William Rumpke, Sr.
Thomas Rumpke was an owner, co-president, and chief executive officer of Rumpke Consolidated Companies until his death in 2004. William Rumpke Sr., Tom’s cousin, is the president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board of the company, which Bill’s father started in 1932. In 1932, the company was a hog farm where the young cousins helped collect garbage to feed the hogs. In 1965, they partnered to create Rumpke Container Service. About 15 years later, they formed the corporation’s Environmental Affairs and Compliance Department, recognizing the need to further point their business toward long-term environmental sustainability. In the 1970s, the company expanded to include service markets in Indiana and Kentucky and, in the late 1980s, they developed their own hydraulic systems (Rumpke Hydraulics & Machining), container shop (Rumpke Industrial Equipment Service Center), and then purchased a recycling company, Pickaway County Community Action Recycling. Following more than 200 acquisitions, the company’s revenue exceeded $270 million annually. Today, revenue is at $376 million and the firm is one of the largest privately-owned waste and recycling hauling companies in the U.S. with 2,300 employees, 1,700 trucks, 8 landfills, 7 recycling centers, and 20 transfer stations. In addition, in 1984, they partnered with Getty’s Synthetic Fuel (now Montauk Energy Capital) to collect methane gas, a clean renewable source of alternative energy, from the company’s largest landfill in Ohio. Thirty-three thousand homes are heated every day with this renewable fuel, and the company also is investigating technology to fuel their collection fleets with methane if feasible. At the same time the company was expanding its waste collection and disposal services, the cousins formed Rumpke Amusements and built a ballpark in Cincinnati, called Rumpke Park, which today still serves the local community for softball and youth baseball. They have funded the local boy scouts, built a new weight room for a Cincinnati high school, and regularly made donations to schools, hospitals, and other local events, a practice that continues at the company.