Alumni Feature: Ryan Chambers (’07)
“Not only is the world God’s creation, but caring for it is another way of caring for our neighbors.”
This fall, we connected with a number of young alumni from The King’s College to hear how they’re spending their time. How do they reflect on their years at King’s, and what has it looked like in practice for them to pursue the mission of shaping institutions? Read more alumni stories here.
Name and Graduation Year
Ryan Chambers, B.S. Business Management, 2007
Current Occupation
Director of Global Expansion for PureCycle Technologies, a NASDAQ listed ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) company with a proprietary technology that converts waste polypropylene plastic back to virgin-like material
What does a typical day look like for you?
At the high level, I ask the question: what does the critical path look like to place a PureCycle plant at any location in the world? My work touches on five elements of this critical path: (1) managing site selection and (2) supply chain network optimization, then coordinating with internal teams on (3) feedstock procurement, (4) offtake/sales, and (5) financing. We are a young company with a vital mission in a capital intensive industry. The days are long, but very rewarding because what we are doing is going to change the world.
How did your experiences as a King’s student (either in class or outside of it) give you a deeper perspective that you now use in your day to day?
I always think of my time at TKC and living in New York City in the same way Ernest Hemingway described his time living in Paris in A Moveable Feast. It was a suite of experiences so rich, beautiful, and challenging, but so constructive that it follows me everywhere I go—an experience I can return to time and time again to feast on. It was so easy to take it for granted at the time, yet when I look back I see how the rigor, the novel experiences, the relationships with classmates and professors, and most importantly, the open dialogue on the great questions, controversies, and ideas gave me a framework to view the world.
In what ways do you see your current work contributing to God’s restoration of the world (or whatever larger purpose you see yourself as part of)?
I see what we are doing as restoring nature to its intended state and ending decades of pollution that, if left unchecked, will do irreversible harm. I see caring for the planet of which God has made us stewards as a core tenet of Christianity. Not only is the world God’s creation, but caring for it is another way of caring for our neighbors. Today, 165 billion pounds of polypropylene plastic are produced each year, the largest segment of plastic production worldwide. Of that, less than 1% is recycled since the technology does not exist to do it effectively. The 99% that is not recycled gets put in landfills or leaks into the environment (oceans, streams, etc.). With PureCycle, we can change this by offering the world’s multinational brands and end consumers recycled polypropylene that is interchangeable with virgin resin.