Interview with the Evanston Valley Enterprises Founders (part 2)

Q: Why start Evanston Valley Enterprises from your perspective?

Robin: I think as the four or five people in the family who started this company, it's almost like we've got an entrepreneurial spirit where we're always thinking ‘what could we do with this and what we could do with that’.  So, when we saw the wood chips steaming when we were loading them up, and they looked so dark, that's why we started EVE. We saw an opportunity, now what can we do with it?  We can make compost!

Doug: Well, the way it all started is we were down in Louisiana, and we got into tree work because we went down there to do demolition work after the hurricane, but we got into tree work because that's where the money was at, and there was no money in demolition work. We had gotten used to cutting trees, and believe it or not, we had gotten halfway decent at doing it.  And then we came back to Indiana and I was ready to just get back into dirt work and go to work with the excavating part of things.  And Matt says, “I really enjoyed doing that tree work.”  And I said, “There's the equipment. Get after it." 

So, he took after it, and it wasn't any time at all before we had that mountain of wood chips. What are we going to do with them?  We were hauling them to an old stripper mine pit, paying a guy to take them, and just dumping them in there.  We tried getting the landfills to take them, but nobody wanted them.  I said, well, if God serves you up a big pile of lemons, you make lemonade.  Let's compost them.  I mean, let's turn it into cash if we can.  And so, we started looking into it, and that's what we did.  We got busy researching compost production, which that's a long learning process.

Q: What have you learned about composting over the last several years that you'd say you didn't know in the beginning?

Doug: Everything.  I didn't know how the life is in the compost.  I didn't know the nitrogen, and carbon makeup of the compost.  I didn't understand how any of that works.  It was an eye-opener.  When we saw the results of the compost; when we put it on the soil or on seeds, then wow.  We started really digging in and learning more and more about it.  Matt started going to classes. He's been several places in the United States and has been to different schools.  Some of them great, and some of them not so great.  But you can take something away from any place you go and get a little more information.  You always take away a little something to help you learn.  I didn't realize how much work was involved, how much time it takes, the need for accurate record keeping that's involved in all this process to produce really good compost.  I just thought, well, get a machine and turn it over or do something, you know, learn how to do it.  And then Matt found out about the carbon and nitrogen thing.  One thing led to another and it snowballed from there.

Matt: When we started Evanston Valley Enterprises, we were just making windrows and turning them with any equipment we had available. It was just very small rows; we were just trying to figure it out.  And then we picked up an investor and he bought us the windrow turner and some equipment to where we could be more efficient. We added pieces and parts over the years as we went along; adding more and more as we needed to get more efficient, and as the demand was growing.  As we saw the potential for where that could go, we just kept adding more and more equipment.

Q: If you knew then what you know now, would you have started down this compost road? 

Doug: Yeah, I think I would.  Learning about the process of making compost is so interesting.  There is so much involved.  The biology of it.  It keeps me intrigued.  I've always been the kind of guy that when I get bored mentally, I quit and go somewhere else.  And with composting, if you're getting bored mentally, you're not doing something right.  There's just so much to learn, and it never stops.