For more than a century, Rubatino Refuse Removal has been collecting the city of Everett’s trash. It’s been a long haul for the Rubatino family, which founded the business in 1907. Late last year, the Rubatinos sold the disposal company to three partners: Stephan Banchero III, president of Cedar Grove, a Seattle-based organic composting company; Darrick Dietrich, president of Pasco-based Basin Disposal; and Marc Torre, president of Sunshine Disposal in Spokane.
Together, they formed a new ownership group independent of their respective companies. “The three of us came together separately to make the purchase,” Banchero said. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
They’re exactly the kind of buyers that 91-year-old Edward Rubatino, who joined the family business in 1957, was searching for when he decided to sell the 114-year-old company. Ed, who worked full-time as president through December, had spent 64 years on the job. “My father wanted to keep the business as a family business,” said Rose Rubatino Goulet, Ed Rubatino’s daughter and a former fourth-generation business owner. “We just feel that the community is really taken care of, in a special way, with a family-run business versus an international corporation,” Rubatino Goulet said.