This time of year is typically a time of reflection.  These last few years have been tough on everyone but this past year has particularly been a strange season for me. I have found that when you experience change or confront difficulties you have a choice: you can either grow from the season or internalize the struggle and become sad and bitter.  Also, during these seasons, you learn a lot about yourself and what you truly believe.  Here are a few of those things I have learned (or been reminded of) this past year.  

1. Slow down and just listen. Talking incessantly is exhausting.  If you slow down and just listen for sounds around you or to the person in front of you, you will be amazed how much more interesting life really is.   

2. Don’t take for granted the days you are pain free. Anyone that has had a season of bad luck when it comes to health knows that those few days when you are pain-free are worth enjoying.  

3. You can face any obstacle or tribulation as long as you have someone with you. We weren’t created to go through life alone.  Surrounding yourself with people that love and care for you make any season much easier to face; good or bad.  

4. The process of creating a legacy does not begin when you are older, it happens each and every day. I used to think that those achievements that occur later in my life will be the sum total of my legacy.  Now I realize that every day that I have lived has left an imprint on someone else and speaks volumes as to who I am. Those moments truly make up my legacy.   

5. Typically with more money and more “things” comes higher bills and higher blood pressure. There is something to be said for simplicity.  Whether it is the rat-race, hamster on a wheel, nose to the grind, or burning both ends of the candle, stress affects your health and ability to be at peace.  If money and success cause increased stress in your life, time to downsize and simplify. 

6. Other people and circumstances don’t determine your mood or outlook, you only allow them to. We spend too much time blaming others for our bad attitude.  We need to take ownership in managing how we respond to others.  Being thick-skinned is more about thinking right than it is about feeling right. Life is too short to waste energy on negative thoughts and responses.  

7. Relationships are formed when you seek to know and understand others…talking about yourself all the time is a relationship killer.  I learned this principle from my granddaughter.  When I kneel down, look her in the face, and just ask questions about her day, I feel more connected to her.  Someone once said that dialogue is “the process of open information flow between individuals with the goal of understanding what is being said.” Someone also said, “seek to be understood, not merely heard.” 

8. No matter how dyer the circumstances or lucrative the sale, if my services won’t help someone the way they need I am okay to let that lead go. If it is not a win-win, then it is a no-go.  Success in your business is not going to be defined by those customers that are constantly bugging you or strapping your resources.  Let these prospects go sooner than later…you will be thankful in the end.  

9. An idle life causes old age, not the other way around. As we get older, most ailments seem to come about because we do not stay active, eat healthy, and engage our minds and heart.  

10. Helping others is a daily lifestyle and brings enormous joy to your life. Being a former missionary and pastor I have had to shift my own paradigm about helping others.  Though there are genuine needs all over the world, state and city, you don’t have to walk any further than next door to help someone in need.  You just have to expand your radar beyond yourself and be open to those opportunities.  The result?  You end up feeling better than they do! 

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First, CTR brought in a seasoned and gifted leader in Mike Lavengco who had a vision for change.  Mr. Lavengco was a proven entity in the waste industry having successfully worked with many of the largest haulers in the U.S. More than a mere visionary, Mr. Lavengco was also skilled in the art of execution…he knew how to get things done.

Second, CTR’s vision of growth could only be carried out by skilled, motivated employees who were working in the right positions.  Leadership created a culture where high-performers would want to stay “on the bus” while low-performers would want to leave…and some did. The reorganization left CTR with a talented team that was better positioned to recreate this company into a world-class leader.

Third, CTR knew the value of leveraging technology. That would mean change.  With 25 support staff and over 50 trucks, the task of passing that vision on to the staff would not be an easy one.  An initial analysis from leadership determined that the support staff were only using 10% of the current capabilities of Visual RAMS-Pro, their office software. After several meetings and more extensive training, CTR’s support team is much more comfortable with the many efficiencies that have come about from the expanded use of VRP.

Leadership’s attention then went to their biggest assets, their trucks.  Fitting each truck out with military-grade tablets and Visual On-Route (Alpine’s in-cab software) communication was now seamless between the office and the trucks. The process to outfit each truck and train the office staff and drivers only took a few months; however, the changed culture will be sustained for the life of the company.  Management now enjoys transparency into trucks/routes, increased customer satisfaction, and the financial benefits that go with streamlining routes.  The drivers, while hesitant at first to embrace new technology, now see it as a valuable tool to communicate, navigate and make their job easier.

Finally, CTR knew that the demographics of your typical customer in the U.S. are ever-changing. Particularly in the Austin area, the younger, technologically-advanced customers demanded a more contemporary approach to business.   Leveraging the internet would bridge that technology gap that was growing over the years at CTR.  With that vision in mind, CTR hired the Alpine team in Australia to build a bi-directional link between their website and their office software, VRP.  Their new website allows customers to sign up for service, manage their payments, request additional service and more.

While there is still much to do at Central Texas Refuse, they have come a long way over the past three years.  They are seen as the premier full-service waste company in the region and continue to thrive. Having visionary and disciplined leadership, motivated and well-placed employees and a technology that can grow with you are all essential pieces to the success puzzle.  Congratulations Central Texas Refuse.

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With the overwhelmingly successful implementation of Visual RAMS-Pro, the borough now has a single source for information and an operational application that allows the residents in Tower Hamlets to be serviced and billed in a timely and accurate fashion. It has become the most vital tool for their managers, particularly as they are constantly faced with budget cuts and the drive to find efficiencies.

“With the advent of the Olympics, RAMS-Europe and Veolia were the natural choice…”

Some of the changes that were to be required of Alpine’s European Distributor were:

1. Routing of Collections of municipal and commercial services had to be changed to accommodate temporary traffic patterns.
2. Containers were not allowed on the street. This forced a borough-wide change to a disposable sack scheme where sacks needed to be purchased on the internet.
3. RAMS Europe provided Payment Page, an electronic payment solution, with an interface that propagated service requests and other action items directly into RAMS without user input.

Scott Parris of Veolia says of the RAMS team and implementation effort, “It was a very rapid and straight forward process. They have been responsive in meeting all the specific requirements of the contract.” The short-term, yet substantial changes were more than successful and allowed waste collections around the Olympic area to be seamless, clean and efficient. RAMS-Europe and Veolia receive a Gold Medal for their outstanding performance!

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In 1984, when Alpine Technology Corporation received the call to present Visual RAMS-Pro software to the executive team at TPI-Cleanaway, the horizon looked dismal for them. They had a team of 17 developers and had already spent over $5,000,000 to develop their own application which was in their own words, “inadequate even in the beginning stages”. The IT leadership changed frequently and they were poised to spend $50 million on a new solution. After meeting with the CEO of the waste division, they dramatically changed course and selected RAMS-Pro as the line-of-business solution to run their hauling operation.

“Alpine reduced overhead, provided immediate delivery of a superior solution and saved TPI-Cleanaway nearly $30 million.”

Since that time, TPI-Cleanaway has doubled in size and, with the help of Visual RAMS-Pro software, manages 10 regional offices and a fleet of 400 trucks. Alpine reduced overhead (developers, managers, entry operators), provided immediate delivery of a superior solution and saved TPI-Cleanaway nearly $30 million. That is a success story!

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The challenges facing Alpine stemmed from two sources. First, the “village” culture of Guam presented a challenge. Alpine was charged to implement solutions whereby Guam could track and charge customers for their use of trash containers. Not only was it difficult to track housing without formal streets, villages would tend to move and/or share the containers. Guam initially sought to implement its own substandard tracking solution without success. Second, the technological infrastructure of Guam made it difficult for Alpine to implement a comprehensive solution. Limited internet access and limited financial resources to build out a server environment conducive to the successful use of RAMS-Pro software became the next hurdle.

“…not only was it difficult to track housing without formal streets, villages would tend to move and/or share containers.”

Alpine sent two teams out to Guam to expedite the implementation of solutions. The On-Route experts developed a PDA interface with remote and RFID capabilities. Once the containers were “tagged”, the drivers could then determine real-time which container went with which customer. The RAMS-Pro team then provided Guam with a hosted office solution (AlpineLive) so they would not have to build out and support a sophisticated server infrastructure.

Guam can now provide waste management services to its customers, improve the efficiency of the drivers, and charge its customers to offset the escalating landfill fees. Success in the Pacific!

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