4 | Diversified Medical Services
Company Founder Danny Mangum has no
problem conceding that in the year prior to
starting the company, he had no background
in medical services or waste services, nor did
he have particular awareness of the challeng-
es and opportunities in this very specialized
and heavily-regulated industry. Mangum
had worked, some years earlier, in insurance.
He also had been a principal with a company
that provided commercial sweeping services
essential to the maintaining of parking lots.
One afternoon, Mangum says he was sim-
ply taking a leisurely drive when he began
to wonder what healthcare companies do
with the medical waste they generate. He’ll
say that the pondering wasn’t prompted by
anything in the news, or conversations with
peers; in fact, he can’t even explain exactly
why such considerations even entered into
his conscious. Mangum was so struck with
the notion that he began “infectiously” re-
searching all he could about medical waste.
HAZARDOUS TO HEALTH
Issues involving medical waste have been
an ongoing area of research and analysis of
the World Health Organization. WHO
estimates that 20% of all the general waste
