s winter warriors will measure up at ASCA’s Sandy Summit

If there’s any way to measure just how far Xtreme Snow Pros’ of Mahwah, New Jersey operation has come, Snow Magazine’s Top 100 is a good place to start.

For the last four years, Xtreme has measured up as a top 100 snow and ice removal contracting company. Owner, Chris Marino, expects that Xtreme and its commitment to excellence and growth with be included on that list again in 2016.

The top 100 contractors list is a revenue-based ranking compiled by Snow Magazine. Xtreme Snow Pros has worked its way up the list over the years. Marino’s company appeared on the top 100 list in 2012.  In 2013, it was 74th. With a slight dip in 2014’s rankings to 86th, Xtreme rebounded to 52nd in 2015. This list has become one of the central fixtures at the annual Accredited Snow Contractors Association Executive Summits.

“My whole family will be attending the summit with me this season and they are able to attend the awards ceremony for the Top 100 snow contractors in North America,” he said. “We applied again this season and are hopeful to win (a spot on the list) again.”

Innovation over the past few years has helped Xtreme become one of the premier New Jersey / New York commercial snow and ice removal contractors. The Executive Summit, Marino said, only sets the company on course for bigger and better things.

“The biggest take off each year that I get from this is the power of networking with great friends from all over the U.S. and as far as Alaska and all the provinces of Canada,” Marino explained. “By networking, I am able to share ideas of how we do things as well as learn a wealth of information from industry professionals.”

The 2016 Executive Summit changes setting this year from the snow-cultured northern Vermont mountains of 2015 at Stowe Mountain Lodge to the tropical tides of Sanibel Harbour Marriott Resort & Spa in Fort Myers, Florida.

“During the winter, we are bound to the area by being on call 24/7 for five months, so it is nice to be able to have my family attend along with me at the industry event,” he said.

Preparation for winter – and election season

Beyond networking, the summit provides programming for contractors to learn more about what affects their business from professionals and analysts across several industries. David Crow, who is president of a Washington, D.C. bipartisan lobbying firm, will present a unique perspective on how the upcoming presidential election could affect small businesses such as those in commercial snow and ice management.

Presidential elections, historically, affect small, family-owned businesses, such as Xtreme Snow Pros, in positive and negative ways. The wrong decision about hiring or purchasing can have chilling effects on companies, which is why most take a wait-and-see approach. Xtreme takes the opportunity to have a more proactive approach to planning for the future. Its clients around the Metropolitan Area have come to depend upon faithful and timely service, which won’t be betrayed by a lack of preparation.

Presentations, such as Crow’s, have been key to Xtreme Snow Pros’ success and consistent appearance on the Top 100 list.

Overall, Marino relishes the opportunity the Executive Summit provides. “The biggest thing I have gotten from the past is making new friends with industry professionals whom I can lean on during the year if I have a question or an idea.”

A closer shave for Old Man Winter

Xtreme Snow Pros has staked its reputation in the Metropolitan area on innovative methods of snow and ice removal. From converting old military vehicles into winter warriors to ascending to the technological high ground with drones, Xtreme Snow Pros is always looking for an edge in its New Jersey operation.

In the case of plows, it’s a literal edge being sought.

Xtreme Snow Pros has introduced new plow technology to the snow pusher fleet with Live Edge Technology. Live Edge employs spring-loaded plates that adjust to uneven terrain and removes more snow than traditional plows.

In ancient civilizations, man used crude blades designed for hair removal, but the technology has evolved. There now are commercials promising the closest shave with blades that undulate across the contours of necks, jaws and shins, leaving silky patches in their wakes. Live Edge, essentially, is like a modern razor for roads and parking lots.

Consider concrete and asphalt the skin of your property. Layers of this material make it possible for roads and parking lot to be passable when seasonal elements rain down on it. Vehicles and commerce depend on the these tough skins.

Much like skin, it has certain sensitivities. It can only take so much before it chaps and crumbles. Conventional snow plow blades are much like the ancient tools used to carve smooth skin out of thickets of hair. A sure sign over the last half century that a man was running late for work were the crimson and white patches of tissue dancing around their Adam’s apples.  While cuts and razor rash were accepted for a while, technology moved forward to blades that flex against the surfaces they’re clearing.

Live Edge Technology on Xtreme Snow Pros’ snow pusher trucks mark the evolution of plow technology. It allows for more efficient and expedient removal of snow and ice. Businesses and daily commerce simply cannot afford to wait for the old technology to get the job done.

Live Edge reduces the nicks and gouges once accepted as part of the process, too. It traces along the contours of the concrete or asphalt without creating potholes or wearing down the surface unnecessarily.

A solution to chemical dependence

Using chemical deicers came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Snow removal methods have become dependent on chemical deicers such as rock salt. This is because plow technology could only do so much before Live Edge came along and removed the layers salt and other chemical deicers were intended to remove.

Research has caught up to the times and shown the environmental impact of chemical deicers.

In 2015, Lake George, NY, one of the beautiful vacation destinations in the southern Adirondack Mountains, worried deicers such as salts used for snow removal posed an environmental threat to the lake’s salt levels. In Spring 2015, an effort to prevent any further salt pollution of the freshwater lake, which “had tripled over a generation,”  led to a reduction of in the use of road salts.

The Lake George area, instead, depended on the use of Live Edge while reducing road salt use by 40 percent.

The environmental concern for Lake George is that the sodium and chloride pockets in the lake and groundwater concentrations could make the water too toxic for people, wildlife and plants to consume.

Xtreme Snow Pros strives to provide environmentally friendly commercial snow removal solutions to the Metropolitan Area, and Lake George is a working example of what needs to be done to preserve the integrity of the environment.

From the commercial client angle, relying less on deicers such as salt, reduces the need for pavement repair, saving your bottom line.

For asphalt, some road salts sink between the cracks in the surface. This can exacerbate the freeze-thaw cycle, leading to greater damage to the asphalt. In the case of applying salt to concrete, the salts can sink into steel-reinforced concrete and corrode the rebar and threaten the integrity of the structure. This is much the same way road salts eat away at the metals used in automobiles. Every year, vehicle owners must be vigilant in washing the chalky layers of salt from the vehicle’s bodies or else have their investments of $20,000 or more reduced to rusted heaps before they’ve paid for them in full.

Technology has not advanced to the point salt is an obsolete tool. Road salt assists in preventing the accumulation of snow and ice after the plows have passed. Restricting the amount of salt or snow-sapping abrasives, such as the old standards of sand or cinder, will improve the health of the environment and that of automobile owners across eastern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey and southern New York.

Live Edge Technology is one more step toward winter independence from chemical deicers. For that, Xtreme Snow Pros is proud to be at the forefront of more efficient snow removal. Check out Metal Pless to learn more about Live Edge Technology.

Shock & Awesome

Bulking up for winter draws magazine’s attention

It’s called “severe duty” for a reason. Class 8 vehicles are as big as you can go, and Xtreme Snow Pros is building fleet of these monsters to tangle the beastly job of winter.

Weighing more than 33,000 pounds, Snow Pros’ severe-duty trucks are military-grade stuff. For the past three years, owner Chris Marino has slowly acquired military equipment, making his New Jersey company one of the few commercial snow removal services in the Metropolitan Area that is thinking big.The Xtreme Snow Pros team converted these behemoth’s into powerful additions to the Ringwood, NJ fleet.

In September, it caught the attention of Snow Magazine, a publication dedicated to the snow removal industry and its innovations. Marino discussed with Snow’s MIke Zawacki the purpose of going big against winter storms.

“The cost savings is incredible,” Marino told Zawacki. “They’re severe-duty grade, so you don’t get the luxuries people are used to in equipment. However, for what we’re doing with them, that does not come into play.”

The vehicles are used, but Marino said the military meticulously services the vehicles to keep them in fighting shape.

“We’ve bought trucks which the military paid over $300,000 for, and we acquired it for $14,000,” Marino told Zawacki. “The truck had only 14,000 miles on it.”

Acquiring vehicles built to do all the heavy winter lifting

In three years of collecting military-grade equipment for the war on winter weather, Xtreme Snow Pros has purchased 6 trucks, including the Oshkosh M1070, which was designed to haul around military bulldozers, armoured personnel carriers and the United States’ main battle tank, the M1 Abrams, which weighs anywhere between 54 and 62 tons. The truck allows Xtreme Snow Pros to transport its own critical assets during storms.

Also added to the inventory are 11 trailers and bladders for storage of liquid deicers.

Attaching Snow Pros to the military’s mighty machines goes back to Chris Marino’s childhood interest in the armed forces’ equipment.

“I like what it stands for and how unique each piece of equipment is,” Marino said in his interview with Zawacki. “Likewise, I’m always looking for ways to save money on equipment that we can purchase for our business, being that this is our single-largest expense.”

The process of finding the right vehicle for the fleet takes some research, but Marino told Zawacki plenty existed for the online auctions used to purchase the equipment. “When we buy, we try to keep it within a certain distance so we can pick up these purchased items with our own trucks, but we have also used online sources that specialize in trucking,” Marino said.

If you’re considering raising your own fleet of military marvels for snow removal through auction, Marino offered one caveat to Snow Magazine.

“Read the overview of the trucks and don’t get caught up in the bidding process. … I learned a lesson by buying a truck with tons of parts missing. I was caught up with the idea of winning and did not see this.”

Read the rest of the interview on Snow Magazine’s site here.

Big show primes Xtreme Snow Pros for winter’s big storms

 There are two ways you can approach snow, on the ground and--in the air?

Xtreme Snow Pros has decided to take flight with the implementation of drones this year. Owner Chris Marino traveled from New Jersey with his son to one of the snowiest provinces in eastern Canada for the Montreal Expo Grands Travaux in April.

This heavy machine exhibition showcased some of the most cutting-edge snow removal technology in the world, including truck- and loader-mounted plows and snow blowers, salters, sanders, de-icers, spreaders and anything else repellent to snow.

So many toys, yet too little time at this two-day show.

The expo also included educational seminars presented by the Snow and Ice Management Association.These provided industry insights such as managing snow in the tight confines of cities.

Going abroad seeking better solutions for the Metropolitan Area

If anyone in North America understands snow, it’s the Canadians. The average snowfall in across eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Downstate New York adds up to 24 inches each year. That’s about knee high for the average adult male. The entire province of Quebec registers around four times that amount, about 106 inches. That’s the equivalent of a 10-story building. With this disparity in snow fall, it’s natural that manufacturers in Canada may put more of an emphasis on bigger is better when it comes to their snow equipment.

So, commuters in the Metropolitan Area aren’t exactly tunneling their way to work under a mountain of snow, but even an inch is enough to wreak havoc from Philadelphia to Brooklyn. The equipment available stateside grossly underestimates the desire for efficient commercial snow removal.

The disadvantage for the competitors who don’t attend this international shows is that they aren’t typically exposed to these manufacturers in the United States. Chris and Xtreme Snow Pros don’t believe in half measures when it comes to clearing tons of powder. Xtreme Snow Pros routinely seeks innovative solutions that effectively push aside the inconveniences of winter so you can get on with your day.

Clearing the ground by taking to the air

In addition to kicking around specs with plow manufacturers, the drones Chris and his son scouted are one way Xtreme Snow Pros plans to get ahead of next winter.

The drones give our crews a new perspective on documenting sites previously unavailable. This allows them to anticipate challenges for our clients and collect information on existing damage to sites.

It wasn’t all about the snow tech in Montreal for Chris. Having his son by his side perpetuated a family tradition spanning three decades. Chris used it as a learning experience for his son, whom he hopes will one day take over the family business.

“I am trying to pass on not only spending quality time but introduce him at a young age to all the different parts of the business,” Chris said. “I’m trying to express to him that when you’re in business, don’t just look locally at your competition. Look globally.”

Xtreme Snow Pros Operations Manager Glenn Kramer now ASCA Certified

When the snow starts flying and the ice is accumulating so fast even Jack Frost is impressed, you want a well-skilled, educated and trustworthy ally. With Xtreme Snow Pros you get exactly that level of impressive expertise and unparalleled ability.

Recently Xtreme Snow Pros Operations Manager and former FDNY firefighter, Glenn Kramer, became ASCA Certified. The ASCA Certification is an education-based certification that concentrates on risk management.

As an ASCA Certified professional, Glenn Kramer and the rest of the crew at Xtreme Snow Pros have the industry knowledge to keep you ahead of even the worst winter storms. You can be assured that you have hired the absolute best to keep your operations running smoothly during the frigid and snowy Northeast winters.