Name: Rich Kang
New title: CEO, Waste Eliminator and Liberty Waste Solutions
Previous title: President and COO, Ruppert Landscape
Global asset manager TPG announced on Thursday the CEO who will lead the newly combined company formed following TPG’s acquisition of Waste Eliminator and Liberty Waste Solutions a month ago. Kang will lead the combined companies as TPG looks to build out a solid waste platform in the Southeast.
The companies declined to make Kang available for comment.
He is returning to the waste industry after a two-year stint as president and COO of Ruppert Landscape, a Maryland-based landscaping company with more than 3,000 employees.
Prior to that, Kang held several roles at Republic Services for more than a decade, most recently senior vice president of operations. There, he led Republic's Environmental Solutions segment after its acquisition of U.S. Ecology in 2022. Kang was also previously director of corporate development and strategy at Summit Materials.
Kang will work with Kacy Cronan, former CEO of Waste Eliminator, and Rick Prather, former CEO of Liberty Waste, both of whom will remain in senior leadership roles, according to a press release.
“Rich is a proven operator with deep industry experience and a track record of leading businesses through growth and transformation,” said JD Vargas, partner at TPG Transition Infrastructure, in the news release. “He complements the strong local leadership already in place."
In a statement, Kang said he is excited to work with the leadership team as the combined business invests in people, safety and infrastructure.
"The Southeast is growing quickly, and the waste infrastructure that serves its communities and businesses needs to keep pace,” Kang said. “Waste Eliminator and Liberty Waste Solutions have each built strong local operations, and together they offer broad capabilities across Georgia and the Carolinas."
San Francisco-based TPG's Transition Infrastructure strategy first announced a deal to acquire the two companies in June. Combined, the two companies have 14 permitted facilities and more than 500 fleet vehicles spanning collection, transfer, processing, recycling, composting, beneficial reuse and disposal, per Thursday's news release. Both were previously backed by Allied Industrial Partners, a private equity firm based in Texas.
Liberty Waste was based in Raleigh, North Carolina. It owned two landfills and expanded its waste hauling collection services under Allied.
Waste Eliminator was based in Gainesville, Georgia. It owned three disposal facilities across Georgia and South Carolina, including C&D landfill and composting operations. It also grew via acquisition during its stint under Allied’s ownership.
TPG plans to emphasize the combined companies' waste diversion capabilities, including through added recycling and composting capacity. The asset manager has previously invested in the waste sector through other funds, including its acquisitions of Priority Waste and Denali and its combination of Waste Harmonics and Keter Environmental Services.
