The VOE Podcast is focusing on Earth Day, Friday, April 22. We're talking to a leader in the sustainability arena, to someone who is really hoping to drive results in this space. That person is Kathleen Pitre, president of Beverage Packaging in North and Central America for Ball Corporation. The Daniels College of Business has had a great relationship with Ball Corporation, hosting CEO John Hayes for Voice of Experience in 2016, providing student consulting projects, guest speaking in classrooms. Kathleen has been with Ball for 18 years, much of it working on their sustainability efforts. 
The VOE Podcast is an extension of Voices of Experience, the signature speaker series at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. Keep tuning in each month for more business insights from Daniels’ alumni voices of experience.
Transcript
Kristal Griffith:
Kathleen, we’re delighted to host you. Welcome to the VOE Podcast.
Kathleen Pitre:
Thanks Kristal. Great to be with you.
Kristal Griffith:
So before we get to our big topic of the day, I'd like people to, to know you. I know you went to Colorado state university for your bachelor's and masters in technical and speech communications. You started your career at ball aerospace in communications, and then moved over to ball core in 2014. Can you share a little bit about your background, your career journey?
Kathleen Pitre:
Sure. As you mentioned I started in ball aerospace. I worked in our aerospace business for 11 years doing a variety of things, whether it was marketing, business development, government relations, customer relations, et cetera. And then in 2014, I moved over to the corporate side where I did corporate relations. That's when I really got involved in sustainability and became our head of sustainability, which I did until, 2019, where I became the chief commercial officer, which is basically our head of sales for our global organization, as well as our chief sustainability officer. That was the first time that we formally put ability in sales together. And in September I started the job that I'm in now, which is president of our north and central America beverage packaging business.
Kristal Griffith:
Kathleen, I was gonna lead right into that. I'm curious what that means. I'm thinking specifically for our listeners, maybe our students, you, what does your job entail? What does that look like?
Kathleen Pitre:
We are the largest beverage canned manufacturer in the world. Ball's North and Central America business that I run is, is the largest division within Ball. So if you live in the United States or you live in Canada or Mexico, Central America, almost half of the beverage cans made in those regions are made by Ball. This year our goal is to make and sell 60 billion aluminum beverage cans. So we make a lot of cans and, we fill them with energy drinks and Selzer and sparkling water and soda and, whatever you can think to put in a can, we will sell the can for it.
Kristal Griffith:
I love it. I love it. Yeah. I've seen cans all over the place. And I think at one point maybe there was some kind of crisis or something. And so you ended up putting water in them for a country that would a need. So I've seen you do all sorts of things like that for kind of a social good mission as well.
Kathleen Pitre:
Yes, our, we have several of our, uh, large customers like Molson Coors and Anheuser Bush and Beverage as well as, a craft brew customer, Oscar Blue. And we have disaster relief water programs where we donate the cans and they fill the cans and distribute them to people in need. It's it is a great partnership.
Kristal Griffith:
Let's get to our big topic of the day. Um, earth day, all corporation has put forth some ambitious sustainability goals in the past year. The company is calling it toward a perfect circle. It's really emphasizing products being fully recyclable. So talk a little bit about that vision and where it came from.
Kathleen Pitre: