Darrell Fleming-Kendall is the events manager and special projects director for the ITAD Summit, Mobile Disrupt, and CarbonWyze. Darrell has worked in the recycling industry for the past 15 years, before that focusing on international development. Darrell holds a BA from Bowling Green Statue University and an MA from the University of Kansas. In his spare time, Darrell, his wife, and their five kids run a sustainable cattle ranch, a non-profit, and a few other local food production and distribution operations.
John Shegerian: Get the latest Impact Podcast right into your inbox each week. Subscribe by entering your email [email protected] to make sure you never miss an interview. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com. This episode of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts and Impact Partners. Closed Loops Platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, Please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.
John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. This is a special edition because I’ve got my good friend with us today, Darrell Fleming Kendall. He’s the events Manager and special Projects director for the ITAD Summit and Mobile Disrupt. Welcome Darryl, to the Impact Podcast.
Darrell Fleming Kendall: Thank you John, so excited to do this. In the industry, this is a legendary forum and I’m just happy to be part of it, so thank you for the invitation.
John: It’s an honor to have you on and you guys have been so kind to me over the years that I just want you to come and and use this platform as much as you want to to share all the good stuff you’re up to, but before we get talking about the two conferences you have coming up this year for the ITAD Summit and Mobile Disrupt, I want you to talk a little bit about this Darrell Fleming Kendall. Daryl, where’d you grow up, what’s your origin story and how did you get on this fascinating journey that you’re on?
Darrell: Yeah. I grew up in the lovely city of Cleveland, Ohio where we’re still looking at white ground here in the middle of March, and all the blue collar Midwest you can imagine. My parents had an equipment rental store and I at nine years old was teaching people how to use equipment and answering phones and doing all that fun stuff and at one point was an exchange student in Finland and that led me to a path of international development, so I ended up in D.C. after grad school and I was doing the non profit international development thing. It didn’t really fit with what I wanted to do, so my next step was to the National Association of Manufacturers and got into association life, and that took me from there to ISRI, which is how I got to recycling. That’s actually, John, as you’ll recall, where you and I met right after quite an interesting security moment with a shoe throwing incident.
John: That’s a great memory from back in the Hillary Clinton speech. You’re right.
Darrell: That’s right.
John: Wow.
Darrell: That’s where you and I met the first time. I spent a lot of time working in the industry through that forum and now super excited to be working with Rob and his team, just taking ITAD Summit and Mobile Disrupt to a whole new level and really just working to make the ITAD space and the mobile space better industry, stronger industry, and watching it mature is really a lot of fun, and year over year, just seeing the way the industry has grown together, it really is as rewarding as it could possibly be. That’s kind of how we got where we are.
John: Well, I’m so honored that you’re here today because Rob is a longtime friend. I remember having lunch probably with Rob when he was just dreaming this whole summit up and sort of there, towards the end of lunch, he said, are you in, I’m like, Rob, you had me at hello, I was already in it before the appetizers even hit the table. I think I was one of the proud first inaugural members of Rob’s vision. I’ve been so honored and excited to watch all of you grow. Your addition to his team has been tremendous, but it’s only gotten bigger and better since you’ve joined, and so I feel personally invested and personally excited to watch what you do for our industry, because as you create a bigger ocean and an ocean that rises, all our boats rise with it, and that’s why we’re so blessed to have you guys doing the important work that you’re doing.
Darrell: Yeah. I love being a part of this now, and really kind of I talked about the maturation of the industry. Well, there’s sort of a maturation of the ITAD somewhere. As you know from your experience, Rob started it as sort of a, I won’t call it a joke, but it was like, hey, can we really get everybody together on a boat and have this meeting and do some networking? It was successful, and so it just kept going. What I was brought on to do was just streamline the logistics part of it, really strengthen the agenda, the component of the shows and really just get them all working like a Swiss timepiece. It really goes a long way to when you’ve got an event where the networking was already happening and you’ve got all the big players in the industry showing up, when you start putting all the fine tuning to the event, it was humming. Last year I think, you had an opportunity to walk through the exhibit hall and when we say it was buzzing, I don’t think there was a time that I walked through the exhibit hall except at 4:30 in the morning, sort of doing our walkthroughs and stuff that it wasn’t buzzing with just people who were excited to be there and business was happening at every turn and it was really cool to see because that’s what conferences should be about. They should be fun and business should be happening, friends should be connecting and memories should be made, and if you can make those four things happen, man, you really hit the ball out of the park with your event, so it was really cool to see you at Miami last year.
John: You’ve done it all, and last year Miami was literally the best ever, and I know this year is going to be the best ever as well. Before we get talking about everything you’re doing in Las Vegas and Miami this year, talk a little bit about yourself. I want to ask you this because I know the answer, how many children do you have, Darryl, because you’re a young man, how many children do you have?
Darrell: I have five. Yeah, we got four adopted children and one surprise in there.
John: God bless you.
John: I want our listeners and viewers to get to know you a little bit better, you not only do all this amazing work with Rob and the team for the ITAD Summit and Mobile Disrupt, but you also have a sustainable cattle ranch, a non profit. Talk a little bit about that.
Darrell: Yeah, . We’ve got, we call it Broken Yoke ranch. It’s a 130 acre property in Northeast Ohio because fighting ice and snow in the wintertime is is the perfect way to raise cattle, but we have a blast. There’s nothing better than throwing a couple saddles on the horses with the kids and going out and harassing a couple cows for a minute, we’re really excited about that, but we do rotational grazing, grass fed grass, finished beef, pasture raised pork and poultry. We’re producing quite a large amount of meat here on the ranch and then some we do like black raspberries, we’re adding elderberries this year, but we try to do it. We don’t add any chemical fertilizers, no pesticides, no herbicides, stuff like that. That’s the ranch side and then the non profit side you mentioned, we have an organization called the Ox Shoppe, you start to see an OX theme there. We have a pair of working oxen that we can yoke up and tie to a, we have a wagon and a plow and stuff like that.
John: That’s so wonderful.
Darrell: Something fun we do.
John: How many people are there suing your wife and your children or do you have a whole team of people, how big is this operation?
Darrell: The farm is mostly us. We hire a farmhand in the summer to kind of just help us with feeding and stuff like that, it helps to have an extra set of hands when I’m putting up new fencing and stuff like that, but the non-profit side, we have a little bit more help because we got a coffee shop and a donut shop that our training facilities, our non-profit helps adults with barriers to employment, find meaningful and dignified work. We work a lot with our local drug court and do recovery and help folks in recovery reentry situations. We do a little bit of disabilities work, but as you know, there’s a lot of players in the disability space, and so rather than dilute that further, we really focus a lot of our energy on helping the folks who in many cases were addicted at 12 years old because their parents were doing drugs with them and really never had a chance, and so we helped them find work. We recently launched a product line of jerky, which it’s a crazy story, but the idea was instead of finding employers for these folks, we’re creating a business training program around it where they learn about inventory management and cash flow and liability and sales and marketing and all that stuff, and by the time they’re done with us, instead of finding employers, we’re making employers. They’ll be ready to start their own business and sort of forge their own path. We do that on the side, which is sort of a fun little endeavor that we’ve gotten ourselves into and obviously pretty meaningful work for changing a lot of lives.
John: Listen, these are very important businesses, how can we support? I want to put it in the show notes, but what are the websites, how can we buy your sustainable beef and poultry, and then also support the Ox Shoppe as well, can you share the URLs that we’ll put in our show notes, please?
Darrell: Yeah. The ranch is brokenyokeranch.com, the Ox Shoppe is theoxshoppe.org and that’s mostly going to be about the non-profit work we’re doing, but obviously again, super important stuff, and then the new one, the yoke jerky is yokejerky.com. We’re getting these guys pretty active, we’re doing some fun stuff, we’re working on sponsorship with some of the local sports teams and we had a conversation, it’s been weird how the doors have just randomly opened over some… I joke that I never thought dried beef would open so many doors, but somehow I ended up yesterday in a random conversation with the folks over at the Warped Tour. John, we may be in your backyard sooner rather than later selling jerky at the Warped Tour out at Long Beach.
John: Come on, bring it baby.
Darrell: It’s crazy. Yeah.
John: I’ve been a vegetarian since I’m 17 and a vegan probably the last 14 or 15 years, but talk a little bit about before we… because I want to get talking about, of course, all your business and other business endeavors as well, but the quality of taste and difference and also health benefits for when you eat sustainable beef versus typical beef that’s made with all the antibiotics and other stuff, is it a world of difference?
Darrell: Yeah. The big difference is going to be in the fat,. When you think about a feedlot cattle, they’re raised on grain and corn and that grain and corn is high in sugar. They convert that into the white sort of fat, it’s the same fat that our children, our bees children when we feed them Coca Cola and Pop Tarts, it’s the same kind of that same sort of fat. Whereas like a grass fed cow is they’re producing very natural fats which is high in omega threes and omega sixes, and you’ll notice the color is a lot darker, and that’s primarily because as they’re eating the grass, they’re pulling like magnesium and iron and things like that out of the ground in a very natural way. Typically they’re older because a cow doesn’t naturally start putting inner muscular fat in, just some marbling. They don’t start doing that till they’re three or four years old. Our cows when they go in are a little older, which means they’ve consumed all of those minerals for a lot longer, which means our beef is a lot more densely packed with those minerals. Again, instead of highly saturated fats, you’re getting this sort of very natural omega three, omega six is healthy fats that your body needs to survive.
John: I’m going to buy some for my family in the next coming weeks, they eat beef and I want them to eat the best beef, so I’m going to go to your site, brokenyokeranch.com and buy some beef for my family. All those websites will be in our show notes theoxshoppe.org, yolkjerky.com and man, that’s what a journey you’re on. You’re doing so much good with what you’re doing in your business, but then also in your other part of your family life to have these other ventures, it’s just literally incredible. I don’t know how you find the time, but you must get by on three or four hours sleep a night, Darrell.
Darrell: Well, the good news is we’ve got a two year old and a 10 month old that ensure that sleep is limited, so it’s the easiest way to buy extra time in the day, just keep adopting children as they come around. It’s the definition of sleep when I’m dead.
John: My God, I love it. Let’s talk about these great summits you have coming up. On July 28th through the 30th, you have the ITAD Summit coming up. People can find you at itadsummit.com for that one, and then July 8th to 9th, you have the Mobile Disrupt coming up in Miami and mobiledisrupt.com. Let’s talk about Mobile Disrupt since that’s first, and then we’ll get into ITAD Summit. Who is coming to Mobile Disrupt, who should be coming to Mobile Disrupt and how big is that conference going to be this year, because last year it was huge when I was there. Huge.
Darrell: Yeah. Last year Mobile Disrupt, we actually had to like expand the exhibit hall into a second space because we had so many exhibitors, so many more than we had expected, and right now we’re on target or ahead of that. We expect on the exhibitor side for it to be a bigger show, and on the, on the attendee side, I have no doubt last year we were right at the thousand mark for Mobile Disrupt and I have no doubt that again we’re going to the Fountain Blue in Miami. The room rates are not crazy for the hotel being what it is, they’re right on par with everything else. It’s as great an opportunity to combine fun and business if you’re in the mobile space, if you’re dealing with any of that stuff, it’s as good an opportunity as you’re going to get to improve your business, make new friends, have some networking and have some fun along the way. We’re really excited about that show and again we partner with Bob LaFond on that. Bob is absolutely, he just, the amount of people that he brings to the show and the amount of wisdom that he and his network of folks infuse on stage and in everything that they do. It’s a show not unlike I’d had some of it is packed to the gills with information, opportunity, and networking galore. I think it’s going to be a really great event, and as you said, we’re probably without, don’t hold me to it, but if we saw 1200 attendees this year, I wouldn’t be surprised.
John: Who should come, who should be coming to this and what can we expect if you walk the floor there, you go into the different conferences and listen to the different breakout sessions that you’ve put on?
Darrell: Yeah. I would say anybody that’s playing in the secondary mobile device space, and that is intentionally a very broad net. If you’re doing anything related to that world, there’s a place for you in Mobile Disrupt. We have everybody from the equipment providers to the the secondary, to the sales, the secondary markets, anybody doing enterprise mobility that really is the we get into the weeds on that stuff and it’s the place to be.
John: I’ve been to Mobile Disrupt every year and I’ve been to the ITAD Summit. Last year, I was really taken by not only the amount of people you had, but the cross section of disciplines you had there and also of representation from around the world. You had a huge European contingent, Asia contingent, they had a lot of my friends and relationships and partners from India were there, people came from all South America, they were way from all around the world were there. Talk a little bit about the diversity of not only cross disciplines but also diversity of continents that are represented there.
Darrell: Yeah. With all of our shows, the reputation has floated across the ocean and in both directions and folks just want to be where the action’s happening and we see that. We get a huge contingent from Europe at both shows, from Asia, South America. Rob and I were just talking about South America and what we can do, particularly in Miami, to really highlight the growth of the industry in that space, but we’ve been really lucky that, and some of it is curating an experience, but some of it is luck as well. The information has spread as well as it has internationally, and everybody from mobile device management, the carrier solutions folks, everybody that’s playing in the mobility space internationally is really focused on this year in Miami for those two days, and so we’re really excited.
John: That’s July 8th and 9th in Miami, I’ll be there, ERI, our company will be there, mobiledisrupt.com. Let’s switch over now to July 28th, the 30th because [inaudible] not busy enough for you guys to just do that one in Miami, two weeks later you got to go down over to Bellagio, the beautiful Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, July 28th and 30th and have the ITAD summit, and for people to find that one and buy tickets, go to itadsummit.com. Talk a little bit about that conference and how is that different from Mobile Disrupt?
Darrell: The ITAD Summit is the flagship show that we started with and it represents the entire cross section of the secondary market of all electronic devices and electronic equipment. That that show has really ballooned over the last few years to be really the premier event in the industry. Last year we touched the 1600 mark on attendance, this year we expect to push that even further. Our numbers right now are significantly ahead of where they were this time last year, both on the sponsorship and exhibitor side, but also the attendee side, and obviously, the Bellagio in terms of events is the crème de la creme. You’re in the middle of everything right there on the strip in Vegas, the venue is amazing, we’ve got a massive amount of space that we’re going to fill every corner of and of course the after hours events are just going to be out of this world, so really excited about that. The speakers, the participants, everything that we’ve got going on there is just absolutely going to be phenomenal.
John: Who should be coming to that versus Mobile Disrupt, how big is that diverse crowd in terms of attendees and exhibitors?
Darrell: Yeah. When you start talking about all of the electronic devices, and you’re talking about we’re going to have representatives from the OEMs, we’re going to have CTOs, that’s a space where we’re really focused on. Growing our participation is with the folks who are making the decisions and the folks who are really working on the finding the vendors to whom the assets are going to be sent, and so we’re going to have decision makers there, and so really that’s an exciting opportunity for all the ITADs, which are the biggest slice of the market that we advertise to and that this show is for, but we’ll have all of the equipment manufacturers, we’re going to have some folks demonstrating some AI and robotics stuff this year, which is a new addition that we’re super thrilled about. John, when I tell you if you handle secondary device of any variety, whether you’re refurbishing it or whether you’re focused on dismantling and scrapping, there is information to be found, there are vendors to work with, there are partners to network with and of course as you and I talked about as we were leading up to this, this event more than I think any event that I’ve been to in the industry is really focused on the concept that really key concept of the rising tide raises all ships. Our goal at the ITAD Summit is to connect as many people as we can for the benefit and growth of the industry, for the maturation of the industry, to really empower everybody that’s in our space so that as we continue to work with OEMs, as we continue to move toward a truly circular economy, that the ITADS and the ITAD space is really on par in the conversation and equal with every other part of that circle.
John: I love it. Is it your feeling, Darrell, that since we’re going through a generational shift right now from a linear economy to the circular economy, that the wind is at your back, that these two conferences are going to continue to grow and thrive in the years to come?
Darrell: I certainly think so. As we look at some of the changes that have happened over the last 40 days and what those mean in terms of access to raw materials, as we consider the amount of consumer goods that are purchased on a regular basis, as we consider the needs that we have for electronic devices and our reliance on those, all of those things point to a world where a circular economy is absolutely necessary and absolutely going to be part of the world we live in. The key part of that circle, the keystone of that circle is the crowd of innovators, the crowd of worker bees that are taking old devices and saving them from the landfill and turning them into new and reusable devices, and so bringing everybody together at a show like ours is absolutely going to just get more and more important over the coming years, so we’re really excited about what the future holds for these shows, but more importantly, what it means for all the people that attend because it bodes well for their businesses and their opportunities.
John: Is it possible since the massive success of Mobile Disrupt in the ITAD Summit in the United States, is it possible beyond 2025 that Mobile Disrupt and ITAD Summit will grow outside of the shores of the United States?
Darrell: Absolutely. One of the things that you and I had the opportunity to talk about in Miami last year, in our interview, was our ambition to do exactly that. We have a great number of partners who are based in Europe and we’re very excited about bringing those folks over to the U.S but they’ve been kind of chirping in our ear a little bit about it’s time that we brought the quality of event that we’ve got at the ITAD Summit over to them and really give their peers on their continent an opportunity to experience the ITAD Summit and Mobile Disrupt. We’re excited, in the next 30 days or so, we’re excited to announce a show that we’re going to put over in Europe that’ll combine the two worlds and Mobile and the ITAD Summit. We’re going to do it just the way we do it over here, bring the fun, the business and the memories all together.
John: I want you to come back on the Impact Podcast and break the news here, Darrell, okay?
Darrell: That sounds like a deal, we can do that. You’ve been so good to me over the years, how can I not promise you the exclusive.
John: Well, I would love that, that would be a total honor. Anything else our listeners and viewer should know about the Mobile Disrupt Conference or the ITAD Summit that are coming up this July 2025 in Miami and in Las Vegas?
Darrell: I will tell you, the one big thing that I really want to, I think that even surprised Rob and I, that we launched last year is the ITAD Industry Excellence Awards. We had six awards last year, seven, we’re adding one this year. We thought it was going to be a fun little thing that that everybody kind of enjoyed and got into. We had no idea, we had no clue just how seriously everybody was going to take it and how much everybody was going to look forward to the next round.The nominations are open now, so we encourage folks to go to itadsummit.com and submit nominations for their the ITAD of the Year and ITAD Individual of the Year and all the different categories that we’ve got. We’ll have voting, although everybody’s registered for the show, will get to vote on the winners, but last year we announced them on the first night of the show and it was amazing. We went down to the hotel bar there in the center of the Fontainebleau and the smiles from ear to ear as folks were sitting there at their table with that crystal goblet sitting next to them, it was truly remarkable.
John: It matters.
Darrell: It’s crazy. As we’ll have calls with folks and we get the, oh, what do I have to do to get that award this year, so the answer is always bribe your peers in the industry because they’re the ones that selected. For anybody that’s curious, start having those conversations with the folks that you think might be attending the event because they’re the ones that are going to be picking the winners this year, but it’s a really cool event and we’re really excited to have launched that last year and it really has brought a new element to the ITAD Summit, so I want to make sure everybody gets in and nominates their favorites.
John: That’s going to be awesome. That was a really fun part of last year’s conference. Also I just want you to know that I’m really grateful for you not only spending time with us today, Darrell, on sharing all the important conferences that are coming up, the ITAD and Mobile Disrupt in Miami July 8th and 9th at the fountain Blue Hotel, and you can go to mobiledisrupt.com to buy tickets and learn more about that, and also the ITAD Summit at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 28th to the 30th, you can go to itadsummit.com. This is why we do this show, Darrell. It’s exactly about people like you, you not only are doing that as a full time job, which is more than a full time job, these are two major industry conferences that are growing massively and I’ve seen the growth of them, but all the important work you’re doing with the Broken Yolk Ranch and the theoxshoppe.org and yolkjerky.com, it’s just amazing what you do. You’ve again proven that your new generation not only wants to make a paycheck, but also wants to make the difference, and you, my friend, are doing that with all the important work you’re doing at ITAD Summit and Mobile Disrupt, but also all the work you’re doing with your family, you’re not only making a difference, but you’re making the world a better place, and I’m so lucky to have you as a friend. Thank you for joining us today, Darrell, on the Impact Podcast. You’re always welcome back here and I’m going to hold you to your promise, you need to break the news on your European conference when you’re ready to do so on the Impact Podcast.
Darrell: John, we’ll do that, and thank you for the kind words. We do feel like we’re doing what we can to make a difference in a lot of lives, but in many ways for us, there’s a selfish component to it as well, we do it because we love it, we feel good about it and I guess, yeah, it’s a lot of fun and to the extent that we can take that over to our professional lives, and in my case with the ITAD Summit and Mobile Disrupt, and I genuinely feel at the core of my soul that those two shows really make a positive impact on the way that a lot of, particularly the small and medium businesses in the industry are able to deal with things like changing regulations and trade issues and marketing and understanding algorithms on the marketing channels and all of that stuff. John, if we all do our part and help our neighbor, even if our neighbor is sometimes a competitor, every single one of us is going to wake up to me tomorrow just a little bit better than we went to bed.
John: I totally agree with you. For our listeners and viewers, again I didn’t want to just talk about these two important summits, but ERI supports both these summits, we’re sponsors., we show up every year at them, because it’s one thing to travel the world and meet all these wonderful partners, but it’s another thing to convene at one place and be able to touch them and have a drink or a coffee or a meal with them in person. Your summits are second to none and I’m so grateful for all the work that you’re doing, Darrell.
Darrell: We appreciate you, John, and the support of everyone on your team. This is what partnership’s about.
John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs and business leaders, Engage is the go to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI, ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.
https://www.brokenyokeranch.com/