WM Recycle America (WMRA) President Pat DeRueda is leaving the Waste Management Inc. subsidiary to take a position with the parent company.

DeRueda will become area vice president for Waste Management’s Arizona/New Mexico region Jan. 1. He will succeed Dan Vermeer, who will join a newly formed unit focused on optimizing Waste Management’s enterprise-wide network of materials recovery, transfer and disposal assets.

Waste Management hopes to have a successor to DeRueda for WMRA by the end of December.

DeRueda was with WMRA for seven years. The company said in a news release he sought the move to be closer to his family in the West.

 "Pat leaves WMRA in great shape,” said David Steiner, Waste Management chief executive officer. “What was once a majority-owned subsidiary of [Waste Management] known as Recycle America Alliance became under Pat's leadership a fully integrated, wholly-owned subsidiary that is now regarded as the leader in the global recycling industry. WMRA has experienced record profitability for the last two years. More importantly, by extracting more value from the waste stream, WMRA has demonstrated multi-year revenue and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) growth well above company averages."