As a 14-year-old schoolboy, Dave Zwicky was given the chance to realize his dreams. A local banker saw potential in a young man’s goal of becoming a successful excavating contractor. Backed by the banker and a co-signer, Zwicky bought his first piece of equipment, a backhoe. After more than 30 years in business, Zwicky shifted his company’s focus to organic recycling and landclearing. Once again, his energy and creativity created a successful enterprise, that last year processed and sold approximately 700,000 yds. (64,008 m) of material, and has enabled him to quietly pay back many times over the community that supported him years ago. Zwicky is president of W.D. Zwicky & Son Inc., parent company of Zwicky Processing & Recycling Inc., based in Robesonia, PA, near Reading. When Zwicky decided to shift his business to organic recycling in 1988, he drew on his family’s heritage of mechanics and toolmaking to convert some of his excavating equipment for recycling work. Zwicky’s earliest recycling contracts were for stump grinding, first for an area farmer and then for a local contractor. “We did those jobs and then another job after that, and we kept going and going. It really just grew out of there,” recalled Zwicky. A Lasting Partnership Processing stumps with modified excavating equipment was hard work. When Zwicky saw an advertisement for a new grinder, he traveled to the Morbark factory in Winn, MI, to see the machine in action. Zwicky formed an alliance in his company’s early years, when he bought a stump waste recycler from Morbark Inc. “When we went there, we took our coveralls along,” Zwicky said. “Not only did we run the machine, we crawled around through it.” Impressed by the stump waste recycler’s rugged construction, Zwicky bought the first piece of equipment in what is now a highly-mobile Morbark fleet that includes seven machines: models 1300, 1250 and 1100 tub grinders; models 5600 and 4600 wood hogs horizontal grinders; a coloring system; and a model 27 Total Chipavestor. Adding in trucks, tractors, loaders, excavators, screening plants and other equipment, Zwicky Processing & Recycling owns 104 motorized units. Products and Customers The 700,000 cu. yds. (535,193 cu m) of material sold by Zwicky in 2001 included 14 different products, all made of recycled organics. Zwicky’s products cover the spectrum of landscaping applications plus soil amendments, agricultural products and specialty products. “Landscaping mulch is our primary product,” explained Zwicky. “We produce several grades of mulches, including some colored materials, although most are natural color.” Zwicky sells to a growing base of approximately 500 customers. “And that’s on a wholesale basis,” he said. His company’s landclearing and recycling accounts include a growing number of high-tech site remediation and recovery projects, including some Superfund jobs. Landfill mining jobs also keep Zwicky’s crews and equipment busy, as well as custom grinding contracts with area colleges, universities, municipalities, military bases, golf courses and cemeteries. The company is equipped to support the goal of many customers who wish to recycle 100 percent of their organic waste. Zwicky is a passionate advocate of recycling, and he and his crews strive to produce consistently high-quality products for its customers. “We keep our blends of materials constant and we work really hard to keep repeat customer, our bread-and-butter people. You can give a guy a load of junk one time, but he’s not going to be there next year to pay your bills,” Zwicky said. “Quick money isn’t good money.” New Products Although Zwicky wholesales three-quarters of its material directly from job sites, he carries on a constant search for new uses for organic products, a search that has taken his company to new and unexplored areas of recycling. Organic erosion control products, for example, are a topic of interest now. “Two of our new products are going to be made 100 percent from recycled demolition material which is all going into the landfill now,” Zwicky explained. “Another product is actually made of recycled pressed board, plywood and cardboard, again, all currently going into the landfill. There are going to be three brand-new products being kept out of the landfill.” Reducing Materials Zwicky’s front-line reduction machines are a Morbark 5600 Wood Hog and a new Morbark 4600 Wood Hog. Both are in constant use, usually at sites miles apart, along with support crews and equipment. At a campus expansion project at Elizabeth College in southeast Pennsylvania, the 5600 Wood Hog, fed by a Deere 160LC excavator, quickly reduced trees cleared from a 10-acre (4 ha) site. A Deere 648GIII grapple skidder places and pushes trees and scrub material within reach of the loader, and a nearby open-top trailer quickly fills with clean grindings from the Wood Hog’s discharge conveyor. “We also do a lot on-site processing for Elizabethtown College,” said Zwicky. “We help them on an ongoing basis to recycle their organics, all of which they reuse on site.” The 4600 Wood Hog is several miles to the east, processing a stockpile of old pallets and wood growing frames from a nearby mushroom producer. This is a particularly satisfying contract for Zwicky because not only does he grind the grower’s wood frames when they are periodically changed out for new one, but he also provides other services and materials to the customer. One of the company’s crews is dedicated to stump grinding on its landscaping jobs, in addition to performing grinding work for many other landclearing contractors and in landfills. After years of experience, Zwicky has learned how to make quick work of the dirty job of grinding stumps. “We split stumps first primarily to get the rocks and the dirt out of them,” Zwicky said. “Some contractors don’t think so, but we’ve proven to ourselves that we get a lot more efficient grind with four pieces of stump than with one massive stump. Splitting the stump cleans it out and gives you a more economical grind.” Mobility The large number of customers for which Zwicky provides custom grinding requires tight scheduling of the company’s equipment and crews. “In addition to our bigger jobs, we usually have at least one crew out doing custom grinding for somebody,” Zwicky said. “One of the reasons we bought the Morbark model 4600 horizontal grinder is because it’s very mobile. It doesn’t require permits to move around.” Zwicky detailed one crew’s schedule over several days. “I normally have two guys who move equipment from site to site. The 5600 crew at the college will be done the following morning and they’ll go to the next job. Everything will be pulled in and sitting there, ready to start. There’s enough material for a day or two of work before they will be ready for the grinder, then they’ll start prepping and then start bringing trees on.” A Good Neighbor Zwicky reveals an altruism that is reflected in his business dealings as well as in his personal life. Always remembering that the road to his success was paved by the faith that others had in him, Zwicky has extended the same helping hand to other beginners, as well. “We’ve franchised a couple of outlets, gotten them started,” Zwicky said. “There were some people who were instrumental in my getting started when I was young and had no resources other than a willingness to get out there and work. We started some of these younger landscapers who seemed to have good potential and a desire to grow, and we help them push the paperwork through and get established, and do the physical setup of their facility for them and even end up bankrolling a lot of that activity.” A windmill on Zwicky’s property pumps water at a pond used for both an emergency supply of water and as a retention pond. At his 42-acre (17 ha) site near Robesonia and at a 110-acre (44.5 ha) expansion site that he is establishing several miles away, Zwicky is scrupulous to minimize the operation’s impact on the environment and his neighbors. “No runoff leaves the property,” Zwicky stated. “All the runoff is recycled back into the operation. All noise is contained, too. “We have a good neighbor policy with the township and the municipalities around us,” he said. “We have tried to be supportive of local activities, libraries, the fire department and, of course, the school.” The local fire department knows it can count on Zwicky if equipment is needed to move large objects or if an extra tanker is called for. The department has access to Zwicky’s water supply for emergency purposes. He has set aside an area on his property for emergency helicopter landings if the fire department ever needs to evacuate a victim out of the area. Promising Future As much as his customers and neighbors can count on him, Zwicky has counted on his Morbark dealer, Deacon Equipment Company, for the past 12 years. Walt Deacon, owner, worked at Morbark’s headquarters for five years. In 1986, he moved to Pennsylvania and eventually started his own dealership in Bloomsburg, which serves all of Pennsylvania. Morbark is Deacon’s sole product line, and he is proud of the contributions that he and Morbark have made to Zwicky’s success and of his association with him. “Dave is soft-spoken but deliberate,” said Deacon. “He’s always moving forward, but he’s not rash or haphazard. He’s very meticulous in his cost research on every piece of equipment he runs.” “Deacon Equipment has never been afraid to use us a reference for their potential customers,” Zwicky said. “They’ve been respectful of our working area, but they’ve also been respectful of our ability and knowledge of their machines. We have a pretty good relationship that way.” As Zwicky looks forward to even more growth of both the organic recycling industry and his company, he sees the continued importance of processing equipment to his plans. Production, serviceability and rugged construction have made Zwicky a loyal Morbark customer in the past, and, Zwicky said, “Morbark is definitely in the future for us.”
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