John Fentress discusses recycling with Brandi Kessler and her daughter, Kendall Kessler, 9.
By Jacqueline Jordan
John Fentress saw a need in the community and turned it into a business venture. After reading letters to the editor in the Messenger-Inquirer from Owensboro residents advocating for curb-side recycling, his interest piqued. When local government was hesitant to take action on the issue, he saw an opportunity. Fentress told the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce that he had no formal business education, so he began to read books about small business and entrepreneurship. It was then he launched Greener Owensboro Recycling. Two years later, the part-time project is a full-time business with 620 residential and 65 business and civic customers. And he just hired his first employee.
As a result of this start-up business, Fentress was named the 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year by the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce. Fentress said he started the business to be an active and positive contributor to the community. “One of the most important characteristics in being a business person is that you have to want to know your customers,” Fentress wrote in his award-nomination essay. “I always try to meet my customers if at all possible when they first start our program.” The introduction isn’t merely meet and greet. Fentress said he asks about the customer’s family and listens to their story. “A community is made up of people, and in order to properly contribute you must know her people,” he wrote. Fentress also listens to the needs of O W E N S B O R O
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his customers and tries to meet them. When elderly or handicapped customers need him to pick up their recycling bin on their back porch, he makes the extra effort. When customers mentioned how low their trash output is when recycling, he found a way to ease their disposal costs. In Daviess County, residents are required to have a trash pick-up service. Customers who recycled most of their trash through GO Recycling were still paying the same fees for trash service as someone with an overflowing toter. As a response, GO Recycling started to offer trash pick-up as well as recycling, with a rate based on the output of trash. The change was not only a benefit for customers but a new stream of Continued on page 41
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