Doing the Doing

The founder’s account of Clean Harbors — the hazardous-waste and environmental-services company McKim started in 1980 with a single truck in Massachusetts and grew, largely by acquisition, into a continental network of incinerators, landfills, and emergency-response crews. The title is his own phrase for the unglamorous operating work that a services business is actually made of.

Why it’s on the list: Bold on @mastersinvest’s 2025 list, meaning the curator rated it very good rather than merely read.

Where I saw it: @mastersinvest’s “2025 Reading … so far” list, August 20, 2025, where it appears in bold. The full 46-title list is transcribed on 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet).

Connections

• 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet) — the list this came from.
• Roll-up — Clean Harbors was built by serial acquisition of regional operators.
• Waste Management — the industry the book is a first-person history of.