in 21 states and in Canada. KTI also had substantial operations in other industries, like house insulation production and tire recycling—industries the brothers had no experience in.
Yet not long after Casella began recovering, disaster struck again. The company had taken on massive debt to finance a five-year landfill development initiative launched in 2003, but construction and consumer activity plummeted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, lessening the demand for waste collection and disposal. The landfills Casella spent years developing couldn’t pay for themselves.
“Ned Colleta’s obviously a genius, and he’s done wonders to right the ship from an operational perspective,” says KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Sean Eastman.
CarterCoudriet