SANTEK WASTE SERVICES CEO and owner Kenneth Higgins, second from left, celebrates the company’s 30th anniversary with members of his management team. From left are Executive Vice President of Operations Matt Dillard, Higgins, Chief Business Development Officer Eddie Caylor and Chief Operations Officer Tim Watts.
Led by CEO and owner Kenneth Higgins, employees were treated to an entertaining PowerPoint presentation documenting the company’s 30-year history which began when it secured its first landfill management contract with the Bradley County Commission in 1987.
Foregoing a promising collegiate football career to revive his father’s grading and construction company, Higgins used his heavy equipment knowledge to pursue his vision of becoming the nation’s largest privately owned manager of publicly owned landfills. Joined by his childhood friend, Eddie Caylor, the two eventually grew the company to more than $100 million in revenue and an annual growth rate of 30 percent.
Today, Santek manages the waste collection and disposal needs of more than 5 million people in nine states, operating 17 landfills, five waste collection companies and five transfer stations. Last year, Waste360 magazine ranked Santek 20th among the nation’s top privately owned solid waste management companies.
“We were an excellent landfill management company for the first 15 years of our existence, but our waste collection efforts were thin,” Higgins said. “With the management team we’ve got in place now, Santek has become an excellent, well-rounded waste management company, with loyal employees and a stellar environmental track record.”
Higgins predicts Santek will be ranked among the nation’s top 10 companies within the next five years.
“Santek has become one of the nation’s premier providers of solid waste management services,” he said. “I remember thinking about waste management when I was 16 years old, working on a clean-up job with my father behind the Bradley County Co-Op. I’m blessed by the Lord to have brought my dreams to fruition, and I’m looking forward to what the future holds for Santek and my employees.”