Rubicon CEO talks trash with Chamber crowd

Jun. 7—The name "Rubicon" is inextricably linked with dynamic leadership, as Julius Caesar crossing the river by that moniker was a key step in cementing his iconic rule over an empire.

The name seems to fit, then, the company founded and operated by Lexington's Nate Morris. At Tuesday's Somerset-Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce monthly luncheon at The Center for Rural Development, guest speaker Morris commanded the crowd's attention with the authority of a Caesarean leader.

A ninth-generation Kentuckian, Morris rose from humble-enough beginnings — raised by a single mother in a working class home — to form a company that is now on the cutting edge of one of the most crucial problems any community faces: effective waste disposal.

And Morris built this company not from a position of strength, but one of necessity.

"I was broke, and that's a great motivating factor," said Morris, a George Washington University and ultimately Princeton alum, answering a question about the origins of his company. "I had $100,000 in student loan debt, and started the business with about $10,000 on a credit card. Not the easiest place to begin. ... You're frustrated, but you've got to work harder, you've got to get more inspired."

He figured "there would be worse industries to be in" than garbage disposal, as that's something every household and municipality has in common, but Morris wasn't content to approach the industry the way it's always been done. Instead, he was going to "cross the Rubicon" so to speak — and change the waste disposal business forever.

"I started this company about a decade ago, right here in Kentucky, with the idea that the waste and recycling industry was broken," said Morris. "... Most of the things we think get recycled actually end up in the landfill anyway. As an entrepreneur, I said, 'We've got to change that. We've got to conserve our resources. We've got to figure out a way to solve this problem with garbage.' And this is a problem that has plagued all of us since the beginning of time. You go back to some of the oldest professionals, (they're) the people that pick up trash. And we're still in this country, unfortunately in many cases, doing it the way we've done (since) thousands of years ago. And I thought that was unacceptable."

Morris also perceived that Kentucky was "under the microscope" in terms of how it treated the environment, and noted that it's "unfair that the government was in the business of picking winners and losers related to the environment." That helped spur him on to form Rubicon, a company that has become the world's largest digital waste and recycling marketplace.

"We all want to do the right thing for the environment, but we don't want to shut down business, we don't don't want to shut down our industries. How could we find an industry and a subject matter that everybody can agree on. No matter where you're from, no matter who you are, no matter what your politics are — everybody's got trash," he said. "Everybody wants to do the right thing and do something better than what they were doing before."

Morris pointed to a new way of doing things — not owning the trucks or the landfills, but using a digital model to find independent small businesses around the U.S. that are in the disposal and recycling businesses and build products for them to have a level playing against bigger entities like Waste Management and Republic Services, which "have been dominating the industry for decades." They're also landfill businesses, said Morris, which means they take trash, put it in their landfill and effectively charge rent on that garbage, as he put it.

"They get paid to pollute; they get paid to bury trash in the ground," said Morris. "... How do we incentivize people to keep stuff out of the landfill and make it profitable? We do that at Rubicon with our Rubicon model, because we don't own the truck, we don't own the landfill. We can be agnostic, and we work with local providers that have incentive like we do to extract the value out of trash every day."

And Morris observed that the powerful companies don't like threats to their power, reminding people of a popular TV show about the mafia that used waste disposal as a cover for more nefarious activities.

"These are not the nicest people in the world we're taking business away from," he said. "I'm sure we have some 'Soprano' fans in the audience. We all remember what Tony Soprano did for a living."

The ramifications of ineffective waste management produced eye-catching numbers shared by Morris — between 30 to 40 percent of food is wasted in the U.S. representing 133 billion pounds, and $161 billion in dollars.

Morris said that if the United States hits a 75 percent recycling rate, that could create almost 2 million jobs, giving people more opportunities — including those in Kentucky, where Rubicon is located.

Last December, Rubicon looked to become a public business on the New York Stock Exchange; they expect to list in the next couple of weeks (symbol "RBT"), and Morris said that the New York Stock Exchange is planning to fly the Kentucky flag on Wall Street, something no one there could remember having been done before. This announcement drew a round of applause from the Chamber crowd, as Morris also announced that Rubicon was Kentucky's only tech "unicorn" — a business valued in excess of $1 billion.

"One of the things that I'm so happy about is ... if we can build a technology company here, we can show people in California and New York that they don't have a monopoly on good ideas," said Morris. "Technology can come from anywhere in the country. Hopefully, Rubicon can be a challenge for other people to get into the technology game and show people in Silicon Valley that, I think, the heartland of America is going to lead on technology issues for many years to come."

Rubicon works to provide cost containment, taxpayer savings, and sustainable outcomes via long-term contracts with businesses and governments throughout the world. They currently have a network of more than 8,000 haulers, and over 8,000 customers across a variety of industries and 20-plus countries. Major customers include the likes of KFC, Walmart, Chick-fil-A, Dollar General, Amazon, Wendy's, Starbucks, Best Buy, Chipotle, CVS, Little Caesars, and Tractor Supply, and cities such as Houston, Texas, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, MO, Baltimore, Md., Ashville, NC, and Memphis, Tenn. They're also the official sustainability partners of University of Kentucky Athletics; this fall, Rubicon is promoting the Tailgate Kit program, helping UK achieve its goal to recycle 25 percent of gameday waste.

The company provides others in the industry with systems and digital tools that aid support, work order tracking, scheduling, fleet management, and other key details.

Morris recalled speaking to the CEO of Papa John's, telling him directly that Rubicon would like to handle the company's trash. The deal they made saved the pizza company about a million dollars on their trash bill, said Morris, and they also helped convert a lot of wasted dough into ethanol.

Rubicon is also working with the University of Pikeville in eastern Kentucky to publish a study on the challenges and opportunities that exist in rural waste management. It proposes solutions for litter, illegal dumping, and stray tires, and focuses on embracing innovative waste technologies to attract economic development and tourism to the area. That can help communities like Somerset, which face some of the same waste management problems so many other cities across the nation deal with.

"I don't have to tell Mayor (Alan) Keck this, but mayors across the country are dealing with archaic infrastructure in government," said Morris. "What that means is, in archaic structures, that favors bureaucracy, which favors taxpayer waste, which favors loss of opportunity. So we've got to get this out of government here in Kentucky and around the United States, because that has a direct impact on your bottom line as a taxpayer."

Then there's the "Trick or Trash" program, started in 2019. Nearly 2,000 boxes ship ahead of Halloween to schools and businesses around the country to help recycle old candy wrappers and figure out ways to make money off of the effort. Morris encouraged the crowd to let any local students that might want to participate know about the program.

"One of the things as an entrepreneur, I feel like our calling is (to) show the next generation how you run a business, how you balance a checkbook, how do you make sure your house is running the right way. How do you teach business to young people?" said Morris. "... There are all kinds of great lesson plans that come with this, small business empowerment stories, but also, how you can turn waste into gold, and to teach young people about this. This has been a very, very popular program."

Morris believes that the next tech revolution will come from the types of tough, dirty jobs that nobody else wants to do — and the Bluegrass State product is leading the charge across that metaphorical river in this area.

"Hopefully Rubicon can help Kentucky move us forward related to technology, and how we blend technology with industry to provide economic growth opportunities that I think a lot of people around the country miss," said Morris. "I think our DNA of grit and what we have to offer is really going to lead the way."