Entrepreneur Grows Fleet to Help Manage Waste in DFW

Most people wouldn’t respond to getting laid off by starting a company. Diana Martinez is not like most people.

“Being a Latina, being in a male-dominated industry, I’m not afraid,” says Martinez, who founded HD Waste & Recycling in Dallas, Texas, in the summer of 2009 with two used trucks and six containers. Today, the company has 42 employees and over 30 trucks — and it serves thousands of clients across the Dallas-Fort Worth region. It provides a vital public service, while supplementing municipal haulers in the area.

“I tell other women: It’s a lot of work. But you can do it if you put in the effort and have the right people to guide you,” she says.

Martinez moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the 1990s, and she’s seen the area grow dramatically. ”It’s a huge market,” she says. “And we want to be a part of it.”

Support for Exponential Growth

Martinez had 20 years of industry experience when she launched HD Waste & Recycling. As a new business owner, she was very protective of her finances and initially worked only with cash. But to grow her company, she knew she needed to get comfortable with the idea of financing.

To do that, she needed to trust that her business would be in good hands. So, in 2012, Martinez connected with Luis Fernandez, a local analyst at JPMorgan Chase.

Fernandez worked with Martinez to help her secure a loan to expand her fleet. Her growing company, which had only commercial accounts when it started, has acquired over 3,000 residential clients since 2022.

Martinez and HD Waste & Recycling represent just a sliver of the thousands of businesses and entrepreneurs that JPMorgan Chase has been supporting in Dallas-Fort Worth for more than 100 years. She smiles when recalling a visit she received from a JPMorgan Chase regional manager.

“It’s good to know that they took the time to visit my office. We’re a waste company—it’s not corporate,” she says. “We rode through the yard in the dusty cart. To me, that was great.”

Learn more about JPMorgan Chase's commitment to Dallas-Fort Worth.

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