EP #3 - Eco-friendly Shredding and Removal with Dana Valeri
Jun 24, 2024Season 1Episode 3
Charlie McDermott
Dana Valeri faced a life-altering heart attack at just 28, but instead of giving in, he turned his second chance into a thriving business that prioritizes people and the planet. Join us on the Good Neighbor Podcast as Dana, the visionary behind Highland Shredding and Removal Service, shares the compelling journey that brought him here—from overcoming personal health crises to navigating the turbulence of a corporate buyout. Discover how his company stands out by offering everything from eco-friendly junk removal to the secure destruction of sensitive documents, always focusing on donation and recycling.
Dana dives deep into how his professional life is intertwined with his family, including his wife, Jenna, who is a force in her own right with her aesthetics business. Learn how personal values and a commitment to customer service have shaped Highland Shredding and Removal into a business that truly cares. Dana's story is a powerful testament to resilience and the indomitable human spirit. Tune in to get inspired and find out how you can connect with Dana and his dedicated team through their various platforms.
Dana Valeri faced a life-altering heart attack at just 28, but instead of giving in, he turned his second chance into a thriving business that prioritizes people and the planet. Join us on the Good Neighbor Podcast as Dana, the visionary behind Highland Shredding and Removal Service, shares the compelling journey that brought him here—from overcoming personal health crises to navigating the turbulence of a corporate buyout. Discover how his company stands out by offering everything from eco-friendly junk removal to the secure destruction of sensitive documents, always focusing on donation and recycling.
Dana dives deep into how his professional life is intertwined with his family, including his wife, Jenna, who is a force in her own right with her aesthetics business. Learn how personal values and a commitment to customer service have shaped Highland Shredding and Removal into a business that truly cares. Dana's story is a powerful testament to resilience and the indomitable human spirit. Tune in to get inspired and find out how you can connect with Dana and his dedicated team through their various platforms.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Euwan Godfrey.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to Good Neighbor's Podcast. Are you in need of a shredding and removal service? One may be closer than you think. Today we introduce to you Dana Valeri with Highland Shredding and Removal Service. Dana, thank you for joining us today. How are you?
Speaker 3:
I'm very well, thank you. Thanks for having me on. Euwan, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:
Wonderful, wonderful. It's a pleasure to have you here. Before we start, let me tell you a little bit about Good Neighbor Podcast. We launched this initiative when COVID-19 hit to assist local business like yours and reconnecting them with their targeted audience, and so it gives us great pleasure to be able to meet with you and learn a little bit more about your service and to be able to share that with others. Now, how are you feeling today?
Speaker 3:
Great, I'm good. I'm good. It's hot out, you know, but we're surviving and we're running.
Speaker 2:
Tell me about it. So, D dana, can you tell us a little bit about your company?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely, you know. First off, we make it really easy to get rid of anything or to destroy sensitive data. Our main services are cleanouts or junk removal and shredding. On the junk removal side of things, we can take just about any item that you can think of outside of hazardous materials, with no prep work on your end. We go right to where the items are, we do all the lifting, the loading, the cleanup and kind of just take care of things for you. We can come out for just a single stubborn item that you need to get rid of, or we can come break down every single item in your office or home and haul everything away for proper disposal.
Speaker 3:
Once we do remove the items, the first thing that we do is donate whatever we can, whatever we can't donate. That's stuff that hopefully we're able to recycle. We do a ton of that in-house. We use other local facilities as well, and then, if it's just, you know, trash or debris, that's stuff that we're using a local transfer station or other outlet for to properly dispose. And then, on the shredding side of things, you know, not only do we lend the various containers that you see around every office where people, just you know, put in their documents to be shred and don't think too much about, but we think a lot about those. So we do have those containers. If you're in need of you know having any of those, we'd be happy to price those out for you.
Speaker 3:
But we also, as our top tier service, do an on-site shred. So we have multiple trucks that we can actually send and shred everything right in front of you, right in front of your home or office. We can also do off-site shredding, so we come and pick everything up for you. Then we, you know, process, shred and recycle everything from from our facility. You can even bring your documents to us to be shredded, and it's not just paper. We don't just shred paper, it's also, if you know, if you have any hard drives, disks, tapes, anything like that. We destroy anything with media on it. So if there's some sensitive data that's out there, we're the go-to for making sure that we, you know, shred or destroy it and take care of that for you.
Speaker 2:
Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, surprisingly, that's a lot, far more than I would have thought. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, so, D dana, how did you get started in this business?
Speaker 3:
So I got started sort of through the junk removal side of things, so, going all the way back to 2005, I started working for my uncle, which opened the first local you know franchise of another business around here and I got into the junk removal world through that point and, you know, kind of worked through school, um, a bit, um, even did that on my own for a little while, um, before jumping into you know, an incredible career in digital marketing, um, and uh, back, uh, just you know, 2020, um, I jumped back into the junk removal world, uh, again, just to run the family business at the time and you know it was great.
Speaker 3:
We made some really good strides and you know it was, it was an awesome opportunity. And then, you know, basically there was a transition and kind of you know long story, but you know some some corporate buyouts that went on and you know, at at that point I felt the level of, you know, service and attention to people on all ends both, you know, internally and you know how we're treating customers was a little bit, you know, different from how I wanted to be running things, to really start things over and run things the way that we would like them to be run and that's where Highland Shredding and Removal comes in. I partnered up with a great local business that was a small shredding operation but really did an incredible amount of work for great clients. So the removal portion has been a great add-on for those customers. And now it's residentially really kind of catching on and things have been going great. But that's sort of how I found myself here.
Speaker 2:
Wow, that sounds great. What a journey. So outside of work, Dana, what do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:
I think I'm pretty old school, I guess, but it's really a bit of family time, admittedly. Myself and my wife. We work a lot and shout out to my wife, jenna Valeri, who owns her own aesthetics business. It's canvas inspired skincare out of Danvers Mass. So when we're not working, you know, we just love spending time with our two adorable kids and getting together with friends and family. We love good food and drinks, like, I think, everybody, and enjoying some time. So you know, there's nothing better than just being able to kind of crash out outside in the backyard by a fire and and chat, in my opinion, and let's change gear.
Speaker 2:
Dana, Can you describe one hardship or life challenge that you rose above and can now say because of you, because of it, you're better and stronger today?
Speaker 3:
Sure, and actually I'll do two really quick versions of some hardships and things that had come up. You know, on the more personal side of things, when I was 28, I actually had a heart attack and, you know, almost passed away, so it was a hundred percent blockage in my lower LAD, which doctors have the lovely nickname of the Widowmaker, for I was blessed to, you know, come out of things and be able to be here today. So, you know, coming out of that experience, man, I appreciate every day, you know, and I think because of that I show a lot more love maybe than I did, and I put that into what I do as well. So that's one.
Speaker 3:
And then you know, on the, you know, strictly professional end of things, you know going through a transition and kind of a corporate buyout of of a family business, Um, and, and what that means. And you know, man, I, you, you are the adversities that you go through. I think, um, in a lot of ways, Um, and you know, what I learned is sticking to your values, Um, you know, sometimes it's hard and sometimes you have to pass up a quick buck or whatever the case may be, but, man, when things start pulling you towards you know places you don't want to be and you know you shouldn't be and doing things that you're not feeling strongly about, make a change. It's worth in the long run, and that's what I've come out of through that experience.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, thank you. Thank you for sharing, D dana. Please tell our listeners one thing they should remember about highland shredding and removal.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, you know you're dealing with people and you know it's funny.
Speaker 3:
But just looking kind of across um, you know, competition and other services again that you know, even we we use um and and utilize on our end.
Speaker 3:
Um, it's really nice to be able to uh contact us um and, you know, speak uh to to a human who really gets you, your area, what you're going through. We're not a Salesforce-based business. We're, you know, a service-based business. We want to provide a really good service, provide a really good value to your life and what you need, and we're flexible so we're not locking folks into, you know, crazy long-term contracts and and things of that nature and just upselling all over the place. We, you know it's really nice to be able to say you know, hey, we don't really need this next pickup or are have all this overflow from this other project that we're going through Dana, harry, can you help me out? And then we say yes, and here's how and this is when we're going to do it. So it's really nice to be able to do that as opposed to kind of dealing with, you know, anything that feels like a machine that feels like a machine.
Speaker 3:
Got it and how can our listeners learn more about Highland Shredding and Removal? Yeah, the easiest is going to. You know our website, so it's highlandshredding. com. You can read all about the services that we offer. It even goes into pricing structures and things of that nature. But you can also find our social through there as well. So you can, you can join us and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. So we're all over the place. But you know, and you can always just reach out over the phone too. My mobile is 978-560-7520. Pretty easy to get ahold of.
Speaker 2:
Okay, thank you, D dana. We really appreciate you being on the show today and we wish you and Highland Shredding and Removal the very best going forward, thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3:
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPNorthshore. com. That's GNPNorthshore. com. That's GNPNorthshore. com, or call 857-703-9406.