To 20 Years, and To 20 More!
Over the past year – and especially the past 6 months – our team has worked extremely hard to propel R3 forward into the future. To not only celebrate the past 20 years, but to plan for the next 20 and beyond. We’ve navigated some big challenges this year: ownership transition, an entire organizational shift, addressing R3 culture, adding 5 people to our staff, and, no biggie, just figuring out our overall purpose, passion, and vision.
Reflecting on the Past
We can’t go any further without acknowledging our founder, Richard Tagore-Erwin. R3 would absolutely be nowhere without his initial vision, his tenacity, and his overall passion for growing the business from his kitchen table into one of the most competitive solid waste consulting firms today.
Steve Harriman was one of the first R3 partners to jump on board and remains a close advocate and friend to the firm to this day. Even years after his departure, he expressed his implicit trust by hiring R3 to support the needs of his division at the City of Rancho Cordova. Generously, he recently took time out of his day to reflect on the impressive growth of the firm, especially from his unique owner-turned-client perspective:
“I’ve always taken pride in being a part of establishing the company. We started from nothing – we didn’t have a phone system, internet, not even chairs – you name it, we needed it. There was so much work to do, and, in the beginning, we paid very little attention to our long-term strategy and employee culture. We simply didn’t need to at that point.
I’m more than delighted to see R3 is thriving and still providing fantastic, high-quality work, while simultaneously maturing and growing the firm into something more than I could have imagined.”
Propelling Into the Future
As we started to look toward the future, we needed to figure out some answers, and to do that, we asked our team things like:
- Why does R3 exist?
- What world problem do we want to solve?
- How can we improve as a firm – both externally, for clients, but also internally, for staff?
- Who do we ultimately want to become?
These questions posed resulted in the need for developing an R3 roadmap. We knew our roadmap needed to include major steppingstones for R3’s growth, including the creation of a mission statement, an inspirational vision statement, and company values – all in support of unifying and rallying our team around a shared trajectory for the future.
So, throughout 2022, we engaged all staff, conducted several internal workshops and discussions, and worked to develop and revise our statements more times than we can count. Thanks, in large part, to everyone’s contributions and dedication, we are very proud to announce our final mission and vision statements.
The Mission Statement
What R3 does and how we do it; Grounded, tangible, descriptive.
The Vision Statement
Why R3 exists; Our “North Star”, motivational, aspirational.
What’s Next & A Message from the President
With as much as we’ve accomplished, efforts like these are never really done. In the new year, we will continue to unveil additional components of our evolving organization. This year has only ignited the fire of what R3 can become and we truly look forward to continuing the process of figuring out how to get there.
As we wind-down and say goodbye to 2022, we at R3 are filled with gratitude and joy at the promise of a New Year. We offer our heartfelt thanks and well wishes to every one of our clients and partners – past, present, and future! And, to our R3 team members, we say THANK YOU for your hard work helping to deliver a regenerative future for every community!
As a proper thanks for a job well done, R3 offices will be closed from December 26th to January 2nd . We can’t wait to continue working with you all when we return on January 3rd.
Happiest of holidays and a joyous New Year!
