Newly Certified USCC Compost Operators and Professionals

Casey Funke

Casey Funke, Eco-Products, Pacific Northwest

Casey Funke is Eco-Products’ operator specialist for the Pacific Northwest region, where he is responsible for driving demand for Eco-Products’ compostable and recyclable single-use foodservice products while helping end-users strive for zero waste and achieve their sustainability goals.

Prior to Eco-Products, Casey worked for Cedar Grove Composting and brings six years of experience in waste diversion and composting to the operator specialist role. At Cedar Grove, he was responsible for helping operators implement compost collection programs and pursue zero waste goals through education, outreach, signage, marketing development and the use of compostable packaging options.

Casey is excited to be with a company like Eco-Products, a leader in the sustainable packaging arena, and to help bring successful composting programs to operators and a clean stream of organic waste to composters. A win-win!

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Grant Williamson

Grant Williamson, General Manager, The Ground Up

As general manager of The Ground Up (TGU), Grant is based in Houston, TX, and is reponsible for TGU’s three locations. TGU is a green waste recycling facility and full-scale landscape supplier offering soils, mulch, compost, bulk aggregates, grinding services, plants of all types, hard goods and hand tools, artificial turf, pavers, natural stone, super sacks and palletized material produced from its own fully automated bagging line.

TGU processes approximately 150,000 to 200,000 cubic yards of green waste per year between two of its three locations. Grant has more than five years’ experience in green waste recycling and composting, along with a B.S. in business management and M.S. in organizational strategy from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Grant pursued and acquired the CCOM certification because, having been in the industry for a number of years, he has seen it become more sophisticated and organized. He never does anything halfway; if it’s worth doing, he says, it’s worth doing right. Grant wants to be at the forefront in whatever space he finds himself. This certification serves as validation that the industry is making a massive impact in the lifecycle of waste, climate change mitigation and environmental stewardship around the globe.

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Aleksander Jagiello

Aleksander Jagiello

After spending many summers at his family’s farm in Poland as a kid, Aleks was hooked on soil. As an adult, he became fascinated with composting as a volunteer with urban compost sites in New York City such as Red Hook Community Farm and Queens County Farm.

In 2015, he left his previous career as a paralegal to develop a residential food waste drop-off program in Queens, NY, along with the capacity to process the food waste we collected. He is endlessly fascinated by the composting process, and finds his happy place while turning piles with a wheel loader.

Aleks became certified to broaden his professional opportunities and to make compost in accordance with industry standards.