Boettcher on what Waste Management looks for from a culture perspective when evaluating companies for potential M&A deals:
“We’re people-first and [champion] safety, and those are our two biggest cultural elements, and if the company doesn’t have a really good safety record, that’s a big red flag for us because that’s something that takes a while to get corrected. … So, we look for a good safety culture. It also has legacy issues when the safety culture is bad in any aspects of the landfill or logistical elements of that business, so we look at [safety] probably first, and the rest you can deal with.”