As a Syracuse student, Gregory Lettieri ’04 was a member of the track team. The consumer studies major and retail management minor in the Whitman School ran the 200-meter dash. Twice as long as the all-out sprint of the 100 meters, the 200-meter dash requires a combination of speed, strategy and discipline. It was the perfect event for Lettieri.

Today, Lettieri is the co-founder and CEO of Recycle Track Systems (RTS), a waste management and recycling company that uses technology to provide efficient services and increase sustainability. The former runner combines the work ethic from his days as an athlete with the lessons in business strategy he learned in the Whitman School to building novel solutions for an antiquated industry.

GETTING COMFORTABLE WITH BEING UNCOMFORTABLE

“I always had a business mindset,” Lettieri says. “I saw myself as being an entrepreneur.” As a Whitman student, he built his class schedule around this interest. 

As a new graduate, Lettieri wouldn’t have pictured himself as a waste management entrepreneur. He started out in the telecommunications industry, quickly rising to management positions with Sprint (now T-Mobile) and Asia-based global telecom company Pacnet. 

“I always put myself in rooms that I probably didn’t belong in, meaning I would ask the VPs or directors or SVPs if I could sit in one of their strategy sessions or if I could present,” Lettieri says. “And sometimes they said no, but a lot of the times they said yes… I always put myself in uncomfortable situations. Fast forward to where I am today; I’m not uncomfortable anymore.”

In 2015, Lettieri started RTS with a neighbor, a fourth-generation member of a family in waste management. By 2017, the company had its first investment of $11.7 million from Volition Capital and was providing waste services for around 500 clients, including three major hospitals and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Currently, he says, RTS has 250 employees, close to $200 million in revenue and roughly $150 million of venture capital investment money.

When Lettieri founded RTS, he says his Whitman education had set him up to be able to build solid business strategies. “It was really the studying of storytelling when it comes from a marketing perspective and how to shape data to achieve sales and marketing,” he says. “Those were always really fascinating for me, and when I launched RTS, that was a very easy part of building the strategy.”

RTS’ tracking platform coordinates waste and recycling pickups for customers like stadiums, convention centers, restaurant groups and municipalities. The company also developed a system called Pello that uses sensors and cameras to prepare sustainability reports about the contents of a customer’s waste. 

GOING FAST AND GETTING IT RIGHT

In his days as a student-athlete, Lettieri kept a rigorous schedule of training and studies that set him up for the discipline required as an entrepreneur. Now, he says, “My typical day allows me to experience a whole different plethora of activities.” 

According to Lettieri, his Whitman education helps him with these daily activities ...“public speaking skills from the business perspective; understanding economics, micro and macro; understanding math and statistics, as well as marketing and how to build a product; how to market a product; how to sell a product; how to manage a P&L from a finance perspective. I used the classes to really train myself,” he says.

Lettieri’s Whitman connections remain strong. He has judged entrepreneurship competitions and hired current and former Whitman students. He appreciates the pool of vetted candidates available through the Syracuse network. “Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have someone to chat with about Orange basketball,” he says.

In 2023, Lettieri was one of the inaugural winners of the ’CUSE50 award, given to the 50 fastest-growing businesses owned or led by Syracuse alumni. “Maybe it’s the track and field piece in me to run fast, but I like to try to do things as fast as we can do,” he says. “Obviously they need to be done right, but to do them right and do them fast is what separated us from being a successful business and company now to where we are today, which is one of the leading providers of waste services across North America.’’

Unlike the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter race doesn’t follow a straight line. Rather, runners wind their way around the corner of the track. Lettieri encourages current students to make their own way, even if it sometimes seems winding. “Each person has their own path,” he advises aspiring entrepreneurs, “and it’s not a straight line.”

By Suzi Morales