Started, there's a whole bunch of people eating breakfast. I'm Michael Hoffman from Stifel. I'm the Group Head of Diversified Industrial Research. I've been covering the environmental services space for about 38 years, and this is our twelfth annual Investor Summit. I wanna thank everybody for being here. Couple of comments early on. So emergency procedures, safety is first and foremost in this industry. Alarms would sound and give you instructions. If those instructions are to exit, see where any of the exit signs are, get to the outside, and head to stairs or the escalators, and work your way down. And when you get down to the ground floor, you immediately would exit out those doors there. So sort of familiarize yourself where the spaces are. I wanna thank our partners at Informa, Mark Acampora, Laura Kelly, for all of the work behind the scenes. Julia here is here today to keep me on the straight and narrow. They put this together. They do all the logistics, and then my team at Stifel, the Stifel corporate events, managing all the one-on-ones, coordinating schedules, and then my team sitting here in front of me, with Brian Butler, Ryan Gilbert, Nada Sharaf. There's some news you should be aware of if you're not. I am retiring, and I am moving on to be the next President and CEO of the National Waste and Recycling Association, and my colleague of 25 years... Stand up, Brian, so they can see you. My colleague of 25 years, Brian Butler, is gonna take over the coverage, and he's gonna join me on a couple panels today, so you guys get to be familiarized with him. So let's get started with our program. It's a full day. We've got 16 discussions, 9 public companies, 7 topical. We'll be here for 9.5 hours. Yes, I did just say that. You have breakfast this morning, beverages all day. Lunch will be at noon. I ask you, give us 5 minutes at the beginning to recognize the Deal Me In winners. You'll hear more about that, and then you can scoot out, grab your lunch. You've got a good 30 minutes, and then we'll carry on the rest of the day. And with that, John, how you doing? Fabulous. So John Casella has been the lead-off, and Casella Waste Systems has been the lead-off panel for this Investor Summit for the 10 years I've done this at Stifel. I want to thank him for doing that. He's the only senior exec who'll get up this early, actually. No, I'm only kidding, Ron. Wherever you are, Ron, I didn't say that. So we have Casella Waste Systems with us today. John Casella, Chairman, CEO, Founder. Next to him is Ned Coletta, who is now the President, and has been prior, the Chief Financial Officer. And our newly joined to the team is Brad Helgeson, and many of you may remember Brad. He's now the CFO at Casella, was the CFO at Covanta, which has most recently been rebranded Reworld. So John, thanks for being here. Glad to be here. What would you say is the most compelling issues facing your business today? When you think about... You You know, 'cause it's 40 years old, Casella Waste? Almost fifty. Almost 50, yeah. So a lot's changing right now. What is the most compelling- Well, a lot's changing. It's really an interesting question. There's a few issues that come to mind, but probably one of the most significant still today is about people and culture. It's about filling the seats from a driver standpoint, mechanic, especially over the last two, three, four years. We've invested, you know, heavily in HR, put together our own CDL school, put a maintenance school in place this year, and, you know, we've got probably almost 300 individuals through those schools that are gainfully employed at Casella at this point in time. But one of the, I think transportation in general, it's really creating a people culture where people really wanna come to work, doing everything that we can to make sure that we fill the seats. Because if the seats aren't full, puts stress, real stress on the entire organization. I think that, you know, you can think about other things in terms of PFAS and other, but, the way we look at it is, people is most important. Getting that job done every day, having people that are really, really enjoy coming to work. The other thing that we did, too, you know, we've always had a five-year fleet plan, but through two, three years ago, we put together a five-year facility plan as well, upgrading the facilities, making the, you know, the shops really presentable, the, you know, all of the facilities for our people. So, it's a, it's, it's a real cultural piece that, you can't do enough on. Okay, so let's tease that out a little bit. So let's share with everybody, total employee base, roughly? 4,200. 4,200, and 80% of that is direct workforce? So three, little over 3,000 people. Yeah. Proportionally, sort of 10-to-1, drivers to a technician/mechanic is sort of- Right ... simple math. Yeah. Right. So you and I are of a generation when we were in middle school, they asked us, were we going to college or were we going vocational, and you had a vocational education at school when you... We don't have any of that anymore. No. Is it table stakes that you have to control that vocational training internally? I really think it is, Michael. You know, that's exactly what we've invested in over the last 3-4 years, in particular, putting those schools in place. And the other thing that we're doing now is just going into high schools. 35%-40% of the kids coming out of high school today are not going on to college. They're gonna go out and be a plumber, electrician. We need to attract as many of those kids to our industry as we possibly can. Right. So Mike Rowe, that famous TV comedian guy who does the Dirty Jobs thing, has been talking about that a lot lately as well. What do you think has- Well- -generationally has caused them to... Is it the idea that it's just $200,000 in debt, and I don't wanna be in debt, or? I think that it's, there's a lot to do with it in terms of when you really think about it, we're doing now from a marketing standpoint, it's really interesting. The other aspect of what we're doing to fix the problem from a marketing standpoint, we're marketing the power of hard work, right? Right. To your point, and it's got a lot of legs to it. The marketing team has done a really good job, and we're turning over, you know, really beginning to see a lot more activity from an application standpoint. So, there's a change going on right now. I think people are really looking at what is the value of a $250,000 or $300,000 debt going into the future from an educational standpoint. Right. So you get them... You say you attract them, you get them through the school. You've actually had good success rate in the retention once they got into the school. What's—I mean, I'm gonna just drive forever. What are you offering them as a value prop that's more than just wage benefits? Well, the other thing that we've done is to really create- Return to charity ... career development for drivers, for mechanics. So if you come in as a rear load driver, 'cause we need a rear load driver, you do a good job, you're safe, and we'll train you as a front load driver. Then we'll train you as a roll-off driver, train you as a swing driver, and then train you as a trainer. And over a 5-, 6-, 7-year period of time, you can see what your path is gonna be. You can see what your comp is gonna be as you become more valuable to the company, and that's really paying some dividends as well. Okay. So, Ned, in your new capacity for 18 months now, is it, is it about- Yep, about 18 months. About 18 months. So as you made that switch from really focused on the numbers and sort of how to roll the business up into that returns analysis, what's your dashboard look like today? What's your day look like today? Oh, great- By the way, just so you know, I get emails from him at 11:00 P.M. So I know what he's doing work-wise, but what's your day like today? Yeah, it's, it's been a great shift here. We, we really are lucky to attract Brad to the team, and it's allowed me to very quickly pass the financial baton to Brad, and we have an amazingly talented team that, that works for Brad. And a lot of my focus has shifted to the development side, also partnering up with John and the HR team on people development. It's one of our biggest goals in the organization, and just working on a lot of the development projects in the organization, whether it's M&A or some of our RNG projects, or other areas that we're focused on developing infrastructure, like our McKean railroad served landfill- Mm-hmm ... or some of the rail-served transfers as well. So, strategy. So as a- Yeah ... you've shifted more into a bit of the strategy vision aspect of that senior leadership. Yeah. John and I have always partnered really well on strategy over the last 12 years, but probably a little bit more bandwidth to spend time. Right. When you sit here today... Let me, let me reposition this. I have this sense, and, you know, from my lens looking in, that the industry and the businesses, the individual businesses like your own, are at a fascinating crossroads of opportunity relative to strategy. Some of the most diverse sort of options in front of you of where would you take the business? It's not quite as simple as we're just gonna do a lot of M&A and, and focus on price volume and manage price cost spread, that there's some real capital-driven choices that are differentiated. Are you seeing that as well in your business? Yeah, we are. As you look at the range of opportunities, one of the areas we've really excelled over the last decade is on providing resource solutions for our customers and really listening to their emerging needs, what they need from a recycling, you know, even a data-driven approach. What can we give them from data to help them meet their sustainability needs? And then, as you said, Michael, a lot's happening on the capital side. So whether it's finding a higher, better use for gas at landfills or even just treating PFAS and some of the technology development we're doing there. Okay. So when you think of some of the choices that have been made, one of those would be the GFL purchase, Twin Bridges, Willimantic. Those are pretty substantive sort of shifts. You know, as you sit here today, one, how do you feel about the choices made so far? What are some of the interesting sort of observations you've made as you've done them, and you've got them, and you're starting to embed them? And what should we expect out of them as we look forward? There's a lot in that question, I realize. I can hop in. So it was really one of our goals as we looked at the opportunity to acquire the carve-out assets from GFL to expand our operating footprint. We've been a company focused in the Northeastern United States for almost 50 years, and looking to develop that platform and doing what we do so amazingly well across a new geography was one of our larger strategic goals over the last several years. So, acquiring 11 operations across three states is a great foundation for us to continue our growth, not just on, you know, M&A, as you said, but also on the organic growth side, providing customers the solutions they need. We do an amazing job on recycling. We produce great returns in our recycling business, but we also partner deeply with institutions, industrial customers, to help them drive on that sustainability pathway. So as we look to the Mid-Atlantic and further down the Eastern Seaboard, you know, bringing a lot of what's made us successful and our customers successful in the Northeast is one of our big goals. So- Go ahead. I think, you know, clearly, with regard to the Mid-Atlantic platform, couldn't be more pleased with the entire team's integration of those assets, on time. We're gonna deliver the synergies over the next few years that, we had laid out. I think it's, $8 million over a 3-year period of time. So again, great job by the team. We're off the transition services agreement 'cause it's a very complex transaction from an IT standpoint. Right. Ned and the entire team did a fabulous job of getting off the transition services agreement and, you know, fully integrated and on plan. So it's, it's exciting. Same thing with, Twin Bridges as well. Right. Really great job on the integration there. Still work to do, but, out of the box, couldn't be happier in terms of the integration work that's been done. And so sitting on the outside looking in, Twin Bridges is so logical 'cause the seller there has built and—I mean, he basically builds them and sells them. That's his MO. But the other big block, that wasn't actually ever bought to be sold. It was gonna be run, and I've talked to that company about what was their original plan, and they had a plan to do with, I think, essentially what you're doing. But this is a—It's a, it's not an overnight M&A consolidate plan. It's much more of a focus on improving operational performance, making some of the transitions on the equipment away from rear to side, upgrading quality of contracts. Answering your question for you, there is a question in there. And so can we lay a little bit of that out? 'Cause I think sometimes- Yeah. People go, "Okay, well, you did this. You bought this $50 million of EBITDA, and when's this gonna be a $100? Yeah. And my example is, I say, look at what they did in Rochester. It took 'em four years to basically double that. That if this is a four- or five-year to double, that's a good plan. It's not- Mm-hmm ... a 24-month. 24-month. But let's talk about that. Yeah, you hit on a couple of great points there, Michael. Most importantly, operational focus on the ground. This was a series of acquisitions by Waste Industries and GFL that led to that region that we acquired, the Mid-Atlantic. And today, there are a lot of rear-load trucks on the ground. I think there's close to 140 rear-load trucks. So this is a roadmap for our ops team for the next, you know, 5 years to naturally replace these trucks, move to automation, work with communities and customers to move to automation, and those projects have great returns. We see 25%-30% returns, so it is a lot of value that's gonna be created there. There, there's value just in our risk management programs. We've done an amazing job over time on building our Energy and Environmental Fee, our Floating Sustainability Recycling Adjustment Fee that adjusts for recycling commodity prices. A lot of that risk management is not fully into this business yet- Right ... so over time, a great opportunity there. And then it's people. We actually took on a really great team in the Mid-Atlantic. Our regional vice president has helped to shape a great operating team as well, and we're looking at, you know, tuck-ins, adjacencies now, and how do you build scale in that market? Yeah, a good portion of our time from an M&A standpoint has been spent in the Mid-Atlantic region as well. Okay. So- When do we see our first deal? I know it won't be soon enough for you. Yeah, no, no. I never had to ask, you know. It's a heavily landfilled market, and your model from a public stock market standpoint, privately as well, is you had a very high percentage of market share of landfill in your current, I'll call it the legacy geography, where this comes with no landfill. So, you know, there's some would go, "Ooh, real change of course," but we should remind everybody that Pennsylvania's got a lot of landfill capacity. Yeah, there's a tremendous amount of disposal capacity in Pennsylvania. There's 12, 13 facilities that are within that region. So, we also have McKean as well from a backup perspective in terms of defensive play long term, if needed. But, there's a lot of disposal capacity in the market. It's really about, you know, creating an environment for your people and taking care of your customers. It's, you know, no more complex than that. You take care of your people, they'll take care of your customers, and, you know, if your people and customers are happy, your investor is gonna be happy. Okay. Mm. So you haven't talked about revenue synergies much, but I think there's got to be a revenue synergy opportunity, whether it's bringing resource solutions into that marketplace, it's improving the underlying pricing behavior. One of the things that's really powerful is in the entire Mid-Atlantic region, I think it's the distribution center for the Northeast, Allentown, Bethlehem. There's so many industrial customers there that just lend itself to our resource solutions business, 'cause we'll go into a plant, put 4-10 people in there, and help them execute their sustainability program. So, you know, we're really moving. You know, when you talk about the future and the strategy going into the future, we're moving away from waste management to materials management. Right. It's, you know, more and more, our expertise is being built in terms of materials management. Okay. So, Brad, I haven't left you off the hook. Four months? Six. Six. Wow! Six tomorrow. 6 tomorrow, perfect. You're counting that much? It just occurred to me the other day. What's, what was on the dashboard when you were leaving Covanta and doing that, that is, should be on this, and, and what's this dashboard look like? And what, what are you, what are you, what are you finding as you come in? This is a new, fresh set of eyes. And interesting enough, you as a company, you haven't added outside talent like this at this level in a long—I think since you and Ed. Yeah ... Johnson were added. Yeah. I mean, it's been a long time. It's been 15 years, so- Yeah ... this is, you're, you know- Yeah ... a set of fresh eyes. Yeah, I would say my dashboard here is still under construction. Okay. You know, I feel like I've been, the old cliché, drinking from a fire hose and, and kind of relearning the hauling business. I was in the hauling business 15, 17 years ago, so, you know, learning the company, learning that business again. So more to come. Okay. You know, but I've been really struck by, and everyone says it, but the culture. You know, that's probably the one thing more than anything. The core values, you know, John exhibits that, Ned exhibits that. It really is central to everything we do every day, and you feel it. You feel it there, and it's a small company feel. You know, and it's a fun place to be. And when you... Did you find anything, you went, "Oh, didn't expect that?" Again, at the other CFO sitting next to you, so- Yeah ... You can, you can do it, you can do it like this. "Well, you know, that Ned guy. No. Well, no, not from a negative perspective. I mean, you know, I'm, and Ned said we have a strong team. I mean, I'm really shocked at how much ground the team covers and how talented they are. So one of the things you all do, I think everybody actually does it, they just don't talk about it as openly, is you measure precisely your internal cost of inflation. Talk a little bit about how you're able to bottoms-up build an accurate assessment of that, 'cause I think without it, how do you actually build a pricing strategy? Yeah, it's line by line, you know, and looking at, you know, from a cost perspective and P&L and looking at the same store increase. And so that gives us some real insight into where is inflation still really a problem and where has it eased? And it's actually a pretty diverse story on that topic. So, you know, the Fed two weeks ago woke up and went, "Oh, my goodness, there's still more inflation. Hmm. But how are you perceiving the trend lines on the big buckets of inflation? What are you seeing as the ebbs and flows? So it, it's easing, but easing very slowly. What we've seen, you know, I think for the fourth quarter, we reported just under 5% year-over-year. First quarter, we were closer to 4.5%. We're kind of guiding to that 4.5%, plus or minus, you know, budgeting and guiding. So, you know, I, I would say, within that, you know, wages have eased a bit. You know, we're probably 4% year-over-year. Rate of change of wages? Yes. Rate of- Rate of change year-over-year. Right. Yeah. You know, but stickier areas, parts, vehicle maintenance, capital items, landfill construction, you know, those are still stubbornly, as I said, high. Are you finding... So the long-haul trucking world is under some pressure, and I think slots start getting canceled. Are you finding that, you know, most of you like to replace fleet at about 10% of the direct work, you know, direct routed trucks, but we've been behind that. Are you finding yourself at a better fulfillment rate, and therefore, that's helping the repair and maintenance side, as you can just retire older trucks? You know, I think that, you know, it may have eased a bit, but I, we're still behind in terms of, you know, allocation. Total, you know, total volume is, you know, from the standpoint of our ability to put all of the trucks on the road, still a real challenge- Okay ... to buy all the trucks that we'd like to buy. We're maintaining our five-year plan, but it's a struggle. It's a real struggle. Is it an issue on, is it the side loaders or the front loaders, or is it the, you know, the roll-off? Is it a product type, or is it just broadly trucks? It's getting, you know, slots in terms of chassis. Just chassis. Yeah, and then you, you pretty much get the body you want. And- That's not the body. We use a lot of split body - Yeah ... automated side loads on more rural secondary routes, and you can't rent any of those trucks. No. One of the things, we've partnered with one of the industry rental providers to get Casella spec'd split bodies into the fleet, so we have a better ability to flex up and down. Okay ... as well. And, and- I mean, we're doing things like going very proactively getting capital approved two years in advance. I mean, it's just we're doing everything that we can to offset the impacts, and things are coming back a little bit. But again, still a long ways to go. Our fleet age is the youngest it's been in my tenure with the company, the 20 years I've worked for John. It's the youngest today, so we're not falling behind, but we'd always like to do more. As we said earlier, some of our best-returning projects are in automation, conversions, the like. So the more trucks we can put on the road in an effective manner to drive efficiency and safety, we wanna do more, and we're definitely limited on the chassis side. Well, the other, the other aspect of that, too, is replacing the reloads. Right. I mean, part of the operating efficiency that Sean and his team have brought is taking the reloads off. You know, it's like, you know, three reloads to two, you know- Yeah ... side loaders. Right. It's just a real opportunity from an improvement standpoint. It's just gonna take that out a little bit longer. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, I mean, labor is an important part of that, but it's, it truly is productivity, the capital allocation. So to that end, free cash flow conversion is, you know, is something that the market tends to focus on, whether it's a percentage of EBITDA or a percentage multiplier of your net income. Casella's is below the peer group, but it, I think it's been moving in the right direction. Yeah. If 45% of EBITDA or 110%, 115% of net income, adjusted net income, was the right bogey, what's it take for Casella to get there? So on an Adjusted Free Cash Flow basis, we are there. Yeah, yeah. We are there. It's... you know how I hate it plus me. Yeah. Well, so the reason we present the Adjusted Free Cash Flow is to provide transparency to, if you stopped the acquisition growth, what would the underlying cash flow of the business be? Right. On that basis, we're at 45% of EBITDA. Right. The simple answer is, if we just stopped growing, you know, that's where we'd be. Obviously, that isn't the right answer for shareholders. No. You know, so I think the answer is, if you wanna look at it on an unadjusted basis, so, okay, whatever costs you incur to do acquisitions, that's just big cake- Well, you're a serial acquirer, so it's kind of- Understood ... part of your business, right? Yeah, yeah. It'll just come with growth. You know, but 'cause for us, the acquisition activity is still a material piece of the pie in any given year. As we grow, as we expand margins in the base business, we'll just, you know, absorb those costs as part of the year-to-year, you know, a lot easier. As a good rule of thumb, 'cause part of the reason I hate adjustments, how do you model them, right? It's hard to model. Yeah. Is it a reasonable rule of thumb, if you've spent $200 million in M&A, you're gonna spend $20 million on integration and brand-rebranding costs, sort of 10% of the spend? It's really hard to have a rule of thumb. Yeah. You know, so Twin Bridges, we have, we had to spend very little. Yeah, yeah. You know, that fleet was brand new. Yeah. You know, GFL, you know, we're spending more. Right. Willimantic, more. Right. Okay, well, of course, we're about to run out of time, and I'm gonna run over time right now from the beginning, and then I'll be behind all day, and we'll be here at midnight. McKean, very quickly, I look at McKean as both from a strategic standpoint, as offensive as well as defensive, 'cause the more and more volume's coming out of your legacy marketplace via rail. Yeah. You, when you get open, will have, I think, the best positioned from a total cost standpoint to move by rail, McKean. Is that the right perception? Well, it's definitely the right perspective on the defensive side, Michael. Yeah. As we look to the next 10-20 years in the Northeast, we need to make sure we have safe, secure, environmentally sound solutions for waste, and it gets harder each year that goes by to know we actually have, you know, that 10 years of capacity in each jurisdiction. Hence, you know, us building out McKean. We're gonna accept the first test loads in the next couple weeks, which will be an exciting milestone for us and the team. We tried to build this site out right for the long term. We have over a mile of spur line on site right now. We have gantry crane in place. They'll offload containerized MSW, containerized special waste, and we're really setting up to be a high-efficiency business at 1.5 million tons a year. It's gonna take us a while to get there. As you said- Right ... our first goal is let's be defensive for our customers, our operations in the Northeast, and then we'll grow over time. Okay. Well, we're out of our time. Thank you for leading us off again for 10 years in a row. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.