Employee Spotlight: Building Our Business Through Teamwork and Trust

At Heritage Environmental Services, each employee plays a unique role in how we further our mission of protecting human health and the environment. From each of our service centers to our corporate headquarters, the Heritage family relies on partnership, teamwork, and dedication to take care of our customers – and our communities.

Today, we’re thrilled to spotlight a special Heritage team member who’s experienced first-hand how roles across our organization collaborate efficiently and effectively to keep our operations running smoothly throughout our facilities. Steve Swanson is an Industrial Service Account Representative supporting the state of Indiana – and is just shy of his 30^th anniversary at Heritage. Throughout his career progression at Heritage, Steve has supported various roles within the business from Wastewater Treatment Operator to Environmental Technician to serving as an onsite project manager for a Heritage customer.

As part of his current role, Steve helps build and maintain business for Heritage through industrial maintenance sales for the field service group in Indianapolis. Through daily interactions with new and existing customers, Steve supports customer wastestreams in alignment with our company mission. He said, “When doing a field service project, I’m seeing that our customers’ waste is either recycled or disposed of properly.”

Steve’s role allows him to support customers with their everyday transportation and disposal needs, all while exploring their new wastestreams to uncover opportunities for cost savings or more efficient practices. “Talking to people and problem solving has always been fun. If someone has a waste-related problem, even at their facility, it’s always been challenging and exciting for me to help try to find the answer to take care of their problem,” Steve said. “Helping to find the solutions is the exciting part. Plus, I am a people person.”

Heritage prides itself on the ability to handle a wide variety of byproducts for our customers – and this unique benefit is largely supported by the problem solving and innovative thinking of our team members like Steve. As part of his role in sales, Steve takes pride in finding unique solutions for customers – even if they might not yet exist. He said, “Not a lot of our competitors have the research and development group that we have at Heritage. For salespeople, this is a very good bonus because we can go to a customer who may be looking for ways to minimize waste or cost and we can coordinate with our R&D labs.”

In addition to problem solving, Steve enjoys and takes pride in being a true partner and reliable point of contact for his customers. Heritage is proud to support customers through its expansive network recycling, treatment, storage, and disposal facilities across the country. “Knowing that they have a one-stop-shop is important to our customers,” Steve said. “When they’re doing year end reports, they have one sales rep to call. We have a really nice system for that.”

This one-stop-shop is supported by the expansive Heritage employee network, that works together from sales to transportation to field services. The cooperation between multiple Heritage business areas has been critical throughout Steve’s tenure at the company, as customers rely on the seamless operation of transportation and disposal. This cooperation has kept Steve coming back for more, as he shared that the relationships he’s gained have made his time at Heritage rewarding. He said, “My favorite part would be the relationships that I’ve built through that, and then even more so with sales because of the opportunity to go to sales meetings and meet everyone from each of our service areas.”

Built on solid relationships, family values, and trust, the Heritage family keeps our facilities humming to proudly serve our customers, the environment – and each other. Steve shared a memorable interaction with Heritage Chief Operating Officer Winde Hamrick, that made an impact on the career he has today. “I was doing a job in Illinois and she drove all the way out there and met with me in my truck to talk to me about going into sales. And then she stayed and took our whole crew out to dinner and talked to them about some opportunities,” Steve said. “Just knowing that someone like her, that I consider her to be one of the smartest people I know, would take the time out of her day to come see me, let me know she cared.”

As we congratulate Steve on nearly 30 years of exceptional service at Heritage, we thank him for his dedication to doing what’s right for our customers, our facilities, and the environment. It’s members of the Heritage family like Steve that make our vision a reality – all while serving a larger cause. Steve said, “You hear them talk about family and the family vibe that we have, and it’s true.”

Steve Swanson Industrial Service Account Representative