Dean Buntrock

"This is one of the processes by which the number of competitors in an industry tends to decline over time, as discussed earlier. Waste Manage¬ ment, run by Huizenga and Dean Buntrock, acquired scores of local mom-and-pop operators. Increasing the scale produced operating effi¬ ciencies and improved managerial methods. In addition, and not inci¬ dentally, Waste Management told its story very effectively to stock market investors. Huizenga later applied what he had learned about growth through acquisition to a high-growth business, the Blockbuster chain of video rental stores."

"From this modest start, Huizenga built the world’s largest trashhauling business. Together with Dean Buntrock, who had married into the Huizenga clan, he founded Waste Management Technologies (now WMX). A few years earlier, Browning-Ferris Industries, led by Tom J. Fatjo Jr., had conceived the idea of creating a nationwide waste-hauling company. Buntrock and Huizenga set themselves a similar objective and a breakneck timetable, acquiring 100 companies within the first two years. Waste Management went public in 1971 with an aggregate share value of $5 million. By 1984, the company’s valuation had grown to $3 billion."

"“Wayne always keeps the carrot far enough out in front of him and he never really wants to catch it,” observes Dean Buntrock. “That’s his personality. He’s never satis¬ fied.”8 Huizenga next undertook to consolidate the huge but fragmented automobile dealership industry, using as his base a conglomerate called Republic Industries. By 1997, Huizenga controlled the largest U.S. auto retailer, along with two of the leading rental car companies, Alamo and National."