Rooted in Passion

“Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.”

What became a catchy phrase to some became something closer to a moral code for me. They were among the first principles I remember learning, actively practicing, and eventually advocating. So perhaps it is no surprise that I began working in the recycling industry at 13 and have spent more than 25 years immersed in it since.

After earning my bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Indiana University, I continued my education in a different kind of classroom: a scrap metal yard.

I wanted to understand the industry from the ground up, so I learned it the way you really have to, by doing the work. I handled materials, inspected inbound loads, processed and identified metals and alloys, sorted commodities, and saw firsthand how contamination, material quality, and operational decisions could determine whether something retained its value or lost it.

That experience shaped the way I think to this day.

I learned that recycling is not simply about putting something in the right bin. It is a complex system of materials, people, equipment, logistics, economics, technology, policy, and markets, and every part of that system affects what happens next.

As my career expanded from metals into paper, plastics, electronics, organics, and other material streams, I kept returning to the same question:

How do we make the system actually work?

Not just in theory. Not just on a sustainability report. In the real world, where material quality, processing capabilities, logistics, economics, and end markets ultimately determine whether something actually gets recycled.

That question eventually led me to the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at Rochester Institute of Technology, where I earned my Ph.D. in Sustainability. My research explored a disconnect I had repeatedly encountered in the field: increasingly sophisticated recycling technologies were being developed, but there was limited understanding of how those technologies fit within the operational and economic realities of recycling facilities.

My dissertation evaluated identification and sorting technologies for ferrous and nonferrous recycling and resulted in research published in the Journal of Waste Management and Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy. I also developed facility-level technoeconomic and cost-benefit models because I have always believed research should do more than describe a problem. It should help solve one.

That work reinforced something my career had already taught me: increasing recycling rates alone is not enough. We also have to improve material utilization, preserve material quality, reduce downcycling and contamination, strengthen end markets, and design products and systems with recovery in mind from the beginning.

My work has also taken me beyond the United States, including serving as an NSF Fellow with the United Nations University in Bonn, Germany, where I contributed to international work involving waste management and disaster resilience.

Today, I bring those experiences together through Kaizen Sustainability Solutions.

Kaizen means continuous improvement, and that philosophy reflects both how I approach sustainability and how I approach problems. I believe meaningful change rarely comes from a single sweeping solution. It comes from understanding how a system really works, identifying where value is being lost, and continually making it better.

My work sits at the intersection of strategy and reality.

I help organizations understand complex material and recycling systems, evaluate technologies and downstream markets, navigate changing regulatory requirements, improve operational performance, and turn sustainability goals into strategies that can actually be implemented.

I tend to ask the questions beneath the polished narrative:

• Where does the material actually go?
• Can the infrastructure handle it?
• Does the technology work at scale?
• Do the economics hold?
• Is there a viable end market?
• And can we prove the outcome we are claiming?

Because sustainability should be more than a promise. It should hold up under scrutiny.

Over the course of my career, I have helped divert millions of tons of material from landfill, but volume has never been the only measure that matters to me. The deeper work is improving our understanding of the systems behind those numbers, finding value in materials others overlook, building stronger connections between recovery and end markets, and creating solutions that are environmentally responsible, socially beneficial, and economically viable.

I am a materials-systems thinker, a problem solver, and, at heart, still the person who looks at something others consider waste and asks:

What are we missing?

Because I believe materials have value. Systems can improve. And better outcomes begin when we are willing to understand what is really happening and translate that understanding into action.

Incremental change. Continuous progress. Sustainable results.