Right Where He Wants to Be: GFL’s Matthew Taylor Loves This Industry

As a teen, Matthew Taylor started his journey in the waste industry by helping out his dad, a diesel mechanic. After earning his bachelor’s degree in fire science, Taylor pursued his dream of being a paramedic and firefighter, while also working at Waste Management. His love for the waste industry kept pulling him back.  

Once Taylor had worked his way up to lead mechanic; he knew he had to make a career choice. Now, Taylor, a Waste360 40 Under 40 award winner, serves as Area Fleet Director with GFL Environmental, covering the territories of upper Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

In this Q&A interview, Taylor talks with Waste360 about how he works to create opportunities for growth through recruitment and training, and why he wouldn’t rather work in any other industry.

This interview has been edited for length.

Waste360: What are some of your major roles and responsibilities?

Matthew Taylor: An area fleet director makes sure our fleet is DOT [Department of Transportation] compliant. It’s also about keeping the techs happy, keeping the maintenance managers happy, and making sure these trucks are safe on the road. That is my ultimate role—to make sure these trucks are on the road, and to give my team a lot of structure, but at the same time not micromanage too much, and let them make every shop, and site or facility their own. I am very entrepreneurial with my team, and that’s how we are as a company at GFL. We want people to spread their wings.

GFL just got into the United States not too many years ago and we’re growing like crazy. When I started in this role three years ago, we only had a handful of sites. From the last three years, we had over 30 acquisitions in my area.

Waste360: How do you build those relationships after an acquisition?

Matthew Taylor: It’s doing the meetings with the drivers, sitting down, and talking to every single driver, every single mechanic, one-on-one. It is very important to do that, to shake their hand, and tell them, “Thank you. Give us an opportunity.” That is one of the biggest challenges that we have with GFL growing. We’re growing organically but we’re also growing through acquisitions quite often. It’s about having the buy-in.

Waste360: What are some other challenges you tackle in your job?

Matthew Taylor: In my position, it’s being in the field every day. Probably 90% of my work is out in the field with the team. I’m doing fleet audits, making sure everyone is doing the right thing.

I’m a mechanic by trade, and right now it’s very hard to find mechanics. I do a lot with the recruiting as well. I go to high schools and I go to colleges.

We’re starting an internship program in the Midwest. We’re taking kids right out of high school, and paying them a decent salary. They can shadow our team. We have a couple of interns already. We give them a fully-loaded toolbox if they stay on, and we pay up to $18,000 for their college. It’s starting to get some traction and take off.

Waste360: What is the roving mechanic program?

Matthew Taylor: The huge challenge is staffing, but I guarantee you hear that constantly. The biggest challenge we had is when COVID hit.  At the end of the day, maintenance is one of the most important aspects in the waste industry, because if our trucks aren’t safe, they’re not going to go on the road. If our trucks aren’t on the road, they’re not picking up for customers. If they’re not picking up for customers, then we have trash piling up in yards and outside restaurants.

I have a couple young guys that are just rockstars. They travel around and they help train. You can send trucks out and get third-parties to do repairs, but a lot of times, the mechanics want to do stuff in-house. During COVID, all the colleges were shut down, and all the training facilities were shut down. To combat this, we started the roving mechanics program. They would not just fill in for techs at sites, but they would also train them from the bottom up to do everything. It’s been very successful in our area. We started that during COVID, and kept it going.

The number two thing is to save money; but the number one thing is, if you don’t think there’s any chance for growth in your career, are you going to stay there? This program shows you that people believe in you. If you have a mechanic that is a bottom level mechanic but he wants to work his way up, and you’re not giving him the time of day, we’re going to lose that mechanic; we’re going to lose that team.

The most important thing is to tell him about growth opportunities. That shows that you believe in him, and that there is structure. You’re going to keep that technician and he’s going to be happy. Sometimes, pay isn’t everything. Sometimes, it’s growth and people believing in you.

Waste360: There were a lot of choices along your career path that you had to make. What brought you here?

Matthew Taylor: Yes, and everything drew me back to the waste industry, hands down. My college degree, that I spent $70,000, $80,000, for I don’t use at all. I didn’t need a degree to get into my position. It’s hard work, and treating people right, making the right decisions, giving people structure, but not dictating what they’re going to do, and getting them to buy in. This is truly an industry that you can do that in.

A lot of times I do get a lot of people say, “You didn’t go to college, and you’re in the position you’re in?” I say, “Well, I did, but here’s my story. I was a paramedic and I guess delivering babies on a city bus wasn’t good enough for me, and the waste industry is more exciting than that.” I may be an odd duck on that but I love this waste industry. It is awesome. The people you meet are from every type of background. It’s crazy, but I gravitate towards it for some reason, because it’s nonstop and it’s something different every day.

Waste360: What is something you had to learn to be successful in your role?

Matthew Taylor: To be successful in this role, at the end of the day, you need somebody to believe in you. You have to be able to take criticism as a positive, as coaching, as constructive criticism.

Two things that I’ve learned are to listen more than you talk, as you’re growing in this field; and how to properly deliver a message. You have to think about it before you deliver a message, and deliver the message as a positive. 

Waste360: What is something on the horizon that you are looking forward to?

Matthew Taylor: Something I’m piloting in our area, is as we’re growing with more natural gas trucks, we go to the fire departments with a natural gas truck [to do training]. Sometimes, there’s 50, 75, firefighters from the community, and we’re doing training about the trucks. The last thing you want is the fire department to come to a site and not know how to put out a fire, and not know what that truck is. We’re also trying to teach the public more about natural gas vehicles, as well.