The Career Pivot Nobody Really Expected

By Siam Sukkhee Trading Co., Ltd — 2026-09-25 — Waste360 (recycling/scrap)

Don Ross could have coasted. After nearly 40 years in solid waste and recycling, he had done the things that work. But he didn't.

Last month, he took the CEO role at Kollekt U.S., a brand-new waste collection equipment company built around a simple, slightly risky idea: that North America's collection systems are overdue for a fundamental rethink.

Here's the thing about established industries. Everyone knows what works. Everyone also knows that what worked in 2004 might not fit 2026. Ross has been inside long enough to see both truths clearly, which is probably why he felt compelled to leave his chairman role at the National Waste and Recycling Association and start building something else entirely.

Kollekt's angle, more or less, is to take proven waste collection equipment and technology from Europe and adapt it for North American markets. That's not exotic. It's not some AI-powered moonshot. But it's also not nothing. Products are already in service in New York City. The company plans its debut at SWANA's RCon conference in late September.

What caught Ross's attention wasn't the equipment itself.

It was the timing. More than 20 years had passed since waste collection in North America experienced anything approaching a fundamental shift in how the work actually gets done. Two decades is a long time. Haulers and municipalities have adapted, certainly, but adaptation isn't the same as building something new. Ross saw the gap, and apparently it was large enough to pull him away from the comfortable chair.

His background gives him real credibility here. Collection operations. Municipal waste management. Equipment manufacturing. He's seen the problem from multiple angles—from the hauler's perspective, from the municipality's perspective, from the person making the machines. Actually, that's not quite right. He's seen it from all three at once, which is rarer than you'd think. Most people spend their career in one lane.

Kollekt's framing is carefully American-led, focused on what municipalities and haulers across North America actually need. Not what consultants think they should want. Not what looks good on a pitch deck. What they need. There's a difference, though the waste industry doesn't always make it clear.

The company says it will announce more plans in the coming months. Which is fine. Everyone launches with runway before takeoff.

But the real signal here is different. When someone with four decades of deep industry relationships and success steps away from a prestigious chairmanship to build from scratch, it's worth asking what he sees that everyone else is missing.

Source: "It has been more than 20 years since North America experienced a fundamental shift in how waste is collected." — Waste Today

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