Built to Work: Episode 14: Sarah Fuentes - SmartWaste Inc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBxaS3FaKPE

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Welcome to Built to Work the podcast that gets its hands dirty dives into the grid and uncovers the heart of what makes the blue-collar world tick I'm Colin your host and I'm sitting down with the people who keep our world running from those tackling the tough jobs no one else dares to do to the HR professionals working overtime to find the labor force we desperately need Whether you're in the trenches or behind the scenes this podcast is for anyone who values hard work determination and stories that build the backbone of our workforce So grab your gloves your coffee or your clipboard It's time to get to work Welcome to another Built to Work podcast I am here today with the woman the myth the legend Sara Fuentes Thank you so much for being on here Sara Thank you so much Colin for having me I'm excited to be here Yes absolutely So it's great I got to know you through a mutual connection and I have been 

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inspired in awe by your story by what you do 

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and your company 

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SmartWaste and your history in the waste industry And so I just really wanna dig into that today to kinda learn a little bit more about you So could you give everybody kind of the high-level overview of your career and how you ended up at SmartWaste which you founded Yeah So 

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I actually majored in early childhood development So my trajectory was to be working with students And 

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I worked with at-risk youth and special needs children in Santa Clara County for about 8 years 

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Okay So I was deep in the trenches of education and early childhood development 

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then I realized how broke I was being a teacher And no- no offense to all the teachers out there 'cause we respect you but it's not a way that you're gonna be able to sustain yourself on a single income in Silicon Valley 

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so I started to learn about how to make your money make you money in the financial service industry and I became a broker And then 

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I built a team of about 75 to 80 agents under me 

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became one of the first female senior directors by the time I was 24 years old or 26 years old 

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and it was usually in that in that industry they did it with their husband or their significant other and I was a single Sara And 

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so it was a testament that like wow I really like money I really like business Well then I decided to- to do something crazy 

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and I fell in love and had a baby 

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And then 

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that really changed my life I wanted to do something that didn't require me to 

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work 80 to 90 hours a week in the financial service industry It's a really cutthroat industry 

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and I- it When I started in college I used to work for this company as a dispatcher And so during college whilst I was going to school for 

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early childhood development I was also working at this small garbage company that was actually like a broker so they weren't a hauler but I learned about commodities and I learned about garbage problems and people would call me and cuss me out about their garbage problems And I just thought it was like the coolest thing So 

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after I had my son Princeton 

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I moved back home I had moved to Arkansas for a little while and 

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I moved back home and I needed a job I- 

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I stopped doing financial services and so I called my old boss And 

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she was like 

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yeah come to the office on Monday You got a job." And I didn't ask any questions Like I didn't ask how much money I was making I didn't ask nothing Like I was "I got a job I'm in." Like you know So I showed up and because of my experience being a teacher 

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she had just got a new customer that was a school district and she was having a problem with implementing a compost program and she wanted me to see what I could do And sure enough I figured out how to break the code break the system there Very bureaucratic mo- for those 

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that are in education 

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they understand the bureaucracy that's involved- 

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with higher education or education in general And 

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that was it I fell in love I fell in love with the industry I fell in love with the people 

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I fell in love with the problems 

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just because trash problems are problems that no one else wants to deal with So- Yeah I liked it Okay All right That's it That's how I got there It's- Yeah So then you were- you were working for that company and then 

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now you have founded and you're- Yes an owner of SmartWaste Tell me about SmartWaste What inspired you to start it and kind of what the goal of SmartWaste is Yeah So 

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we all remember COVID in 2020 and it really shifted so many things for so many people 

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I always wanted to work in a place where 

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collaboration was at the heart of the company I always wanted to work at a place where 

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you were extremely inclusive and 

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and- and- and em- and empowered people to be them best selves even if that meant for them to grow and go And at the company that I was at I really was capped out of- of where I could go 

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and so during COVID I actually am also a caregiver 

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I take care of my uncle who's 60 years old who's special needs Yeah 

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and during that time 

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I had to make sure that he stayed home 

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he- he has a- a mental special need so 

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he really wasn't comprehending why he c- he had to stay home and he became really combative and told me I was taking away his rights and all this stuff And 

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I decided that I needed to resign and 

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I really didn't have a plan Collin I had no plan I had no plan- Okay to start a company I really didn't I was gonna go get a job at like Republic Services or some other of the hauler- local haulers here that had given me a good offer for a 6figure job And 

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I had a meeting with a colleague of mine a friends- a friend of a friend and actually it was just dinner So in Silicon Valley you go to dinner and you meet maybe some swanky people or rich people- 

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and you don't know that they're rich or swanky okay Yeah 

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and 

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we were talking about the trash business and he asked me a question during our dinner and I'll never forget it He said "Man if you were to start a business how much money do you think that you you you need?" And I said "There's a difference between how much money I need and how much money I want Okay?" "And I'm not I'm not 

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in a position to answer this question We need to schedule a meeting and talk about it." Yeah And so I did that and he just looked at me He was like "I like her." Like- "I like this girl," you know and 

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literally 

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that- I I resigned in 

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May 2020 

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I had this meeting in 

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June and July started talking about the business and by August 2020 we were incorporated That's awesome 

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by 

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the f- by I think October I had my first client my first contract and I still have that same client 

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so SmartWaste stands for Save Money And Reduce Trash 

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our goal at SmartWaste is to help the commercial and public sector to do that We do that in a couple ways where we do 0 waste facilitation 

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and that's for compliance reasons For the state of California we have a lot of environmental compliance around food waste and recycling- Yes and also universal waste which is 

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considered hazardous materials that we don't want in the municipal solid waste 

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so we are there to educate first and foremost the commercial and public sector We work as a conduit between the hauler and the commercial sector just because we talk trash and we're from the trash industry And so we understand th- 

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the industry itself so we're able to convey 

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just dialogue with the industry folks and then able to translate that to the commercial folks and that's exciting to me 

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another way that we do this is through waste technology adoption and evaluation 

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being that we're based in the Silicon Valley you could throw a rock and hit a programmer or an engineer 

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So you know I grew up around a lot of techy stuff and 

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in Silicon Valley we've been testing out waste technologies from IoT sensors to software to bots 

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so many different types of technologies machine learnings in in 

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dumpster monerting- dumpster monitoring And 

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this gives us an opportunity to then help our clients 

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minimize contamination or get them right sized 

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and then last but not least is the infrastructure side So 

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infrastructure is something that I'm really really passionate about because It's actually one of my biggest pet peeves about engineers and architects 

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architects don't Or the architects are not waste industry professionals They're architects right Yeah So just like you know when they're designing a a facility 

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they usually don't go seek out waste experts about the infrastructure and 

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h- what a good waste system would be for this type of building 

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And oftentimes it causes the customer hundreds of thousands of dollars because of poor design or or not thinking about the waste stream and simple things about placing the bins in particular ways or or or s- having a system 

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that allows the client to have sustainable cost over the life of the business and the life of the building And so 

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Smart Waste will work with the construction and development companies prior to the buildings being built to t- help them design the proper infrastructure 

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we're working with George Lucas Group out out in LA They're building one of the largest 

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rooftop 

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gardens and facilities there downtown LA and 

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it's amazing to be a part of a big building like that and a big project like that and advising them on the best infrastructure for the future of the green waste of that building- Yeah and other things that are gonna come out of that place So that's a little bit about how we serve the the community in terms of education 

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teaching you know education 

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advisement on 0 waste and then 

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support on the infrastructure side in in the building before the building's actually built So I like to say that we get to be able to work with the the the buildings before they're built and then after they're built if they're after born we'll try to help fix your problems the best that we can Yeah 

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but oftentimes you know we wish that we would've got there before and so Yeah 

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understood understood So you do a lot of 

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what 

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you know kind of like consulting work obviously on that side of things Very much so And then do you also have a branch or are you are you working towards that where you're out in the field and you've got guys doing the work collecting or- Yes sorting or what How do you guys handle field work So 

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right now 

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we actually are a as I mentioned 

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a facilitator so we partner with companies like your company- 

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companies like 

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Waste Experts 

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other companies that actually have 

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the teams and the manpower so we can deploy them nationally 

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I I believe in working smarter instead of harder and 

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my goal is to be able to seek out the opportunities right 

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whether it's in in the state or in construction and then be able to put the people to work in the relationships that I built over the last 15 years in the industry 

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I'm not here to reinvent the wheel I'm not 

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I'm I'm good at talking trash- and I wanna stay good at that So 

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I I really appreciate companies like your company and 

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like the waste experts that will help me 

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with our clients 

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and their projects And so I leveraged 

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other companies to help us execute on our contracts Okay That's great Yeah Strategic partnerships like you you're talking about can be great for for everybody involved And you know you bring your expertise we bring our expertise Very much so And we can tackle some serious 

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some serious problems and move some weight so Yeah 

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so you're obviously in the hub in the forefront of where recycling and 0 waste is really getting pushed at least here in the United States So you have a much different view of things there than I do in Kansas City or where I live in rural Missouri right I mean I live out on a gravel road We don't have recycle bins right Like my wife is really good about like collecting our stuff and then going to take it into town which is not that far away but still like it's not an easy solution for us 

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so it's just it's an interesting dichotomy between- Yeah you guys are at like 0 waste and and I mean we're out in the country 

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so what are the what are some of the biggest changes that you've seen in in the waste or recycling industries during your tenure I mean I feel like you've mentioned AI 

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smart learning's been a big one What else have you seen that's been a big change 

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well in 20- in 2018 

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our nation was faced with the big thing around th- the the ban with China China ban And 

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that really changed the trajectory of material collection and infrastructure in our nation 

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Real real quick before you dive into that what was or what is the China ban I wasn't in the industry at that time so that's not something I'm familiar with So 

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so the China ban it it basically 

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we sent a lot of our materials so cardboard plastics to other countries okay 

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And 

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other countries gave us a percentage of contamination that was allowed Okay So we were allowed a percentage of contamination Typically it's 5% or 10% depending on the relationship So what that means is is if I'm sending over bales of cardboard we are they're only gonna accept them if they're less than you know 5% or 10% contaminated If they have more than that contamination 

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threshold then they would reject the load Well it what happens was that well we're sending ships overseas and we're contaminating contaminating and but they're not sending the material back right So in in essence they're not they were not sending the material back They kept taking it but yet we were still sending contaminated contaminated loads and this was going on for years Okay Finally they ha- they were fed up.And they gave us an opportunity and they brought down the contamination 

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threshold to 1% Knowing darn well we were gonna fail And sure enough it was like okay they had enough and we were we were They they banned us So then we had to come up with as a as an industry 

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where we were gonna send these materials what other countries were willing to work with us in terms of commoditizing these materials 

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so then it required for a lot of plastics to go to the landfill a lot of other materials that maybe didn't have a home 

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and and so that's what happened So when we seen that 

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the a lot of 

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consumers seen and heard about how recycling isn't real and recycling isn't happening and then you start people started to mistrust 

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the as if 

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"Why should I recycle if it's just gonna get into the landfill?" And so it started to kind of 

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bleed into this like 

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ideology that recycling doesn't work 

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Yeah -and so that's something that I had seen Definitely AI and then compliance 

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and climate is a big thing right now 

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we see it and we're seeing the impacts of climate We're seeing microplastics in human fetuses which is- 

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-something that I don't remember hearing about 15 years ago I don't remember hearing about that until just the last year Yeah that's crazy 

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Yeah So that's way different like Oh yeah get rid of plastics just drink out of aluminum right Yeah Yeah 

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so no that's great There there's been a ton of changes 

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do you ever work with the construction industries 'Cause they generate so much waste as well I think you know 

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you might have had some history working with them as well Definitely 

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I have I was a part of the National 

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Women in Construction NAWIC and 

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we've done 

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build projects 'cause 

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I work a lot in the clean tech space and sustainability space So I've done I've worked with so- s- Swinerton Renewable Energies at the time which is now Solv Energies 

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and we've built solar fields from here to Pensacola Florida 

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in in North Carolina Boise Idaho And 

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our job there was to manage the waste stream and also provide the construction client with the proper documentation proving that they diverted all the material through the weight tags and tracking that for them as well as 

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if there was an opportunity to get money back for those commodities such as good pallets or clean cardboard And in partnership with companies like yours we're able then to also deploy 

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on-site labor to actually do the sorting or do the cleanups- -on the sites 

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so working with construction our job is to help them with the waste management plan educate the people on site to make sure that they're putting the stuff in the right bins and then 

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on the back end tracking everything and making sure that our clients are getting all the proper documentation so they can- 

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-report back to all the stakeholders so they can get any bond money back that they might n- have- Yeah -you know needed 

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for environmental compliance reasons Okay No that's awesome Yeah I I know that you know I grew up doing a lot of construction work and just they just dumpster everything right Everything goes to- Yeah -the dumpster you know 

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I live 

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like I said I live out in the country I've been doing 

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d- d- been doing a remodel so it's like "Hey instead of filling up dumpsters like we got all this scrap wood Are you okay if we just burn it?" "Fuck it Burn the wood." Right So- Burn the wood Burn the wood That's- We do that in Arkansas They burn all their trash out there I know I know Yeah I mean we definitely have people that we live around that they just they just burn their trash you know Just get an old barrel and and start burning so Yeah It's 

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it's it's it's different 

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you know we'd love to see that 

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some of that stuff change but there's an economic feasibility to it as well when you know everybody's out in the country Yeah There's It's just not economically feasible without large subsidies to do the recycling at this point but- Yeah I could be wrong Maybe there's somebody that's gonna figure it out 

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but I don't know who to I don't know how how that works I I- So- think that 

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the rural the rural places there are some challenges there around infrastructure for sure 

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Yeah But you know I mean 

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majority of people are in the metros and stuff like that so focus on the metros you're gonna catch a majority of it so Yeah 

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you know from our conversations and and seeing what you've done you've been a huge proponent in the the scrap and the waste industries for women in fill in the blank right And I think that's awesome 

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you know I've got a I've got a son and a daughter but it's great to see that hey there's there's gonna be opportunities 

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for my daughter Tell me tell me about your your passion in that where that came from and and kinda- Yeah how you got it 'Cause you I think you've been on like every single board and committee- and every organization that you know that's waste or scrap related for for the women For quite some time Yeah 

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so 

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I'm I'm a 

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a a product of young parents okay My parents were 16 and 17 when they had me Okay And I'm the oldest sibling of 4 so I have 

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I'm older than my siblings by seven nine and 11 years Wow And 

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my dad was a stay-at-home dad so my mom and dad had the what they call a revol- revol- a role reversal I had Mr Mom And 

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my dad worked a night job and he stayed at home and raised us and my mom had a VP job and she was the vice president of Bank of America And 

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seeing her go to work every day and seeing my dad 

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bec- n- he's very much a machismo man okay Yeah But he's also very domesticated And 

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I was in a place that I s- didn't see your normal 

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role 

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in family right 

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your traditional role where you know the man of the house is the breadwinner the man of the house has the higher paying job 

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and then the woman is the one that's domesticated and takes care of the s- the children 

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I did not live that life right 

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And so my dad was such a influence in how I'm how I think how I work with people my tolerance 

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that I realized that I was unique in the sense that 

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I I can work with men and not have a lot of these other emotions and feelings about things And I also seen a big disparity in how 

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women are paid and- 

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how much women are paid for the same job that maybe a man would do And and when I would talk to my dad about that he he didn't like that 'cause like I'm his daughter and he thought that I should get paid the same exact money as someone else was doing the same job And 

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so when I learned about that in even teaching 

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in being 

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the cool thing about when I was a broker that I was commission-based so it didn't matter my gender Yeah absolutely 

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when I went into the waste and recycling industry I realized that I was in a male-populated world Yeah And 

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and you hear women t- say male-dominated and I don't use vernacular like that 

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because it's how it's how I I see it They're they're It's not that they're gonna dominate women it's just that there's more of them in the space And so for me the reason why I'm passionate about working with women is to give them an model an example of how you can work in a place with males and be m- in in a male-populated place how you can prevail maybe some of the obstacles that 

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women may have to deal with and also the confidence that it takes 

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to be able to s- even if it does even if it doesn't always feel good 

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or you don't or or if you're not always treated appropriately or respectfully 

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for me it's about that presence and it's about that right there and showing up 

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And 

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my main thing is to be an influence for women that look like me 

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I'm a Native American Latina woman 

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p- pr- proud of it and I want to be able to show that other women young girls 

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can start a business they can work with 

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in a male-populated space and be safe 

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and that also you can negotiate contracts And so I believe that when you see women like that and y- you are able to say "Hey this person is a is a person that's after influence and after impact and after really serving people," to me that's one of the major reasons why I do it and why I wanna be an influence for women in clean tech women in construction women in waste 

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I'm 

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I'm not a- I'm not anti-men And that's the thing too that sometimes I think men might think I'm not I love you guys I think you guys are one of the best creations that God ever made right Like but at the same time umI want to be able to be an example for women 

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'cause sometimes you need to draw from other women's 

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confidence And I've had to borrow other people's confidence or 

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a vision in- if I didn't have one and I wanna be able to be that person So that's- that's my passion It's- it's definitely something that I advocate for 

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to- to just be an example and to be a model of you know 

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being resilient in- in obstacles that we may deal with just because of our gender 

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so yeah Thank you for asking that question No absolutely I- I appreciate you sharing it It's obvious that you're very passionate about it and- and I can respect that And I 

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I appreciate how you said that you're not anti-man You're you know you're pro-woman 'cause 

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sometimes I feel like it's very much you know- Yeah anti-man It's like no we can all- And we talk about male allyship you know Like- Yeah I would not be where I'm at today without my male mentors Dave Lentz he's one of the biggest impacts in my career 

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and- and that male mentorship 

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and allyship and support is 

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much needed for women and having that And there's a difference in how I noticed how men mentor other men and how women mentor other men or sponsor 

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and so we- we have to remember that sponsorship is really related to 

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your career You're only speaking into someone about their career 

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where mentorship you're speaking also personally about into their life 

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And into their personal life into their career spiritually and other things And so w- I noticed that there is a significant difference in how male and women mentor each other and sponsor each other I didn't see a lot of women sponsorship 

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I saw more women mentorship but I didn't see a lot of women sponsorship Okay And so that's the other thing too that I wanted to create was I wanted to create a culture of more women sponsoring women helping them move through the corporate ladder right Yeah And the and- and in my experience I had a- a s- male sponsor or a female sponsor do that with me and for me Okay That's great That's great You know I've experienced you know I guess male mentorship 

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in- in my life Not necessarily I guess I have had some that have sponsored me from outside my companies especially in my previous one 

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and I've had the opportunity to pour out through my church youth- youth group and mentor other young men as they're coming along and give them even "Hey here's opportunities," like the ones that don't wanna go to college Like "Hey here's how I would do this." And it's cool to see them kind of then pursuing those- those paths as well 

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you know we've brought a lot of people up through our- our company 

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a- as well and given them opportunities 

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so yeah No it's- it's interesting to see the whole way and I appreciate your- your perspective on how those dynamics work differently So that's- that's awesome No I love the work that you do and I see that what kind of a- a employer you are and that's one of the reasons why I think 

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having partners like yourself is so important because it's about the character and the values that you have Yeah absolutely So I like that a lot Oh I- I really appreciate that It's great to hear that from the outside I mean at the end of the day whoever's- whoever's working for us you know we want to take care of them right Just the way we- Yeah wanna be taken care of I mean whether it's as simple as you know giving them decent benefits and stuff like that or you know making them feel valued give them opportunities for advancement and for them just to realize they're not just a warm body and a cog in the wheel Yeah So 

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well kind of- kind of ending this 

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as talking about mentorship or sponsorship 

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you know if you're lo- talk- able to talk to somebody 

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man or woman 

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that's looking to get started in the scrap or the recycling industries what- what direction would you point them in What advice would you give them Ooh 

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ooh that's a good question I would actually advise them to- to live a day in the life in the trash business Okay Like I would advise them to 

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whether it's 

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if if they wanna be in compliance or they wanna be a driver or they wanna you know be a salesperson I would actually advise them to live that life for a day Okay 

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go One of the things that I 

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why I think I learned so fast this b- industry was because I got thrown out into the field day one Okay I did not sit in the office 

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literally day one my my my boss that I was telling you about she sent me out to the school the first day I started I didn't know what the heck I was doing I didn't know about compost I didn't know about recycling I didn't know anything I just knew about trash that all the trash goes in the bin That was it that was all I knew 

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I would advise that just because you learn so much and you see and things make sense and it just from from that own experience of going out to the field is I think what also either make you love it or make you hate it Okay And I think that if you find out within the first week or couple days that you really love this then it's for you But if you find out on the first week that you can't deal with the smell or you can't deal with the people- or you can't deal with the all the s- problems then it's not for you I think it's probably better that people learn that first and sit around and learn and then find out when they get onto the field that they really don't like it Yeah Okay No that's really solid advice and I can absolutely appreciate that 

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yeah if you're not out there doing it 

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you know a- and you don't learn it 

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and if- Yeah you hate it don't d- don't do it Yeah Yeah I agree So that's awesome That's great 

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well Sarah thank you so much for your time As always you have a wealth of knowledge to share whenever we chat and I really appreciate that and 

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I wish you the best and thank you for your time Thank you so much 

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if you if anybody wants to connect with me 

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please look me up 

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Sarah F- Sarah E Fuentes on LinkedIn 

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you can look up smartwasteusa.com or Smart Waste USA on Instagram 

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I really appreciate you having me on this 

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podcast today Collin Thanks for having me Absolutely