Committees: Discovering the Hidden Treasure

by Andrea Johnson

When I joined the CDRA in 2019, it was due to the C&D World conferences. The knowledge I gained by attending the conferences more than paid for my membership. I would come home with my nuggets of information, work to apply them, and then wait for the next conference to come around. I remember hearing the committee reports at the conferences, but I never connected them to me or my operation. When I heard the word committee, I assumed that I had to be invited to join and honestly, every committee I have ever been on resulted in extra work for me and I was not looking for that.

Sometime during 2022, I inquired about the legislative work that the CDRA was doing and found myself attending a legislative committee meeting. I was floored by how much I learned by just being there, listening and being able to ask questions. It was not like any committee meeting I had ever attended. It was not full of tasks to be completed with work being assigned for members to complete, it was 100% for my own education and advancement. There was work being done and eventually I decided to take part in that, but I didn’t have to. That was not what it was about. Over time, the access to this knowledge, to be able to listen and learn from industry experts who had decades more experience than I had, experts who had already traveled the road I was on and were willing to share that experience, became absolutely invaluable.

Needless to say, once I discovered the treasure I found in the legislative committee, I was hooked. I started attending just about all of the committee meetings on a regular basis. The safety and end market meetings spoke to me directly and provided information I could use right away in my operation, but what probably saved me the most money was attending the gypsum and shingle meetings. These were two materials that I absolutely wanted to harvest and process, but I had never done it and had no idea what I was doing. The value of learning from others who have already made all of the mistakes and are kind enough to share that information was priceless. Over time I learned about harvesting, processing, what equipment to use and not use, the end markets, and required specifications. Naturally, I could have learned all of this on my own time, but at what cost?

As business owners, operators, and employees, we talk a lot about our return on investment. What are we getting from the dollars we spend and the time we put into something? The committee meetings for me were like discovering a hidden treasure. Even more, the committees consistently deliver what the CDRA is all about, to Collaborate, Innovate and Advance. Every member is invited, there is no obligation and it is part of your membership, so the question becomes, are you getting the most out of your membership investment? You can sign up at: https://www.cdrecycling.org/committees.

Written by CDRA Director of Operations, Andrea Johnson. ‘Andi’ is the former CEO of van der Linde Recycling.