Navigating the E-Waste Frontier: Felipe Wright's Quest for Sustainability and Impact

Have you ever stood in awe of those who turn adversity into triumph, who see a challenge and charge headlong into the fray?

Felipe Wright, president and CEO of e-Waste Tech Holdings Inc., is one such titan of tenacity, and he's here to share the saga of his ascent from a humble Virginian upbringing to the helm of an enterprise that's reshaping our approach to sustainability. With the poise of an Olympic torchbearer and the discipline of a 21-year military veteran, Felipe charts a course through the tumultuous waters of entrepreneurship, where the siren song of the triple bottom line—planet, people, and profits—guides his vessel.

Felipe Wright

• Email: fwright@ewastetechholdings.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felipe-wright-97ba7b1a9/
• Website: http://www.ewaste-tech.com/

This episode is a masterclass in the art of impactful living, where the legacy we leave is as important as the success we achieve. As Felipe Wright unfolds his map of e-waste management, he reveals how the discarded remnants of our digital lives pose a grave threat to the environment and our personal security. Yet, with every problem lies opportunity, and Felipe illustrates how the proper disposal and repurposing of e-waste can ignite job creation, community upliftment, and a healthier planet.

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Chapters

• 0:03 A Journey Through Choices and Success
• 13:19 Impact of Electronic Waste Disposal

Transcript

Voiceover: 0:03

Tales from the wild, stories from the heart. A journey into the mind and fired-up of business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Shireen Botha: 0:36

All right, welcome, welcome, welcome, shireen. Here I am your virtual boutique bookkeeper and QuickBooks advisor. As a Marvel fan, my favorite superhero is Iron man, and just as Iron man uses advanced technology and clever tactics to defeat his enemies, SBS Shireen's Bookkeeping Services uses advanced software and financial expertise to help clients stay organized and make smart financial decisions. Ironman represents innovation, ingenuity and precision all qualities that are essential for successful bookkeeping. Plus, Tony Stark's charisma and reputation as a leader align with the trust and confidence that clients place in us to manage their finances effectively. Call Shireen's Bookkeeping Services today and experience the difference. If you want to know more, go check me out at www. shireensbookkeeping. com and allow me to keep your books clean so you don't have to Welcome, welcome, welcome back. You are listening to Friends from Wild Places, with myself, Shireen, and my beautiful co-host, Tanya. How are you feeling today, Tanya? We haven't spoken in a while.

Tanya Scotece: 1:54

What's happening? Doing great, doing great. So right outside of Miami, Florida, weather is beautiful, you know, just another glorious day and another day to you know, kind of shine the light. So I'm happy to be here and this morning we have with us I know we're in different time zones here, as Shireen is in South Africa and this morning we're honored and privileged to have as our guest Felipe Wright. Felipe, it's your birthday today, so first of all, happy birthday. Thank you so much for having me.

Felipe Wright: 2:28

Thank you so much for having me both of you. Thank you, Shireen and Tanya. Thanks so much for having me this morning on my birthday. I greatly appreciate it, Thank you.

Shireen Botha: 2:36

Of course, of course. So Felipe Wright is president and CEO of e-Waste Tech Holdings Inc, so Mr. Wright serves as the company's president and chief executive officer and the chief visionary of the venture. He served 21 years as an army administrative specialist and human resources management non-commissioned officer. After his military service, though, Felipe formed an information technology company called intelligent information technology systems, iits, as ceo and president of iits, he worked with federal and local government agencies and private sector companies, delivering it services and facility support solutions. E-waste Tech Holdings Inc is a startup venture with a mission to create groundbreaking electronic waste solutions that transform waste, people and community, while implementing the triple bottom line social and environmental principles, planet, people and profits. He does believe in the solution addressing the rapidly growing waste problem, so so happy to have you with us, thank you.

Shireen Botha: 3:52

And happy birthday again. Thank you so much, Shireen , I appreciate it.

Felipe Wright: 3:57

Thank you, thank you.

Shireen Botha: 3:58

Over to you.

Tanya Scotece: 3:59

Tanya Okay, so first of all, Felipe, thank you for the service to our country. As a veteran military, I'm just super, super excited to dive deeper into your story and I just want to open up with you know, sometimes we can appear a certain way, but people don't know who we are, where we came from, right. So shed us a little bit of you know, a deeper dive into Felipe, as far as who is Felipe, where did Felipe come from, and some of the things that are like. You know, people don't even know who we are and they're judging us right. So go ahead.

Felipe Wright: 4:34

Well, listen, thanks for having me this morning, Shireen and Tanya, and I'm glad to have this opportunity on this podcast to really have a conversation about my story but ways that we can empower each other. So my background I'm from a small town from Virginia, new King County, virginia. When I left there, the population was only 5,000 people. I come from an entrepreneurial family. My grandfather was a third grader that owned a logging company and he was one of the best men of my life a third grader that owned a logging company and he was one of the best men of my life. My father owned one of the first service station businesses in the state of Virginia and at a time during in the 60s, you know, for a minority to have a service station business or being in an industry was quite challenging for him, and my mother was class president and class salutatorian in our high school. So I always said already in life I've been afforded those opportunities that I saw entrepreneurship. I saw the great parts of it, I saw the challenges associated with entrepreneurship and also during my high school years.

Felipe Wright: 5:38

I'm a stellar athlete. I was all state football player in the state of Virginia. I did something very unique in 1980. The Lake Plastic torch came to our hometown the Olympic torch and I was able to carry that Olympic torch for two miles. It was one of the greatest moments of my life because what it shared with me was that people are watching me, they want to reward me, and I got a chance to say, okay, you know what there's greatness. People are watching me, they want to reward me and I got a chance to say, okay, you know what there's greatness in front of me. So that's where my beginning started.

Felipe Wright: 6:17

And then I went to college. Then I joined the military and had a luxurious career and 21 years of service from all different types of commands from you know, serving in Europe, the Middle East, south America, and all those places allowed me to shape my journey where I am today. As you stated in my bio and my background, Shireen, I ran information management. I worked for many general officers and senior selective executives for the federal government. So all those opportunities in the macro and micro level allow me to say you know what this is an opportunity that I can continue to grow and be better for myself. So throughout my life story, it's just been those kind of opportunities that has shaped my journey in becoming the person I am today and also the mission I'm here to fulfill.

Shireen Botha: 7:14

Amazing, absolutely amazing, Felipe. Yeah, so I know, Felipe, you had a quote that you brought to us and I want to tell the listeners about it. So the quote goes the choices we make will dictate the life that we live.

Felipe Wright: 7:23

Let me repeat that again for the listeners the choices we make will dictate the life we live.

Shireen Botha: 7:25

Let me repeat that again for the listeners the choices we make will dictate the life we live, and I did do a Google search on it. Shakespeare was the originator of that. But, Felipe, please just tell us a little bit of what it means to you and why you use that quote so often in life.

Felipe Wright: 7:45

Okay, thanks for the opportunity to explain. You know we all have made choices that we have some regrets behind. We all made some choices that sustain us throughout our life journey and I'm a father of two children, which I love. My kids are, you know, one is a nurse, a registered nurse, and one is a pastor, in the pastor leadership masters. So I always share with them and I'm the oldest of seven kids, of my siblings, but I always know that all the choices I made will dictate my life and also they're going to watch me in every step I make.

Felipe Wright: 8:29

So all the choices that we do make, from the standpoint as leaders, from the standpoint as subordinates, you know, we just have to make sure we make sound choices, pathway to success or a pathway to failure. But it's really the choices we do make that will allow us to overcome all situations, and we'll talk about that later on, about in entrepreneurship, how you can make good choices or bad choices, or the lack of information. But again, it's all about the choices we do make. And you know, again I'll be the first one to tell you, and I spoke about this at my father's funeral, but I was able to get a chance to close the loop for my parents. They would tell you they weren't perfect people, but they also tell us that they gave us the foundation. Through their choices, we're able to propel, and all of us have done pretty well in our life. Overall, it's all about choices, so it's all about choices.

Tanya Scotece: 9:31

Felipe, I love the way you kind of analyze that Let me get that word out analyze From the standpoint that even when we read each other's bios, it's kind of like the cream of the cream. It's like all these accolades and all these wonderful things and people all over, whether people are in entertainment or sports or whatever realm they're in, everything gets kind of, like, you know, highlighted, which is great, you know, because we do, you know, honor the successes. But when you look at, like you know, the pyramid, like Maslow's hierarchy, you can see that the successes are here, right, but then we got all this other stuff going on right, all these, like you know, trials and tribulations to get us to where we are.

Tanya Scotece: 10:15

But when we are on stage or when someone's introducing us, it's like you know they're not introducing our failures. And all the times we fell down. You know, and I love you know, when you hear the quotes about, you know, like, whether it's you know Michael Jordan or the Beatles, like you know how many times were people turned down. You know Walt Disney was turned down because he wasn't creative and you know everyone has their story. So today we're really here to really dive deep into Felipe's story and really just kind of get a sense of you know who you are and what brought you to where you are.

Felipe Wright: 10:48

Yeah, Tanya, I think you capsulized it in a nice way because, at the end of the day is this we all have real stories if you're honest. We all have real journeys, if you're honest. And I found that you know, if an entrepreneur come in the room or anybody said, listen, my life is perfect, well, clearly I don't need to be in the room with you because I can't learn anything, because your life is perfect. I want to learn about your struggles, I want to learn how to get to that little point. You mentioned at the top that because, like, just take on 409. They failed 408 times. That's why they call the solution 409. So you just got to know people during the Southwest. Their whole model was to focus in the Southwest region of Texas, in that region, but there was someone that bailed them out. They had a bad day, like most businesses will, and someone bailed them out, and now they are. You know, they're nationally known in our, in our flight space in the united states. So, again, but all of us, the, the microsoft, the, the apples you know steve jobs was here. He'll tell you his own stories, his own setbacks, you know. So, again, we just need one person to believe in us through those different encounters.

Felipe Wright: 12:13

Just to kind of give you a little bit of my background also, I officiate high school football in the United States in an area of the DMV what you call the District of Columbia, maryland and Virginia, in the Northern Virginia area, and I've been a high school football official. This is my 27th season, 27 years high school football official. This is my 27th season, 27 years. And when you get a chance to capture and look at NFL football on Sundays, there are folks I officiate in the league as the Stefan Diggs and Chase Youngs and the Vernon Jordans. We can go on and on and on.

Felipe Wright: 12:46

But I have a front row seat not just to make the right call. I have a front row seat not just to make the right call. I have a front row seat of making sure those young gentlemen and those coaches put out the best product, to make sure those kids have the right opportunity, because one call could just rail their whole opportunity, especially when folks come from humble beginnings, like myself All those things I may have, but I come from very humble beginnings they need that one opportunity to change their life. So there's humble beginnings, so being a part of that, that's why I take. Going back to my quote, the choices we make dictate the life that we live. We have to be so impactful in everything we do. And Tanya knows there are four words I've used at the beginning of year and we'll go into our segment more but be intentional and be impactful with everything you do in life. Be intentional and be impactful, so that will carry the rest of our journey.

Shireen Botha: 13:43

So again, thank you yes, no, and along that quote that you love, it's definitely along the lines of friends from wild places. I mean, the one of the very first episodes that we recorded was everyone has their own journey. Do you remember that, tanya? And so we've. We've preached on that so often and you know, I'm just gonna pop in with with the previous guest that we had last week, who was brian, who actually is an entrepreneur and speaker today, but was a priest, and so he has roman catholic priest roman wow, wow, okay, okay he has a story and so we all have stories and we get to where we are today through every choice that we've made, good and bad.

Shireen Botha: 14:38

And I know I've said it multiple times, tanya's heard me say it I would not be here today if I didn't go through the things that I had to go through, good and bad.

Felipe Wright: 14:49

Absolutely to go through good and bad.

Shireen Botha: 14:51

So my next question to you, Felipe, would be what is e-waste and why is it so important to get rid of?

Felipe Wright: 15:01

Thank you for the question. Electronic waste, by definition, is the proper disposal of electronic waste and everything that has a plug that is electronic waste. Most folks that understand a little bit of electronic waste, they understand the technology aspect of electronic waste cell phones, computers, tvs, cell phones, computers, tvs Because you know why? Because they can get more return of revenue in the industry. But when I looked at this e-waste industry I've been looking at this problem since over 30-some years during my military career Because how we handled electronic waste at that time, which we still do today, is nothing. And this is in the 1980s. I'm dating myself, of course. Everybody knows I'm 61 today. So after we did our IT upgrades could be in a server room or could be your old computers at your desktop we put all the electronic waste and put them in warehouses and back then most of them probably ended up in landfills. So in our legislation, end up in landfills. So in our legislation, shireen and Tanya, the Environmental Protection Agency, epa for short put out a set of guidelines in 2007,. No electronic waste can go in the landfills.

Felipe Wright: 16:16

So in my first company, as you stated, I did information technology and facility support and I did some construction services under that facility support banner, facility support and I did some construction services under that facility support banner which allowed me to create jobs in low and affordable communities. So my whole commitment, because I come from a home of beginnings, I know hard work, you know as smart as we all are on this call, but the hard work outbeats anyone. You can if you have a, if you have that part of your, your ethics. Hard work will get you past a lot of things in life and you'll keep on pushing. You'll never have that no-quit attitude. So I saw e-waste as an opportunity not just to deal with the environmental impact of issues. I saw it as an opportunity to do a few things One, to protect our environment. Two, to create jobs in marginalized communities or rural communities. And three, empower our communities. So these folks that get these jobs, they can receive livable wages, not minimum wages, livable wages and have a part of the American fabric. And we'll take this whole model internationally.

Felipe Wright: 17:30

So I saw e-waste as an opportunity to change lives. So you talk about the triple effect. To me the profit is important, because without profit you cannot continue to carry your message through. But what's more important to me is really about empowering people. This is work beyond the walls of the church. For me, this is my gospel work, so my spiritual foundation allows me to not be fearful anymore but the work of e-waste. That's the definition. So e-waste is the proper disposal of electronic waste, where anything that has a plug to make sure all the data, the information security, is removed. So when you have your, you're doing your tax returns, everything you file on a hard drive or your disk, that's what you want, to make sure all that data, information, is destroyed by your standards, by each country. But in our country we use NSA and DOD, which stands for Department of Defense and National Security Agency standards.

Tanya Scotece: 18:25

Wow, that's a lot, Felipe, I gotta, I gotta like break that down, just so I can understand it a little bit. So let me just take it like from like an individual household. So if somebody has like an old hard drive, okay, or an old cell phone like that you know Apple or Verizon doesn't want, where are you supposed to put that and how are you supposed to dispose of it, if that's the proper word?

Felipe Wright: 18:50

Oh, very good question, and that's a proper terminology. What we're trying to do in our model, what you should be able to do, is go to your local municipality waste area to take your electronic waste to get a product disposed of. Now most municipalities do not have a data destruction strategy in their model. So what we have done because of my background in the military I ran a NATO top secret SCIF, which stands for Sensitive Classification Industrial Facility those were documents was housed. I took all of my security background to ensure that the data component of it was the most important thing that we address.

Felipe Wright: 19:34

The waste is important because of the hazardous material that will go into landfills and your waterways. But if your data is not properly destroyed and you got indented at death, that will happen for years on end. You can hardly get rid of it and you, your life is upside down. You can't buy a house, you can't purchase cars, all your purchasing power is taken away from you. So that's why you mean the end.

Felipe Wright: 19:58

The data destruction component is very, very important, but to even more so I would like to add more piece to it, tanya and Shireen. That's why our model we're going to make sure everything we develop it makes it convenient for the consumer, as the folks in households. So we'll make the model local for all different communities. Believe it or not, 90% of e-waste is sitting in households. That has value. The average pounds is 62 pounds of e-waste sitting in everyone's household. That's the average. So just think about that. So not only is this a challenge because people don't know what to do with it, that's almost pretty for their defense, that's pretty wise. So for them to keep it until they find the proper way to dispose of it.

Felipe Wright: 20:43

And you know, what.

Tanya Scotece: 20:44

I'm probably right in smacking the money as far as, like the exact what I have in my own apartment is probably exactly what and you just don't know where to do. You don't know what to do. So I think, from what I'm hearing, philippe, it's almost like you are wanting to bridge the gap from the local household to the structure of the company and kind of bridge the gap about helping people know, like regular household people, what to do with their e-waste.

Felipe Wright: 21:13

Listen, tanya very well stated and I call the educational piece as a threat, Because what you just don't know, you just don't know. But if you know better, you'll do better. So what we're going to do is make sure we talk about the environmental threat, we talk about the information security threat and also the areas I'm in is creating a job right. So we're going to deal with that and make sure we standardize and make sure the right kind of facilities are deployed in the communities that you live in. Besides the population, and also part of it all is education. Once we truly educate the consumer how to dispose of electronic waste, they will participate.

Felipe Wright: 21:52

I've learned it already in my pilot program. So to your point, tony, you are absolutely correct. It's just to me it's about education. It's not a we call it a threat, but I think if you just don't know something that's really part of your society every day, that can become a threat. But my model you also can do good addressing that threat because we want to take those materials, turn them into valuable waste, turn that waste into valuable materials, and then we make sure we deal with not only our OEMs, our original electronic manufacturers, not only are OEMs, our original electronic manufacturers they can use it, but for our weapons systems in the United States and our allies to use what is called rare earth elements. There are 17 rare earth elements that are composed, that are part of any kind of waste or weapon systems. So those metals will allow us to share to and also help our national security apparatus and also help our community. So our model plays a greater role other than just the education, this proper disposal and also making sure it's environmentally safe.

Tanya Scotece: 22:58

So I have a question so your business model, does it start small and go big, or are you targeting the top and going down for community?

Felipe Wright: 23:10

Great question. I think the model is scalable to do both. So I won't go so much where the deployment is happening, but I will go back to model where it's happening. Go back to model where it's happening. The model is that you will start small from a stand of a facility that can house that large waste. Then what we'll do is deploy smaller facilities in those communities that need the waste, that have the population. So I look at the large facility as an enterprise facility and we look at the smaller facilities as a consumer facilities. So we make it local. So that's really the model and everything in between.

Tanya Scotece: 23:54

Tune in next week for part two from Friends from Wild Places.

Voiceover: 24:00

You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places with Shireen Botha. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast from the links to catch every episode and unleash your passion.