Barry Pederson and Dustin Hanson have joined forces to purchase Pederson Disposal from Barry’s father, Ray “Punky” Pederson, and have renamed the business North Shore Waste Management. Barry and Dustin have been friends since kindergarten and graduated from Cook County High School in 1998.
A casual conversation between friends last spring turned into a partnership when Barry Pederson and Dustin Hanson joined forces to purchase Pederson Disposal from Barry’s father, Ray “Punky” Pederson. The business officially changed hands on May 1.
With a fresh start came a new name: North Shore Waste Management.
The business currently employs five people and the company’s routes run from Cascade River to Grand Portage and to the end of the Gunflint Trail.
“Our biggest expense is fuel,” said Hanson, noting his company sends about five trucks per week to the Duluth landfill in the winter and seven or eight tracks in the summer.
Pederson and Hanson have known each other since kindergarten and graduated from Cook County High School in 1998. Both headed off to college, but Pederson came home a couple of years later while Hanson moved from Duluth to the Twin Cities after taking a job with Upper Lakes Foods. After 10 years he moved out of that job and bought a hotel, restaurant/ bar in River Falls.
“I recently sold the hotel but kept the restaurant and bar,” said Hanson, who has a house in Grand Marais and in River Falls where his wife, Heidi and two kids Jacob, age 7, and Kaya, age 10, live.
“I’ve told the kids that they are future garbage men,” Hanson said with a smile.
As far as the business, Pederson said, “We are interested in trying some new things. We’re positive and looking forward to the future.”
“We will be looking for feedback from the customers,” Hanson said. “We would like to make changes that will better help the customer and the business.”
One idea is to do a better job of recycling the material that comes in, Hanson said, adding, “Instead of just putting everything into a truck and hauling it to a landfill, we want to extract what we can and put it towards a better use.
“We are also looking at maybe adding composting and mulching. There are a lot of things that we can do that will be environmentally friendly,” Hanson said.
Recently Pederson and Hanson met with Cook County Planning and Zoning Director Tim Nelson and had a fruitful discussion.
“He seemed to like our ideas and he had some of his own,” said Hanson.
“Bottom line, we would like to hear from our customers and would appreciate any ideas that can help us better serve them,” Pederson said.
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