EY US announces Gabriel Rio of Milestone Environmental Services as an Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2025 Gulf South Award Winner

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 13, 2025--

Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) today announced that Gabriel Rio, President and CEO of Milestone Environmental Services, LLC, (“Milestone”), a leading environmental infrastructure company, was named an Entrepreneur Of The Year 2025 Gulf South Award winner. Entrepreneur Of The Year is the preeminent competitive awards program for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies. For 40 years, EY US has celebrated ambitious entrepreneurs who are transforming industries, impacting communities and creating long-term value.

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Mr. Rio was chosen by an independent panel of past winners, top CEOs, and business leaders. Judges assessed candidates on long-term value creation, entrepreneurial spirit, purpose-driven commitment, and significant growth and impact.

“It is an honor to receive this prestigious award. This achievement would not have been possible without the people that have persevered with me over the years - my incredible team, partners, mentors, and most of all my family - I’m grateful to share this award with them. Together, we have built a company that is not only transforming waste management but also driving meaningful environmental progress for our clients across critical sectors,” said Mr. Rio.

“At Milestone, we are committed to delivering reliable, cost-effective, end-to-end waste management solutions with agility and flexibility, enabling our customers to achieve their environmental goals while mitigating risk. Building on our strong legacy and deep expertise in energy waste solutions, we are expanding into industrial waste management and carbon solutions, further cementing our commitment to sustainable growth and leadership in the environmental infrastructure sector.”

As a Gulf South award winner, Mr. Rio is now eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2025 National Awards. The National Award winners, including the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner, will be announced in November at the Strategic Growth Forum ®, one of the nation’s most prestigious gatherings of high-growth, market-leading companies. The Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner will then move on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Award in June 2026.

Entrepreneur Of The Year recognizes many different types of business leaders for their ingenuity, courage and entrepreneurial spirit. The program celebrates original founders who bootstrapped their business from inception or who raised outside capital to grow their company; transformational CEOs who infused innovation into an existing organization to catapult its trajectory; and multigenerational family business leaders who reimagined a legacy business model to strengthen it for the future.

The Entrepreneur Of The Year program has recognized the leadership of entrepreneurs such as:

  About Entrepreneur Of The Year

Founded in 1986, Entrepreneur Of The Year has celebrated more than 11,000 ambitious visionaries who are leading successful, dynamic businesses in the US, and it has since expanded to nearly 60 countries globally.

The US program consists of 17 regional programs whose panels of independent judges select the regional award winners every June. Those winners compete for national recognition at the Strategic Growth Forum® in November where National finalists and award winners are announced. The overall National winner represents the US at the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ competition. Visit ey.com/us/eoy.

About EY

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About Milestone Environmental Services

Milestone is a leading environmental infrastructure company delivering reliable, safe, and disciplined waste management solutions to help businesses across critical sectors in the United States mitigate risk and achieve their environmental goals. Milestone operates the largest slurry injection network in the U.S., using advanced proprietary technology to permanently secure waste.

Since 2014, Milestone has captured more than 3 million tons of CO 2 e through its injection process, driving meaningful environmental progress for its clients. Building on its expertise in energy waste, Milestone is expanding into industrial waste management and carbon solutions to support sustainable growth.

Milestone is a portfolio company of SK Capital Partners, a sector-focused, growth-oriented private investment firm with extensive operating, ownership, and investment experience.

Gabriel J. Rio, President and CEO of Milestone Environmental Services, LLC, was named an Entrepreneur Of The Year 2025 Gulf South Award winner by Ernst & Young LLP (EY US).

JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.

The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.

Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.

“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.

Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.

Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.

She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.

The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.

The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.

Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.

“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”

Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.

The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.

That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.

For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.

Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.

"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”

An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)