🎙️ Welcome to the very first episode of the Back to the Roots podcast.
We’re kicking things off with the remarkable story of Henry Viramontes, a California entrepreneur who turned a childhood spent working in the dairies into ownership of Red Star Fertilizer, one of the state’s leading soil and compost companies—alongside a fleet of trucks called the Viramontes Express.
Henry’s journey is rooted in relentless work ethic, loyalty to mentors, and a deep respect for the land. From hauling manure at age six to building a sustainable business that serves farmers, cities, and the U.S. Forestry Service, his story reflects everything Back to the Roots stands for: turning waste into growth and building a better future for people and the planet.
🎧 In this episode, you’ll hear:
This is a story about grit, trust, and building something that lasts.
🔗 Connect with Us:
Back to the Roots: backtotheroots.com
Alejandro’s LinkedIn: Alejandro Velez
Nikhil’s LinkedIn: Nikhil Arora
[00:00:00] Henry Viramontes: I just wanted to work. That's all I wanted to do. Kids wanted to play. I wasn't used to playing sports, nothing like that. I just wanted to work because that's what my dad taught me.
[00:00:10] Alejandro Velez: Hey guys, this is Alejandro and this is Nikhil. We're the co-founders of Back To The Roots. This podcast is for you if you are obsessed with entrepreneurship, if you care deeply about a purpose in your brand around sustainability.
And if you wanna learn more about how to build a brand in the lawn and garden space from scratch, we built this from $0 out of our fraternity kitchen at Berkeley to over a hundred million dollars of retail sales. And we want to bring on incredible entrepreneurs that can share their story.
[00:00:40] Nikhil Arora: Join us, let's go together.
[00:00:42] Alejandro Velez: Hey everyone, my name is Alejandro Velez. I'm the co-founder, co -CEO of Back to the Roots, and welcome to the very first ever episode of the Back to the Roots podcast, where we look to talk to incredible entrepreneurs, business people with a real purpose in life and either a brand or product or a process that really is something we're super proud of and I could not be more excited to kick off this podcast with none other than Henry Veramontess.
Now, he's never told his story ever before, uh, which makes it even more cool and special for me. I'm a little nervous, but just overall more than anything. Super excited to get started. So, uh, with that, let's get going. How you doing, Henry?
[00:01:32] Henry Viramontes: Very good. Thank you.
[00:01:33] Alejandro Velez: Where are we sitting right now?
[00:01:35] Henry Viramontes: Right now, we're sitting at Viramontes Express Yard dash Redstar fertilizer, and I'm the founder of Viramontes Express and Redstar Fertilizer.
[00:01:45] Alejandro Velez: So let's maybe start back to your roots. This is, I think, 1919 or 1921. Your dad moves from Mexico..
[00:01:56] Henry Viramontes: Mexico, down over here.
[00:01:58] Alejandro Velez: Where did he move from? Where in Mexico?
[00:01:59] Henry Viramontes: Zacatecas. Jalpa Zacatecas, from Mexico. He was born 1901, and he came 19 hundreds and he moved into El Mont, my understanding. He worked as farm labor. He lived in a boarding house with some other people and worked in the fields. And he met my mom.
[00:02:26] Alejandro Velez: And he moved to the Inland Empire from the beginning.
[00:02:27] Henry Viramontes: No, he, he moved to El Monte.
[00:02:29] Alejandro Velez: Okay. Where's that at? Relative to what we're saying there?
[00:02:31] Henry Viramontes: That's, that's closer to LA.
[00:02:32] Alejandro Velez: Okay. Uh, because we're about, just for everybody, we're about an hour and a half from east. East, yes. East of LA right now.
[00:02:39] Henry Viramontes: LA Yeah, about an hour and a half. So my dad went over there. Then he, uh, worked in the fields and met my mom. So he is a while here and then, in El Monte already working.
[00:02:32] Alejandro Velez: Okay. And what was he working?
[00:02:51] Alejandro Velez: I believe in the fields.
[00:02:53] Henry Viramontes: In the fields, in the crops.
[00:02:54] Alejandro Velez: 'Cause at that point, this is in the 1920s, this area was what, what were you, was it agriculture?
[00:03:01] Henry Viramontes: We know nothing about Chino. As far as that, my dad knew Chino didn't exist. So he was born in the LA area. And that's where all the crops used to be. A lot of fields up there, my understanding there. And, uh, he worked there and then I was, when met my mom, and they hooked up and they moved to a little town called Norwalk.
So my dad had a little house and he built a little house. 11 kids in that house. 11 kids in no running hot water. He used to, uh, raise his own chickens. So he did that for a while, and then he got into the, he left the farming, the crops, and all that. By then, he already had a bunch of kids already and he went to work in the dairies.
Norwalk was known for a lot of dairies and Artesia, so he hooked up and cleaned dairies the fields. So he then he raised the kids and my older brothers start cleaning the manure of the dairies. Then, when I grew up a little, when I say grew up about five or six years old, he put me in the dairies to work in a dairy.
So we had, including me, seven brothers. So we had the whole family working. The dairy farms. That's where we grew up in the dairies.
[00:04:20] Alejandro Velez: That's amazing because you think about an immigrant story, Benjamin comes immediately working, and in so many ways, he's just. Trying to figure out what to do. Was there, is there anything in particular about your dad that you feel still lives on in the business and how you operate as an empresario, as a CEO today?
[00:04:42] Henry Viramontes: Well, he really taught me how to work really good, hard, and thanks to him that's where we picked all this sub and, and when we got, we grew up, it wasn't the best of town. Kind of rough. Because that's all my dad could afford. We put us there, but he never gave us a chance. He put us to work as young kids who were in school, and he picks us up every day.
He took us to work to the dairies, to clean the dairies. So he never gave us the chance to actually hang around with the other kids, and that's why took..
[00:04:57] Alejandro Velez: How old were you when you started working?
[00:04:59] Henry Viramontes: Six years old, seven years as a little boy, took me out to the dairies and cleaned underneath the corrals was the shovels, the manure. Older brothers. And then as I got older, my daddy got sick, and I went to high school, and I felt lost.
[00:05:32] Alejandro Velez: And at that point, what was the business doing?
[00:05:33] Henry Viramontes: He was still cleaning dairies, But now there was nowmy two brothers split new trucks. Four, they only two or three, maybe five trucks. And they splitted, my older brothers split his.
[00:05:43] Alejandro Velez: Six brothers and you? And you were the youngest one?
[00:05:45] Henry Viramontes: I was the youngest. So I went to work in a restaurant. Watching dishes, and I dropped outta school 'cause I was so used to working for years and years and years.
And when I went to school I was lost in high school. And uh, I just wanted to work. That's all I wanted to do. Kids wanted to play. I wasn't used to playing sports, nothing like that. I just wanted to work 'cause that's what my dad taught me. Grammar school. Junior high. I went to high school. My dad was 36. He wasn't around me, so I went to work at a restaurant.
Didn't care for that too much, 'cause I wanted to go back to the fertilizer, what my dad taught me. So I went to work for a company called Coast Fertilizer, and we used to bag for them bags and uh, by hand and bales, fill 'em by hand, close fertilizer. Then I got a chance to get my driver license and drove truck for them, haul it to the stores.
[00:06:37] Alejandro Velez: And at this point. Your brothers were running your dad's company
[00:06:41] Henry Viramontes: Yes. By then they were running my dad's, but they, uh..
[00:06:46] Alejandro Velez: Which was the waste collection and trucking, a little bit of trucking.
[00:06:47] Henry Viramontes: And taking to the girls. Yeah.
[00:06:48] Alejandro Velez: They took over that. And in parallel, you s you did not join them?
[00:06:54] Henry Viramontes: I did not join them. I did for a while. I should say I did for a while. But they were young. But you were young. Yeah, I was very younger. But they were young, too. And they didn't know much of it. They were spending all their money. They couldn't run like my father. So they kind of broke it up and uh, I had to go somewhere. So that's, I went to restaurant, went to cold fertilizer work, did that for a while, bag fertilizers, and then I had one or two.
[00:07:19] Alejandro Velez: What does that mean? But to bag fertilizers back then?
[00:07:21] Henry Viramontes: We bag fertilizers like we do it right now with saw all these machines, but we used do it by hand because I always had that fertilizer behind me. The soil meant behind me. So I did that.
[00:07:31] Alejandro Velez: When you say by hand, actually by hand?
[00:07:32] Henry Viramontes: Yeah. We fill up those bags, open mouse and fill 'em up with the shovel.
[00:07:34] Alejandro Velez: So at 16 years old, you buy your first truck?
[00:07:35] Henry Viramontes: Yes.
[00:07:36] Alejandro Velez: You're bagging fertilizer, selling to the mom and pops? Yes. There was no the Home Depot.
[00:07:38] Henry Viramontes: There was no, there was no Home Depot, nothing like that. I got my truck. I wanted to do something. So I went out, looking around, looking around, and I found a place called Downey Fertilizer Red Star Fertilizer, up in Downey.
And I had this truck and I met this guy named Paul. And this is Paul Bernhard. Paul Bernhard used to run Red Star fertilizer. Okay? So Paul gave me a job and then I brought in fertilizer from my dairies too. I went to my brother's, I need some fertilizer. What are you gonna sell it to? I said, I need some fertilizer to go to Paul.
And then I was taking it to Red Star on bulk. Just a little bit of work, and I told Paul, Hey, I can haul your bags out to the nurseries too 'cause I did it for cos. So that's right. He said, how are you gonna do it? I said, load up my truck to the back of my hand, and I'll unload it by hand. He said, really?
You bet you. So he gave me the loads on Sundays. Nobody want. That was 19, 20 years old. I was strong. And then Paul see me and he gave me an opportunity, say, you know what? I could use another truck to haul bags. So my next truck I bought was just a flatbed, so we just hauled bags, bags on it. So I did that for quite a while.
Then he had me, I had an opportunity by another truck. So I stayed with Paul all these years and years, and actually like a father, he, he took me in. Then, when my father passed away, I was 19, and then Paul used to do his soil amendments, so he gave me an opportunity to make his soils. He knew I know how to do, as my dad taught me, he said, need somebody to do soils for me. Will you do 'em? I said, sure.
[00:09:21] Alejandro Velez: What's the difference between a fertilizer? Which is what you're doing. And then soils,
[00:09:25] Henry Viramontes: Well, when I say soils, uh, we got the fertilizer and mixers different mix wood shavings. Stuff like that. Sand. So now we made a soil amendment, and that's where we get, and Paul taught me how to do all this.
And then we needed wood saws. Wood redwood saw. Cedar. Redwood. And the only place we found this was in Terella and Porterville up north. I told Paul, gimme me the opportunity. I'll get me a truck. I'll go get it for you. He said, but you're doing this. Lemme do that. So he gave me, that's my first big truck I bought, and that's where I stayed with making the soils.
And they were in Downey. And then we moved to Chino, believe in the seventies. That time I couldn't afford a house. I was still renting a house in Norwalk.
[00:10:16] Alejandro Velez: But you had so much, because you're putting all your money into in the truck buying trucks. My business. You kept reinvesting in the business.
[00:10:22] Henry Viramontes: Not my theory was all the time, which my brothers always thought I was kind of dummy. He say, you're too young. You dunno what you're doing because Paul told me that your business account first, 'cause that's where you're going to, that's gonna feed you. So when we came to Chino, Paul came and I came over here. I said, boy, Jesus Paul. I went up there, and I don't know, I can't even find a house.
So he lend me $10,000 and uh, I came to Chino, looked for a house, a brand new house. I think that pays $68,000. Paul lend me $10,000 for the company. How in the hell I want to pay this bill back? But I paid Paul back and that's how I came to Chino. And then I ended up staying here. Another opportunity came up by another truck, and Paul got bigger and bigger.
The years went by. The years went by years and years. And finally I met the one of the owners here and, uh, passed away. And the owners left her, their daughter and their son-in-law one, the son was an attorney. Their daughters really didn't want, an attorney, didn't want it. And Paul came up to me, he said, Henry, chance to buy Red Star buy it.
By then I was already doing good. I already owned this site here, this 50 acres. I was doing good. Okay. This to Paul, you know, so now I already had some capital, I had some, uh mm-hmm some equity buildup. You know,
[00:11:47] Alejandro Velez: And you, I wanna go there 'cause you just kind of, I love it. You just throws in I already own 50 acres here in California. How did you get to buying this property, and how did you keep growing? So, so many things, I'm just like..
[00:11:59] Henry Viramontes: When I bought this property here is 50, Paul was there, actually it was 42 acres, Paul, 10 acres there. I was working with Paul and I already had money and this came up for sale neighbor here and Paul, hey, the neighbor's selling, they're losing their product opportunity to get it.
[00:12:12] Alejandro Velez: So, so you bought the property next to Redstar?
[00:12:15] Henry Viramontes: Next to Redstar. Bought it, next to here and uh, so I talked to the owner.
[00:12:20] Alejandro Velez: And you were still, uh, working a supplier for Paul. A supplier for Paul. Yeah, I was. So you had your trucking company?
[00:12:28] Henry Viramontes: I already had my trucking, and it was called Viramontes Express, and I had rent a piece of property 'cause it was getting too big. Boom. Park them all here
[00:12:36] Alejandro Velez: All your toys.
[00:12:36] Henry Viramontes: Yeah, through the toys. So Paul came, Hey, the neighbor's coming up for sale. The owner's selling from LA. Some investors, they want to dump this property. You should look into it, Henry.
I said, all right. So I look into it and then it was nothing here, nothing here, a little building. These, I understand this used to be, a slaughterhouse at one time, back in their pig farm, whatever, what it was. So I went to the bank. They wanted, like, I don't know, a million dollars for it. I says, no way.
There's nothing, no structure in there. We won't lend you money. Can't lend you no money on it. So I said, what do you, Paul say you should get it. I said, well, geez, I went to the bank and they know. So Paul hooked me up to a lady that does loans. Uh, I went to the lady and she told me, well, Henry, the only way we can get you some money is we, you gotta go through a shark loan.
No banks gonna lend you to learn it. 'cause there's no structure there. It's empty fill. The banks won't touch it. I said, well I gotta by then already had nice house. I said, well put my house upside. I know, but bank won't do it. But the lady did tell me I can get you a, you mean
[00:13:45] Alejandro Velez: Even with your house as collateral?
[00:13:46] Henry Viramontes: Yeah. The bank won't touch it. They, the bank, they wanted, uh, like 60% down. There's no way I'm gonna get that, you know, million dollars, $600,000 down payment. I said, no, I can't do that. This lady told me, uh, Paul introduced me to, they never forget her name, God. And uh, she, uh, she called me, well she did that, say, I'll get you a shark loan.
I said, what is this a shark loan? Yeah. She's not a good loans, but they're shark loans. There's, they call shark loans. People don't get creative or get this right. So I came in here, I went to talk to him. I never met this guy. Shark loan. This lady did. She got a range, but my entry was crazy. Really high.
[00:14:32] Alejandro Velez: Do you remember what it was?
[00:14:33] Henry Viramontes: Oh my God. I don't know. 11, 12% really high. And it was interest only. Nothing to the principal. That shark loan limit the money. Say he wants interest only. Henry. I said, really? Then I started, yeah, it's the only way. So I was making like payments, like 3000 a month, 4,000, but only for the interest, nothing to the principle that is a shark loan.
Then his deal was, we'll try you out for one year, two years if you make those payments good. He said, then I'll refinance you again, and then we'll put something in our principle and lower your interest. Okay. So a year went by two years I was making this structural payments to him. Then I had, by then, I had built an office.
I built a shop. I went to the city, got a permit. I built something. I built the scales. Then I went to the bank. The bank came, said, okay. They lend me the money, went to the bank, and that same lady got me the shark loan. She said, Now we'll go to the bank. Went to the bank, say, okay, now we're gonna approve you the loan.
[00:14:40] Alejandro Velez: So what did you do with the shark?
[00:14:42] Henry Viramontes: Well, let me tell you what happened on that day. One day I'm was sitting out, here's a guy comes up in a station wagon, he comes driving around. I went, I came by that. Can I help you? He, well, I wanna see the property that I own. Okay? By then going, then he talked to me, I say, you’rer Viramonte?
Yes, I am. I'm the one who put the money for you. That's the first time I met him. After having here, he said, I understand you go to the bank trying to get a loan on this property. He said, yes. He said, you don't need to do that. You were with me for a year and a half. I'm gonna refinance. You don't have to go to the bank.
He said, I'll, I'll, I'll change the loan, give you, I said, no, that's all right. I'm gonna go to the bank now. So that's why I got the, I got money for the bank. It paid, paid, paid back. The shark backed the shark,
[00:16:28] Alejandro Velez: When he came, did you trust the guy? Did you not like?
[00:16:33] Henry Viramontes: Well, I went up to it and I said, can I help you and the station wagon, you know? He said, well, I wanna see where's my investments at. Then I talked to say, Sandra. Sandra, this guy said, oh, well you bet him. I go, yeah. She goes, I, those guys have a lot of money and they invest like people like you. He said, but I told him about you and he, he don't want you to go to the bank. He said.
Refinanced. You insure the said no, I wanna stay away. Why? Why did you know? Smart movie goes underneath bank. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And these guy also shark loans, what they are. But I had to go with it. 'cause the bank that time would not gimme the credit. You know? Now we're okay. Now, you know, just now.
[00:17:07] Alejandro Velez: And this was, I wanna go back to Paul's the last, I mean, he was the one I you kept, you, you said, and you've told them, told me in the past. Paul saying, you've gotta do it. And that was one of the biggest investments for you though, then. Okay, then. And why did you listen to Paul so much?
[00:17:23] Henry Viramontes: Because Paul was a very smart man, like I said, looking like a dad. And he was a very smart man.
[00:17:31] Alejandro Velez: What made him smart in your eyes when you say that?
[00:17:32] Henry Viramontes: Well, we helped me and the way he'd run the business, he run those businesses and now we, the way he talked, the way I, you know, he always, oh, and he took me to, he had this, uh, restaurant, did a lot of conventions and he took me with him. I was young. He took me with him, you know, he introduced me with him and he helped me all this.
I knew he was a smart man in business. He was a very smart man in business. Very. And that's why the co corporation had him there. Smart man. And as a year went by, years went by, he lost his wife, you know. Then I bought this one, I had this, and then, uh, they wanted to sell it and Paul said, you better buy Red Star on, 'cause the permits, these permits are like gold. He goes. The, you can, what are, and grandfather permits here.
[00:18:16] Alejandro Velez: Permits, what are permits?
[00:18:17] Henry Viramontes: Composting and for fertilizer.
[00:18:20] Alejandro Velez: And they're hard to get in this area, you're saying?
[00:18:21] Henry Viramontes: Yes, because when, when the restaurant was established in 1920, 1930, they had the permits and then when they moved to three times and then they, the permits was transferable.
And then when they moved this left, they weren't transferable. They stopped that in, uh, I don't know, a year, 2000. No more transferable permits. So now when somebody tries to get a permit, they give you a permit with, it's called in contingency permits. It's not a full permit.
[00:18:51] Alejandro Velez: Contingency upon staying in the land that you operate about.
[00:18:54] Henry Viramontes: And, and Paul. So you better get this permit since the, the permit is worth more than the property, say Redstar has them, and I paid a pretty good painting for Red Star and at that point
[00:19:04] Alejandro Velez: Paul said, worth it.
[00:19:07] Henry Viramontes: It's worth it. And, and I, listened to Paul.
[00:19:08] Alejandro Velez: How much of it was with a mentorship relationship, at that point, you had more assets than you and Paul had.
[00:19:12] Henry Viramontes: Oh, yeah. So then I had this property already. I think..
[00:19:15] Alejandro Velez: How are you humble enough to still not say, well, I know more than Paul, I have more money than Paul.
[00:19:27] Henry Viramontes: Well, uh, I don't know. I just, I just kept to my family. But Paul knew it.
Paul knew it. I could afford it. And, and, uh. So Paul, you better get Red Star and his permits and that. And I knew the business already, and I already knew the permits were very, very hard to get. Very hard.
[00:19:34] Alejandro Velez: So you were convinced on your own?
[00:19:35] Henry Viramontes: I was. What I learned from Paul, I already convinced I said I gotta have him.
I said, no place. You're gonna go. Because really I did my homework and Restar really was worth maybe 2 million, you know? So they sold to me $4 million. I already knew it. You know, that's, that's a hard not to correct you right now, you know? So Paul went back to the owners. Negotiated, negotiated. I got a loan this property.
I only owed 300,000 in it by then on this property here. So I brow on this land. Pay that one. So now I own both. Now I got 50-some acres still. Right. So then Paul worked for me. I owned Redstar, I got the books. We all, we all.
[00:20:31] Alejandro Velez: And so your mentor ends up working for you. So, so how did that, how was that?
[00:20:34] Henry Viramontes: And then it was very hard because Paul was, like I said, like a father to me when I got the books from Redstar, and I brought my daughter in, actually, that's the time my daughter should come in. And, uh, I got the boots. Paul had power of attorney,
[00:20:52] Alejandro Velez: Power attorney as in he could make final decisions..
[00:20:54] Henry Viramontes: Paul could make all decisions he want. There was two persons that signed the checks for Redstar. There was a, a lady called Vivian,
[00:20:57] Alejandro Velez: And this is the Armenian family. And that was the daughter?
[00:20:59] Henry Viramontes: The, no, the, the, they were not involved. They were not involved anymore. They were not involved. But those Armenians people had sold it to the, to Paul, attorney Ladyman, Vivian.
And Paul. And those people had the authority to make decisions. Okay? Then when I bought it, the state was power attorney. I bought the books, I bought it. They brought, the attorneys bought me where we all said here, we signed papers and all that. So Paul got sick. Around this time he got sick. We already owned it and Paul was getting sick.
I said, Paul, it's been years and years. I, I own it. Years when it is been years and years.
[00:21:35] Alejandro Velez: Oh, so years you owned but you still kept them as power return kept their power return. You didn't wanna have that conversation with him.
[00:21:41] Henry Viramontes: Yeah, never had, I didn't exactly want that conversation. I, I'm old school..
[00:21:45] Alejandro Velez: And you trusted him. Was there a time in which you guys disagreed even during those few years where he had power of attorney?
[00:21:50] Henry Viramontes: But I never told him anything. Yes, I disagree with some, but I kept it myself.
[00:21:54] Alejandro Velez: You'd let him make a decision in which you thought he made all decisions, even if you thought they were wrong.
[00:21:59] Henry Viramontes: Yes.
[00:22:00] Alejandro Velez: Why? You had the power.
[00:22:03] Henry Viramontes: I don't know. That's, my daughter knows that. I don't know. And, and that's, I was old school a lot to my father. I grew up and it was just a handshake. That's all it was. You know, if he told me to do this, I did it. Paul, you know. If you only seen the old building we had. We had all that.
[00:22:21] Alejandro Velez: That's fascinating. You own the place. Yeah. You got a tremendous amount of experience. Yeah. Thanks to your mentor. He taught you, and then now you had real-life experience and you had built this. Yeah. I mean this empire. Yeah. And you are humble enough to - Yes, correct. - To just put your ego in your pocket and let the person who built who you are make decisions, even if maybe they were poor decisions in your I know.
I know it was appreciation at a completely, like astronomical level is a word that I just, when I talk to you, appreciation for hard work, like for work itself is so beautiful, Henry, and I feel like those are, that is so rare and I, I, I think that is something that is so special that is not, it's not that you work hard or you're a great business, like you appreciate a person. Yeah. And yes.
[00:23:11] Henry Viramontes: Like, like I'm still old school and I still believe in that. I'm even my dad. You can't do that. When I say I let it go, he'll, he'll come around, he'll pay, he'll do something. I still do that. And my daughter said,
[00:23:26] Alejandro Velez: I was gonna say the second word. I wrote this down. I feel like in a weird way, and it's an oxymoron. It's like contradicting because. I wrote, you have low expectations. Is that true?
[00:23:37] Henry Viramontes: Yeah. I'm still got same way and change. I talked to Paul. Paul, I love you as a father. You know I do. Paul said I gotta change this and add Susanna to it, my daughter. 'cause I hope you live 200 years old. Paul Sunday might happen because I know we got to, we, we got to that week his wife calls me to falls the hospital. I said, what? I said, we have a meeting 9, 9:30, 9 o'clock. Well, he's in the hospital, but you see he had lost his wife. He remarried, and yet we were a young girl. She called me, said Paul's in the hospital.
[00:24:12] Alejandro Velez: So on the day he's supposed to sign away his power.
[00:24:14] Henry Viramontes: They're supposed to. We were supposed to have a meeting do this and take the power attorney, add my daughter to it, you know? They call me, I get the phone call, say he's in the hospital. So I got the attorneys that told Paul I'll sign them. I did in the hospital bed. Two weeks later, he died.
[00:24:31] Alejandro Velez: When you think about, and this is my last question about Paul, because I wanna, I wanna get to where the business is today. Can you give me an example in which maybe a pretty, a tough decisions you've had to make more recently on the business?
[00:24:47] Henry Viramontes: Paul taught me customers always, right? Like when I bought a truck, something like that, I went to him, he say, yeah, you bitch. That's the only thing that's gonna get you moving up. You need money to make money. Mm-hmm. Uh, yes. Stuff like that. Yeah. We bit tips like that.
[00:25:02] Alejandro Velez: What's, um, you've done, the business today has moved from, where I first started was trucking, which you still have Viramontes Montes Express.
[00:25:12] Henry Viramontes: Yeah. And I started the trucking business to supply with stars.
[00:25:15] Alejandro Velez: And then from there, now how many trucks are a part of Viramontes?
[00:25:15] Henry Viramontes: 50.
[00:25:20] Alejandro Velez: Yeah, 50 trucks. And then you now own this land and all the Red Star, which does, what does Red Star do and maybe kind of some examples of some of your, the customers that you serve.
[00:25:35] Henry Viramontes: Red Star does, it still does what they did before packaging.
[00:25:36] Alejandro Velez: Packaging of what?
[00:25:37] Henry Viramontes: Uh, soil cements. So I say soil, cement, fertilizer, composts, and all that. And I brought it to a different level. Paul, one thing about Paul, he was always low key, kind of keep it old school and that that's the way he taught me too. And then when I brought my daughter in, she’s the one that got me going more. Now I'd probably still be like Paul, but geez, I'm one that started this.
We'll see later, automation, all that. And she's the one that brought it up to we're at now. Yeah. So I kind of turned it over to my daughter now she runs it. She's like me. Yeah. And she works very hard. And, um,
[00:26:17] Alejandro Velez: What, how are, how are Paul and, and Susanna, your daughter, different and how are they similar?
[00:26:23] Henry Viramontes: Paul, oh, Susanna's like me. She's a hard worker. She's like an old school like my I taught, but uh, but yet she gets a modern days. But she listened to Paul too a lot, 'cause she know I listened to Paul. She did. So my daughter did what I did, you know, listened to her father.
[00:26:39] Alejandro Velez: How are they different?
[00:26:40] Henry Viramontes: Much different. Well, sometimes my daughter would say, well, dad Paul, kind of old school, you know, you better go this way now. But you know, my dad, my daughter's more than your generation, so you're right.
[00:26:53] Alejandro Velez: Tell me about a time you've really, you screwed up. Like, I screwed up. Made, made a bad, bad, bad mistake. Bad mistake. Yeah. Bad. Bad decision in business.
[00:27:01] Henry Viramontes: I remember one time I got into hauling some modular trailers, something I didn't know and said, and I listened to other people, so I'm going to go haul some modular trades.
I didn't know nothing about us. I invested some money in it, bought some trucks. That was really bad. I lost my trailer, lost that, but it, I still kept this part of the business site. That was a really bad decision. And Paul had told me, I told Paul, I'm gonna get this. Think about it, Henry, very first, very good because you're getting something that you don't know, that you, you don't know anything about you, you don't nothing about it. And he's right. And he, he warned you. He warned me. You're getting something you don't know about it.
[00:27:42] Alejandro Velez: I would look from an outside perspective. Well, it's still logistics and trucking, so you do know. Yeah, but I, I got into it just, is that how you justified it?
[00:27:49] Henry Viramontes: Yeah, just I got into it just a little bit. Just you try now.
Oh, your Paul is right. I backed off, and I lost a little before I got any deeper, so I got out. Yeah. That's a bad decision there. Yeah, and some, uh, properties that I bought, some were bad, some were Willy Ghost. You know, like that would be that one. Behind that one. We sat one that's 140 acres that I bought.
[00:28:16] Alejandro Velez: You still, you still have that?
[00:28:17] Henry Viramontes: I still got 'em, and that was a bad decision. Now, I should have, I should have did my research on it first. I should have talked.
[00:28:30] Alejandro Velez: Where are those 140 acres? I didn't even know. You own 148 acres.
[00:28:30] Henry Viramontes: That's in Hamed.
[00:28:30] Alejandro Velez: Where? Where is that?
[00:28:31] Henry Viramontes: Hamed. It's about 65 miles from me, miles close to to Temecula.
[00:28:36] Alejandro Velez: 140 acres. That's hundred 140 . 140 acres that you own still today?
[00:28:41] Henry Viramontes: Yeah, I still got 'em. It, it's something that their mom said, oh my God. It's like..
[00:28:45] Alejandro Velez: It's basically just for acres. I, I think of it as football fields. It's about, a hundred, take 110 football fields that you own.
[00:28:54] Henry Viramontes: Yeah, yeah. 40 acres. 44,500 square feet in an acre. So we multiply. So, so when I bought that..
[00:29:00] Alejandro Velez: So over a hundred football fields and you said that was a bad decision, that was a bad purchase at the time.
[00:29:06] Henry Viramontes: Well, what it is, is a bad investment, which is not going to be a bad investment, but how many years is it gonna take real estate? They don't make it no more.
The old saying, that's what Paul should tell me, they don't make real estate no more. That was one of these deals that I wanted to buy real estate. Once I was gonna get into real estate business, I was having a little extra money. So I bought that. I bought, uh, some, uh, actually it wasn't too bad, but it, it..
[00:29:16] Alejandro Velez: Overpaid for maybe at the time.
[00:29:17] Henry Viramontes: No, I, I underpaid, but I thought I'll be, turn it over by now. There probably was a few million right now, but I, I, I mean. But I should have made my, I should done my homework. I should have got, got, uh, people that do that escrow people go, they do check for you, pay a few bucks.
[00:29:51] Alejandro Velez: And you didn't do that.
[00:29:52] Henry Viramontes: No, I didn't do that.
[00:29:53] Alejandro Velez: Why not on this property?
[00:29:54] Henry Viramontes: Like I said. It happened in a handshake. I knew some.
[00:29:55] Alejandro Velez: What made you, did you trust the owner at the time?
[00:29:56] Henry Viramontes: Well, I knew him. You knew him. They got it from the father, and there's a place I used to go hang around with, and I knew the people that were getting older and they always just say, I'm going to my ranch up in him and going to my ranch up.
Man, I knew when the hell it was. I told me I had 140 acres, and I told him one time, Hey, whenever you get ready to settle, let me know. Old saying like that, having lunch or drinking a beer or something, just let me know. He just went by and they said, I seen him. I say, Anne, you gonna sell me your ranch? Get out here Don.
My daddy left me. I don't wanna sell you my ranch. Well, one day I go up there, you ready to buy my ranch? I said, holy cow. I said, well, she ed your money where your mouth is. Said all right. And now we were just, we were really good friends. Yeah, to tell. I told, I don't even know where it's at. He said, well, gimme the address.
Go see it. He said, go look at it. All right. Came back. My daughter took my daughter, he came back. I took to end. She told me, I'll tell you what, I don't wanna sell it, 'cause my daddy left me that piece of property and my sister wants to sell it, but I'll tell you what, I'll sell it to you. My daddy appraised that 15 years ago.
Gimme the appraised money. I said, when do you appraise it? 15 years ago, they'll buy it. Alright. It was,
[00:31:16] Alejandro Velez: That was it. And that was the decision. You shook his hand and you bought it. And why did that, do you think it wouldn't turn out because you thought it just wasn't liquid enough, or what?
[00:31:26] Henry Viramontes: Well, I can't do a lot of stuff there. It's, it's ag but I then I years went by say, hey, the place we could do some..
[00:31:16] Alejandro Velez: What did, yeah. What was your vision with that? A hundred, the 140 acres? Development. Like real estate?
[00:31:38] Henry Viramontes: Yeah. That's what I do. Wow. That and now, and now I can do that. I can cut in fire equal parts now. So, but I pay under a million dollars, so..
[00:31:48] Alejandro Velez: So was it actually bad or was it good?
[00:31:49] Henry Viramontes: No, no, it wasn't bad at all. No. But, uh, I should have did my homework. You should have done your homework. Yeah, I should have. What can I do? What can I do there? You know, little things you can't do. Then we bought another piece of property, and then another one in Wasco. We got another yard in Wasco.
[00:32:05] Alejandro Velez: So are you still thinking real estate?
[00:32:07] Henry Viramontes: I love real estate.
[00:32:08] Alejandro Velez: You do love real estate. Why?
[00:32:11] Henry Viramontes: Like I said, they don't make it no more, and that's good investment.
[00:32:14] Alejandro Velez: Do you see yourself as a real estate investor? As a, as a w. Uh, well, a waste..
[00:32:22] Henry Viramontes: well, you gotta have the business to get the real estate to before that.
[00:32:24] Alejandro Velez: So your business pays the real estates, like all the month, any monthly expenses that come from it.
[00:32:29] Henry Viramontes: Yeah. So we bought property in San Jose They're..
[00:32:35] Alejandro Velez: And you see that as a store of wealth, long-term store wealth. Yeah.
[00:32:39] Henry Viramontes: Just for the kids.
[00:32:40] Alejandro Velez: Henry, you're 74 years old. Yes. What time do you come to work every day?
[00:32:45] Henry Viramontes: I get up every day at 3:30, 4 o'clock in the morning. I'm here at five.
[00:32:51] Alejandro Velez: Why? You don't need it. You've taken waste and, and, and, and not seen it as a waste. But the opposite is the fact that we've not, that we've wasted an incredible resource and you've turned it into an empire. Yes. Why are you coming to work every day? What excites you like? Work. Why?
[00:33:12] Henry Viramontes: Well, I'm gonna go back. What my dad taught me, and I'm so used to it, I just can't shake it off of me. I feel when I stay home, what am I doing home? I should be there. I feel lost. I know I don't need to, but I feel like gotta be here. I'm addicted to it.
[00:33:34] Alejandro Velez: When you say you're addicted to it, what part of it makes you addicted to it?
[00:33:36] Henry Viramontes: I like to come and see the equipment, like to get in tractors. I still drive the tractors. I still work with the guys outside. So this morning when I came, I left at three third.
I got a little early left. I went to the place, to my other yard, checked it all out. I always driving my pickup, see what's going on, what we did, what we need. Then, uh, they need help. I jump in the tractors and help the trucks get loaded. There's a lot of people that come around. They're looking for Henry, and I say, I don't know.
So I still like that. That still doesn't go away for me. Driving a tractor. Tractor. I still do it. I like it and it will never go away from me.
[00:34:11] Alejandro Velez: You don't take vacation?
[00:34:12] Henry Viramontes: Never. Seven days a week. Sundays, I work five hours. That's a short day. Five hours, Sundays.
[00:34:15] Alejandro Velez: How do you divide your work days now? Like how do you, how do you, when you come to work, you're out in the morning when you first get in, do you do, do you do any office work too?
[00:34:25] Henry Viramontes: No, I'm not an office person, so you're never, always cut me here today.
[00:34:29] Alejandro Velez: Are you answering emails?
[00:34:30] Henry Viramontes: No.
[00:34:31] Alejandro Velez: You never answer emails. It's phone calls.
[00:34:33] Henry Viramontes: It's my phone. Son loves my phone.
[00:34:39] Alejandro Velez: I love it. Oh my gosh. Ah.. that's the phone.
[00:34:45] Henry Viramontes: She bought me a little smart model using
[00:34:48] Alejandro Velez: God. I wish there were more people like you had. Right. That's my phone. This is, this is. This is America. This is the, this is the heart of America. People like you. So that is what makes America what it is.
[00:35:05] Henry Viramontes: Gonna be one of the last mohegans. My daughters, she like my daughters, she like me, but she's just a new technology. She got me a smartphone. I don't use it, so sometimes I don't even know how to use that thing. Don't even how to answer it.
[00:35:18] Alejandro Velez: There's so much to learn from you, Henry. There is so much wisdom and there is the, the consistency, the dopamine that you get, not from the stuff around it. It's the actual work, the actual doing of it. The fact that that's what keeps you going. I mean, a lot of greatness comes from absolutely loving what you do.
[00:35:42] Henry Viramontes: Yeah. And my family's, of course, my daughter, my son, they're involved very good. My son does all the outside work grinding. I taught, I taught him very early outta school, just like my father taught me. Yeah. I got him outta school and he stayed in school and he graduated. I let him, he stay in school, but it, summertime, I had him here. Weekends, I had him at working. I had my daughter too.
She was going to college when I pulled her out, she came, come and help me. And uh, actually I didn't stop her for college. She was coming help me. And then she see I was getting bigger, said that you really needed help. It, she was parking a car outside and helped me through the paper. Oh, she took over. She, she's gonna be like her father.
[00:36:23] Alejandro Velez: Yeah. The next interview will be a Susanna. That is in, that's awesome. And that's why that partnership that you guys have, and that's a, it's a good relationship. We have very good relationship. That's trust. The trust that you have with her.
[00:36:33] Henry Viramontes: My family and I is a good relationship. And they got a good mother too. A good relationship. Her mother and I were divorced, but her mother works here.
[00:36:42] Alejandro Velez: She does. I didn't know that. I haven't met her, have I?
[00:36:46] Henry Viramontes: She works in that office. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We, we never we're friends now we got divorced many years ago. Uh, but, uh.
[00:36:53] Alejandro Velez: My parents are divorced too, and they're still friends.
[00:36:56] Henry Viramontes: Yeah. And she said, can't bring my mother to work to do what she wanna do. It's up to you. So her mom works here. It's okay. It's fine with me. So now what we do, I just work seven days a week. And Sundays is five hours and go pick my dogs, take 'em for a ride.
[00:37:13] Alejandro Velez: What are you most proud of?
[00:37:15] Henry Viramontes: My kid. What I've done to them and what I built.
[00:37:17] Alejandro Velez: What do you think they're most proud of you for?
[00:37:18] Henry Viramontes: Good provider for them. I taught 'em how to work hard too. Just my father taught me. But I make my kids stay in school. Stay in school. I lost my dad too young. I was, I was very young. I was 19 years old and I, that was like a, a fish out of the bowl. You know what to do when I lost it, that's why I went looking around my phone, Paul, and I stayed with him.
I think it was hard, a lot of hard work, what it was, and it paid off. Thank God, knock on wood, they're meeting nice people like you getting business now.
[00:37:50] Alejandro Velez: Yeah.
[00:37:50] Henry Viramontes: And Paul taught me how to be business.
[00:37:52] Alejandro Velez: Who are some, I mean, some of your customers today is the city of Los Angeles. You do a ton of, I mean, you have a lot of partnerships with them in which you're picking up a lot. I mean, you have partnership with Waste Management. Oh, yeah. I see Waste Management trucks all over here.
[00:38:05] Henry Viramontes: Oh, yeah. We got a great, good relationship. I, uh, uh..
[00:38:08] Alejandro Velez: All the, all the, and the freeways. You pick up all the, we build a mulch. Well, you see it as mulch, but, uh, to, to most Americans, they see it as all the debris on the side of the road. Yes. Yes. So you see it as mulch. I mean, look how you talk about it as mulch. People see it as waste.
[00:38:27] Henry Viramontes: That's right. It's always a waste for...
[00:38:28] Alejandro Velez: For you, it's a wasted product. Turn into something, recycle something, you can use it..
[00:38:33] Henry Viramontes: And that's why a good relationship got with the cities and all that United States forestry got a hold of us and they heard about us.
They came out to us and uh, I met 'em. We had a big meeting here and uh, we had that time called the bark beetle back in 2003, 2004. The bark beetle came in and it was killing the forest. Paul got into it too. We got into it too. And uh, it didn't have much range. The bark beetle took over the forest. It was clean the forest, so forest, you had to thin it out.
So. There was a lot of people involved in it, but they wanted somebody that can recycle it, do something with that product. And they came to us and they said, what can you do with this product? Well, we can bag it, we can do this, we can do that. So they gave me some funds. Okay. The state did said, what do you need? So I need some guys do it. They gave me some funds. Yeah,
[00:39:28] Alejandro Velez: Because they needed to get a, get a, I mean..
[00:39:30] Henry Viramontes: Yeah, it was, so we got grinders up there, some big grinders or something right there. They put the trees there, chopping them down, bring 'em down here, put 'em in bags, color them, do all this kinda stuff with the forestry. And that's how our name got there. Out there. Out there, out there.
[00:39:45] Alejandro Velez: Well, I think you call it, you call it old school. I, I feel like it's just principles like you have you, it's the integrity. You're, you're direct, you're honest, transparent, and I see that as a, a partner to you today.
Your reputation is almost reminds me of how Costco thinks about costing also, which is bottom-up entirely. And I wanna know what your cost is, and I'm gonna make, you know, Costco specifically. And the whole sole price philosophy and Senegal philosophy was, you know, 14% margin, and that's it. I'll take 14% markup or margin on my cost.
And I feel like you have that reputation in the lawn and garden space in which you aren't trying to look at how much profit I can make. You're saying this, what's it gonna cost? Exactly. And I think Susanna helps you understand truly what your costs are. Exactly. And you are just gonna say, I just need to make.
Reasonable margin and I don't if I, even if they're willing to pay me more, I'm not gonna charge you that.
[00:40:43] Henry Viramontes: That's exactly how we do it. We, we get a contract, we do something here, we figure everything out, and then we add that, what do you need, 10, 15% markup? There it is. We don't try to do this to every product.
No, no. What's cost here? What's gonna cost us now field-wise? And we put the mark up there, whatever. We don't gouge people. No, no.
[00:41:05] Alejandro Velez: I can speak. That is the reputation you have built. Yeah.
[00:41:08] Henry Viramontes: And it's, and people know that out there.
[00:41:10] Alejandro Velez: And I love a, a, a mentor of mine that comes to mind, um, gentleman named Scott Manning. And he, he has so many philosophies similar to some of the things that you talk about and Paul taught you. And it's this idea of trust is built in droplets, right. The whole thing is trust and it's built in droplets. And it's lost in buckets, like Yeah. Doing things consistently over and over is how you build trust and you've done that.
[00:41:39] Henry Viramontes: It's all about trust and people trust you. It's the word of mouth. If you're dishonest, work gets out, you're gonna go down. You're honest, truthful, people know that they'll come in. I don't got salesmen. Mm-hmm. So word of mouth, trust.
[00:41:57] Alejandro Velez: Amazing.
[00:41:57] Henry Viramontes: We here our native, it's State of California, all that s Yeah. It’s all trust, handshake,
[00:42:04] Alejandro Velez: Henry. Well, uh, this has been an absolute treat. What an honor to make this be the very first Back to Roots podcast. I will remember this forever. I think it was not planned for us to launch a podcast. It was, we were together last week. First time we met, we met, we started talking, we hit it, and I just said. You know what?
I would love to share your story with the world. Okay. He's never shared his story with the world, and, uh, that means I'm gonna launch a Back to Roots podcast with my co-founder, Nikhil. We said, let's do it. And this is so cool to have you be first, and I'll tell you why. Back to Roots DNA has been about taking waste and growing food on it.
This is the epitome of building an entire empire in California. Mm-hmm. From waste, and even how he talks about what most people see as waste on the side of the road. He immediately calls him mulch. The word waste doesn't exist in his vocabulary. He says, well, what can I do with it? Everything's about, what can I do with it?
The appreciation that he has. Low expectations for so many things. Yeah. Which keeps you just focused on what you do every day. I love it, Henry. Um, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. More than welcome. Uh, thank you. All right. With that, this is a wrap. Thanks so much for tuning to the Back to Roots podcast. We're signing out. Thanks, everybody.
[00:43:27] Henry Viramontes: Thank you.