Born: I was born March 18, 1981, at The Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Education: After graduating from the Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, I attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where I earned a BFA and an MBA.
Family: I met my wife Jenny in college, and we’ve now been married for 16 years. We have two high-octane sons—Liam (9) and Henry (5).
When and how did you enter the recycling industry? Recycling began as a family affair. My dad entered the industry in the 1970s as a waste paper and pulp broker in New England. He and his business partners eventually built a deinked wet-lap pulp mill named Mississippi River Corp. in Natchez, Mississippi, where I worked on and off as a youngster. After college, I interviewed with one of the company’s suppliers, Medina Paper Recycling, in northeast Ohio. I began by working on the baler for six months as a training platform. Later, I moved into a sales representative role for central Ohio. My job was to find recycling accounts for our Medina plant in a brutally competitive market. At the time, Medina had a close relationship with WM, where I accepted a job in 2006 as a sales manager for Ohio and Kentucky. Over time, my area of responsibility continued to grow and ultimately included Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and western Pennsylvania. I have always been involved in recycling commodity sales and have had a slow, steady increase in areas of responsibility. Today, I cover the western half of our U.S. recycling commodity sales efforts.
What was it about the industry that prompted you to build a career in it? The familial connection no doubt spawned my interest in recycling. After learning the ropes from some of the best, landing a few wins, and making friends, I started to enjoy the business. The travel, the relationship-building, the technical aspect of the different recycling processes, and working for strong organizations have sustained my interest. I’ve probably visited a hundred paper mills and always leave impressed.
What have been your most rewarding professional achievements? Personal achievements? Professionally, I’d say becoming a director at WM when I was 30 years old. It’s been a fun, interesting, difficult but ultimately fulfilling job. It helps that I work with crazy-talented people. As for personal achievements, I couldn’t be prouder of my wife and sons and how we continue to evolve for the better as a family. I hit the lottery in more ways than one.
What are you passionate about? Outside of work, my hobbies include golf, snowboarding, art, and computers. If I didn’t work in the environmental industry, I’d try my hand in the IT/network security business.
Tell us something about you that would surprise people. In college, I lost interest in a business major and made a late transfer into an art history degree—a perfect transition to recycling, right? What that major did give me—and something I’m thankful for—is a strong foundation in writing and the ability to be constructively critical of my work and the work of those around me.
If you could improve anything about yourself, what would it be? For starters, I can get stuck looking for a solution on the data side of things when the answer is more intuition- or experience-based. I’d also like to improve the quality of my communications/directions with my co-workers. Knowing clearly and consistently what the mission is and what role you play in it is invaluable information. The best business people walk those lines effortlessly.
What do you like to do in your free time? I meet with the same group of lifelong buddies around 7 a.m. every Saturday or Sunday for a round of golf. I’ve probably played 1,000-plus rounds with these guys since middle school. In the winter or on weeknights, we’ll try to get the kids together and go practice/teach. My sons are trying different sports to figure out what they enjoy, so my wife and I moonlight as a premium car service for youth sports. It’s a grind, but it’s worth it.
When and why did your company decide to join ISRI and the PSI Chapter? WM has been an active participant of both since long before I arrived 16 years ago, and I’m happy to carry on that tradition today in a small way. WM feels strongly about being part of shaping policy and being involved in discussions that affect us all, large and small, as an industry. There is also much to be said about learning from others and bringing those lessons to your own organization.
Which PSI leadership positions have you held? What motivated you to become a PSI leader? My first unofficial PSI duty came last year when I helped to migrate the legacy PSI website from a third-party vendor to ISRI, working with the PSI and ISRI communications teams. Other than that, I’ve been a participant on a couple of ISRI committees and contributed on special projects. The motivation is simply to learn and share experience, with the ultimate goal of becoming a more well-rounded leader here at WM.
What benefits have you received from your PSI involvement as a member and leader? It’s about learning from others to become better for the organization you represent. Sometimes we get so busy that tunnel vision is a real issue. When we connect with others in PSI, it helps us learn about different issues and how other folks problem-solved. Also, being part of PSI ensures that we as an industry can remain aligned on issues that affect us all.
What are the major challenges facing your company and the overall recycling industry today? At WM Recycling, the issue we are grappling with most urgently is technology-related. Not only are we investing capital in physical technology to help us improve material outputs and MRF efficiency, but the software side of the business is developing equally as fast. Many of our customers today are moving to cloud-based or more heavily automated CRM systems to reduce the administrative burden on their businesses. We must adapt at the same or preferably greater speed. It is a delicate balance, but administrative outsourcing and automation of processes is a growing theme in business overall. We’ve spent a tremendous amount of energy over the last few years trying to get ahead of the curve, and those efforts have paid dividends. Industrywise, we are paying close attention to the new global papermaking capacity soon to be online and trying to plan years in advance for the effects it will inevitably have on the supply chain.