Page 60 - MCAG - RWAD - AMB 09 10 19

Nicole Pena

Tuesday, September 10, 2019 11:02 AM

Why are you interested in the Regional Waste Authority Director position with Merced County
Association of Governments? Tell me a bit about what you know about the Association.

It's very similar to - it operates similarly to the JPA in Kings County. It is the same sort of focus as a
governement setting. I really like that aspect of it. I have also worked in the solid waste industry for about
4 years. What Merced has that we don't have is we don't own and operate our own landfill - but I came
from the landfill world where we had three landfills. I really enjoy landfills. My Board has made it very
clear that there is no upward mobility. So I'm stuck here doing the administrative work and oversight of
our environmental programs. There is no room for any kind of strategic thinking or upward advancement.

Please describe your most recent position and day-to-day responsibilities.

Executive Director of Kings Waste and Recycling Authority - I manage all of the solid waste with the
exception of collections. I oversee environmental programs, consultants, oversight of all of our recycling
programs and implementation of those programs so we can adhere to those programs and mandates
from CalRecycle. All of the members have their own oversight. We recently worked on collection debris
programs, budget control, human resources, payroll, operational oversight and activities and
administration.

We recently had to shutdown our material recovery facility went from 40 to 23.
Report directly Board.

Was with Tulare for about 12 years - 10 years with solid.

The opportunity for an Executive Director position came along - a Director there was not looking to leave.

Please provide any insights you might have managing solid waste divisions within the public-
sector.

The solid waste industry is always different within the public-sector. You have a diverse group of
employees with white collar and blue collar. I have successfully managed both types of teams. We
always run into "us vs. them". I think I have been able to provide a cohesive working environment -
finding what operations needs. And so I have been really successful in that. I can't jump on a loader or
even repair a loader. I am not a professional at that. I do allow my employees to know where my deficits
are and how we can work together to be more effective.

Please describe your experience in evaluating technology and operational procedure utilized
in a department and your approach to implementing change, if needed.

I think that there is a perfect example here. We had very antiquated equipment - 20-22 years old. We
had mandates coming down from the states and restrictions in our export market. I took a look at our
equipment to see what we could do. If it is something that I'm not an expert in - calling in experts and
using their abilities to assist us in making those decisions. Here we determined it would be a tear down
and reinstall. On the other side of that we had a tipping fee issue - so our costs are almost double
compared to people going to a landfill. We found that it was unstainable to continue the MRF as it were.
So we started to see that the only way to reduce fees was to reduce operations or automate operations.
We had to make a decision on spending money to reduce the hand sorting process. The decision was
made to outsource the recycling processing - an RFP was put together - the tipping fee went down and
we closed down the process.