About
Who we are and the community we are proud to serve. Family-owned for three generations.
Mission Statement
To grow and prosper through the efficient and responsible use of our resources while providing our customers with cost-effective, responsive and environmentally sound solutions to their solid waste management needs.
History
Our company got its start in July of 1957 when Victor Gomer, his wife Ida, and his sister Lydia along with her husband Mel Wolf purchased the waste hauler franchise for the City of Paso Robles from Archie Asabez. They inherited their first two employees, Cecil Parish and Willy Cullors, from Archie. Cecil picked up the residential customers while Willy picked up the commercial customers. Victor and his sons Dale and Dennis would work together on the weekends at the landfill. During the week you would find Victor out on a route. Ida and Lydia ran the office.
Dennis returned from serving in the Navy in January of 1966; he became actively involved in the company. He drove a commercial front loader route until he retired in January of 2003. He now manages a miniature cattle ranch.
Location
The location of our office is a story in itself. The original site was just a pay station at 707 13th Street in the Taylor Motel on the corner of Spring. The office moved in the early 1960s to 11th street. The new location was right next to Roy’s TV Den and by the City Park. Victor and Ida decided to buy a building for the office in the mid 1960’s. The building that they bought was the Christian Science Reading Room. The office stayed at this place, 538 12th street, until 1996. The family decided to move the office and the yard to the same location and found the perfect building at 2951 Wallace Drive. This is where our office currently resides.
Three Generations
After serving in the military and attending the University of California Santa Barbara, Dale returned in July of 1984 and became the General Manager. On the weekends Dale likes to play tennis with his buddies. Dale is actively involved with the local community and serves on the board for the Boys & Girls Club of North SLO County. Dale was honored as the Roblen of the Year in 2008.
Dale married Kathy Dooley in 1988. She soon became involved in the company, putting her background in accounting to work until she retired in 2010. Kathy enjoys riding and showing her Morgan horses during her free time.
In 1997 Kathy and Dale’s son Jed Dawson started working at the company. In November of 2005, he became the company Operations Manager. Jed left the company in July of 2011 and moved with his wife Katie to Oregon to study computer science at Oregon State University. As of 2013 they are currently living back in Paso Robles, with Jed working as a programmer.
Isiah Gomer, Kathy and Dale’s younger son, graduated from Cal Lutheran in May 2011 and joined the company in June.
Our Vision
The Gomer family is pushing the company forward using technologies that have never been available to the solid waste industry. In many ways PRW&R is setting new standards for the industry in terms of innovative technologies and sustainable practices that are unseen at other hauling companies throughout the nation. Since PRW&R’s inception, the fundamental element of the company has been the employees. Without all the amazing people who have worked for us over the years, it would have been impossible to service the City of Paso Robles.
Employees
We have an ever-expanding group of friends and family that work for Paso Robles Waste & Recycle. Each of the employees that work for us are fundamental to the success of the company.
Managers
- Dale Gomer, President/CEO
- Ian Hoover, General Manager
- Isiah Gomer, Recycling Coordinator
- Brian Betz, Collection Operations Supervisor
- Mark Perry, Safety Officer
- Adam Abarca, Collection Operations Supervisor
Community
The Gomer family and the Paso Robles Waste Disposal family of companies are proud to be active members of our local community not just through our participation in local organizations by also through donating to many of our local non-profits. An important note about our funding efforts is that the contributions we make do not impact the rates our customers pay for service. In the past we have supported: SLO County Food Bank, North San Luis Obispo County Boys and Girls Club, Paso Robles Recreation Leagues, Paso Robles Youth Sports Council, Paso Robles Bearcats.
Commitment to Local Businesses
Paso Robles Waste & Recycle is a member of the Paso Robles Chamber of Commerce. We use local banks and make purchases with local businesses to keep our local economy as healthy as possible. Please join us in buying local!
Environment
We embrace all movements to protect the environment and feel that our company holds a critical role in the environmental responsibility of our community. We have taken steps to make our facility and fleet have as little impact on the environment as possible. Also, we reach out to our customers to provide educational material on recycling and source reduction of waste.
In 2014 we introduced our newest trucks to the fleet, powered by clean-burning, and cheap CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) fuel. The CNG is provided by a brand new CNG station, 3G CNG, located conveniently next door to our own recently expanded operations on Wallace Drive and Combine Street. Our diesel fleet of solid waste and recycling collection vehicles have all be outfitted with diesel particulate filters. These filters “trap” the harmful particulate that diesel engines emit. A side effect of these filters is that they create greater restriction on the engine if not cleaned often and properly. In order to remove any barriers to making sure our filters are always performing optimally we purchased our own cleaning equipment.
Facility
Our facility at 2951 Wallace Drive has a 26.7 KWh solar array on the roof. The solar system generates about 70% of the power for our facility annually. Also, we have a water recovery system that recycles all the water used to wash our fleet of trucks and containers. The water recovery system does not use any chemicals or traditional filters to clean the water and instead uses bacteria. One neat feature of our water recovery system is that it captures and stores rain water for later use to offset evaporation that occurs on sunny days.
Recycling
We have been pushing recycling as an effective way for the community to protect the environment ever since it was feasible to do so. In the early 1990s we ran a series of TV commercials on KSBY to get our residential customers involved in curbside recycling. Since then we have continued to educate our customers and push for enhanced “single stream” recycling programs at all of our customer locations (residential and commercial).
What's Next?
We are always looking for creative ways to protect the environment and have many options that we are currently evaluating. We are always working on projects to bring more awareness to our recycling programs, and further down the road we hope to be expanding our operations further to provide improvements to our method of green waste processing.