Recapturing Opportunity

Josh’s journey to the world of waste management wasn’t the traditional one. It started in fifth grade after learning his hometown didn’t offer curbside recycling.  Spotting the city council president at a community event, he asked her a simple question: “Why?”  She didn’t have an immediate answer, but said she’d investigate. A year later, she was elected mayor – and launched one of the region’s first recycling programs.  Kid activism: 1.  Broken systems: 0.

Before reCap, Josh spent nearly two decades deep in the world of public policy, working alongside the public servants who live with the operational consequences of new programs.  He’s worked in every level of government, from the county courthouse to the White House.  He’s drafted legislation, implemented regulations, and managed a Cabinet agency, overseeing over $100 billion in annual taxpayer funding and a workforce of more than 20,000.  That experience now informs how reCap designs and runs its programs: clear roles, predictable operations, no surprises.

Josh earned undergraduate degrees, cum laude, in political science and psychology, and holds an MBA with high distinction from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. A proud Michigander turned Floridian, Josh now calls St. Petersburg home.  When he’s not on-site at a waste facility, he’s soaking up the sun and enjoying the salt and sand around Tampa Bay.

Austin began his career in account management and business development at Leo Burnett before spending time in San Francisco immersed in early-stage tech with Glam (Mode) Media. But it was back in the Midwest where Austin found his stride: building brands, building distribution, and building businesses with staying power.

As founder of Great Lakes Proud, Austin helped scale a regional brand into a retail force, placing products in more than 5,000 stores and partnering with names like Patagonia, Carhartt, Moosejaw, and the Detroit Pistons. Over five million units were sold during his tenure, generating $1 million for Great Lakes conservation efforts. What started as a simple design became something larger—a business that proved commercial scale and environmental stewardship don’t have to compete.

Before reCap, Austin applied that same thinking to another overlooked product: the coffee sleeve. Through Sleeveless Coffee Sleeves, he patented a redesigned sleeve that reduced material use by a third and improved production efficiency by 15%, showing that even small design changes—executed well and distributed widely—can reduce waste at meaningful scale.

At reCap, Austin brings that same disciplined approach to biochar sales—developing distribution channels, building long-term agricultural partnerships, and ensuring the product doesn’t just get produced, but gets adopted. He lives in Northern Michigan with his wife and daughter, keeping him close to reCap’s growing customer base across the agricultural Midwest.

A chemist by training and a process engineer by trade, Ryan is responsible for turning big ideas into systems that actually run.  Prior to reCap, Ryan spent more than seven years inside Amazon’s most advanced robotic fulfillment centers, leading large-scale operational and process engineering initiatives from Las Vegas to South Beach. He built tools and systems that drove millions in labor savings, increased throughput, and improved quality at scale. When operations get complicated, Ryan simplifies them. When performance slips, he fixes it.

Before Amazon, Ryan served two combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in the U.S. Marine Corps, leading Marines in high-stakes environments where discipline and execution weren’t optional. That experience shaped how he leads today: data-driven, mission-focused, steady under pressure.

At reCap, Ryan applies that same engineering rigor to scaling biochar production and running pyrolysis facilities safely and efficiently. The work isn’t flashy—and it doesn’t need to be. It needs to perform. And it does.

A Tallahassee native, Ryan holds a degree in chemistry from Florida State University (Go Noles!) and returned home to help build a company solving real-world problems with precision, discipline, and results.  Ryan lives in Tallahassee with his fiancée, Grace, and their Corgi, Steve.