[citation needed] Born in Columbia, South Dakota, on June 6, 1931, Buntrock began learning about business as a youngster working for his father, Rudy Buntrock, a community leader who owned a farm services business that included International Harvester farm equipment, tractors and trucks, along with Standard Oil products, hardware and other farming-related needs.
Guided by his father's businesses and by his mother, Lillian (née Hustad), Buntrock showed entrepreneurial traits by raising chickens and growing potatoes.
[3] Buntrock's was raised a Lutheran and his early education was based on his parents' Christian values, such as tithing, saving, respect and pursuing excellence.
He served in the Korean War, attending finance school at Fort Benjamin Harrison, before returning to St. Olaf to complete his college studies in 1955.
Buntrock soon connected with Wayne Huizenga, his wife's first cousin who operated Southern Sanitation Services, a small but fast-growing garbage hauling business in Broward County, Florida begun in 1962.
[2] In 1968, Buntrock incorporated Waste Management Inc. His goal was to organize a single holding company to bring together the disparate operations that he and Wayne Huizenga had cobbled together.
[4] Buntrock knew that Waste Management needed to operate on a larger scale in order to attract future investors.
In late 1970, in a series of transactions handled by his brother-in-law, Peter Huizenga (a young lawyer in Chicago), Buntrock's vision was put into action.
At the same time, Waste Management acquired the CID Landfill, a 150-acre disposal facility on the Chicago/Calumet City border which Buntrock had developed and opened in 1967.
On January 1, 1971, these three founding partners, Buntrock, Huizenga and Beck, officially began business together under the new Waste Management brand.
Buntrock and his partners had been supporting their companies’ early growth with borrowings from community banks in Berwyn, Cicero and Oak Park, Illinois.
[2] Waste Management, with The Chicago Corporation as its lead underwriter, went public on June 17, 1971, approximately 19 months after the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency on December 2, 1970.
For a time, it expanded internationally, introducing municipal cleaning services in Saudi Arabia,[5] and serving customers in more than 20 countries in Europe, South America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Buntrock, Harold Vandermolen, another Chicagoan, and Marshall Rabins from California each contributed $5,000 to engage a lawyer to incorporate the small group.
The association focused on recruiting new members and began monitoring developments in labor law, public health and trade practices.
As it began to reach out to federal government agencies, its leaders recognized they needed a more formally organized national voice.
Buntrock hired a small Washington public relations firm, Larry Hogan Associates, to manage the group.
[19] The award recognizes “contemporary role models whose experiences exemplify that opportunities for a successful life are available to all individuals who are dedicated to the principles of integrity, hard work, perseverance and compassion for others.” Buntrock was a 1992 inductee into the Sales & Marketing Executives International Academy of Achievement, established to recognize notable lifetime contributions to the free enterprise system through personal and corporate success in sales and marketing.
[10] In August 2005, The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had reached a settlement with Mr. Buntrock and three other former Waste Management executives to resolve a civil complaint issued in 2002.