Our Team
James Thompson, Jr., President
James Thompson, Jr.
James Thompson is a Principal of Waste Business Journal, a research and consulting firm dedicated to the waste management industry. With over twenty years of experience in the industry, he is a leading expert on waste issues, pricing and business trends in the US. In 1991, he created the Solid Waste Digest, the industry's first quantitative business newsletter. That required his development of the industry's most comprehensive database of pricing, volume and supply statistics.
Today, the Waste Business Journal is the source of record for understanding the ever more complex and vertically integrated waste management industry. His company continues to publish important and highly regarded research on the many diverse aspects and segments of the business.
Mr. Thompson regularly consults with clients on issues of strategic, economic, regulatory, and policy issues related to waste management. His clients include corporations, governments, and agencies of the federal government. He has consulted to every major solid waste firm in the U.S. Consequently, his views have been presented in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, The Economist and National Public Radio among many other media.
Mr. Thompson holds an MBA from Vanderbilt University and a BA from Yale University.
Richard Sterner, Advisor
Richard Sterner
Richard Sterner is Managing Director of Sterner Consulting. He has over 25 years' experience in the environmental industry and another 10 years' experience in the civil engineering and utility industries. Mr. Sterner has worked primarily as an independent mergers and acquisitions consultant/advisor since selling his own environmental contracting company in 1989 including several exclusive consulting or operational engagements during that period.
After completing military service with Naval Intelligence in the early 1970s, Mr. Sterner has held key management and finance roles within large construction, environmental and engineering service companies, leading to many successful years as a mergers and acquisitions specialist working for his own account or representing small private to large public industry clients.
As a managerial consultant specializing in the hazardous and nuclear waste-by-rail industry, Mr. Sterner was named COO of a leading transportation services firm. He led the company equipment, operations and financial groups through five years of dynamic growth (500% in the period) and through a series of financial transactions with private equity funds and with a large public SBDC funds company.
In a similar consulting capacity, Mr. Sterner represented a large public environmental industry company as its M&A manager, personally completing over $500mm in solid waste and facility acquisitions in the late 1990s.
As principal of Sterner Consulting, Mr. Sterner has represented many large and small public and private businesses representing the Buyer or Seller in a transaction or managing specialty searches for a business or consolidation candidate, funding party or acquirer. He has managed and completed financial documentation and due diligence review projects and maintains a regular practice of business or project valuation or Appraisal services.
Mr. Sterner is a frequent speaker at industry conferences on financial, rail and solid waste matters and frequently acts as an expert on various types of litigation matters. He is a member of IBBA the International Business Brokers Association and represents many niche and specialty businesses in difficult matters of financial documentation, valuation concerns, or estate issues.
Daniel Butturini, Advisor
Daniel Butturini
Daniel Butturini is a principal of Sterner Consulting. He has a broad range of experience with mergers and acquisitions in the Environmental Sector. He has provided buy and sell side strategic advice for a number of prominent clients in the private equity, banking, solid waste, liquid-waste, and waste brokerage industries.
He has previously worked for Allied Waste Industries as the Director of Project/Market Development where he managed a large-scale waste development project with $3 to $6 billion revenue anticipated over time. He managed and directed a project team of financial, engineering, operations, legal and public relations experts dedicated to project activities.
Prior to this role he served as the Manager of Business Development for Waste Management, Inc. where he negotiated and closed over 25 acquisitions with first year revenues exceeding $125 million. There he significantly expanded initial market presence, provided strategic integration driving the company to a lowest cost/market leadership position in the New York/New Jersey Metro area. Dan also served as the Director of Financial Planning and Analysis for Waste Management of New York, Inc. where he was involved in the strategic sale of the largest waste processor in the New York Metro area.
Dan has also served as a Manager/Senior Consultant for Deloitte & Touche where he was responsible for developing sophisticated project-financing models, performed economic impact studies and provided comprehensive valuation analysis.
He has also worn the hats of Director/Manager Financial Analysis for McGraw –Hill, Inc. in New York where he was required to perform comprehensive financial analysis/strategic planning support functions for merger and acquisition, divestiture, capital expenditure and special project analyses for the senior management of the McGraw-Hill Information Systems Company.
Dan also served as a Senior Financial Analyst with United Technologies Corporation, Inc. where he provided an integrated financial control function in support of Computer Products and Avionics business units.
Dan has an MBA in finance from New York University and a BS/BA in Finance/Economics from Georgetown University.
Kari M. Kilcullen, Research Director
Kari M. Kilcullen
Kari began her career over 25 years ago as a researcher of the waste industry. While her career since then ventured her into teaching, consulting, curating, and running art galleries, etc., we are delighted to have her back on the team. Her skills range from accounting, customer relations, data gathering and analysis, project management, and the putting together and presentation of special industry reports. She holds degrees from both Radford University and Northern Virginia Community College.
James V. Thompson, Research
James V. Thompson
James "Jimmy" Thompson is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley with a double major in Conservation and Resource Studies, and Environmental Economics and Policy. At Waste Business Journal he researches the industry, gathering data from a myriad of sources and performs economic analysis to identify and predict key trends. He helps to compile that analysis into special issue reports and assists in custom waste market studies for clients.
Outside of his work here, he has cared for and given lectures on rescued grizzly bears in Montana. He has studied and reported on invasive plant species and has studied nesting habitats of certain bird species for the Audubon Society. He has also researched ethical and policy issues related to genetic sequencing as a UCSD research scholar.
Eliza S. Thompson, Research
Eliza S. Thompson
Eliza researches waste processing and disposal sites to gather vital information on pricing and volumes, types of waste accepted, types of equipment employed to process those wastes and other important operational and ownership data. She assists in the preparation of client reports, various issue studies, and data presentations.
She is currently an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz majoring in philosophy.