Emerging company of the year: alpine waste & recycling: Denver business knew its niche from the outset: uncommon service.

• Author: Lewis, David
• Position: ASSOCIATION FOR CORPORATE GROWTH SPECIAL SECTION

Lots of people lately have accused businesspeople of being motivated by greed.

As far as Alpine Waste & Recycling CEO John Griffith is concerned, at least, they have the prime motivator all wrong.

"It's funny because when people ask me that, I've always said that fear is the best motivator," Griffith says.

Fear has followed Griffith throughout the decade-plus history of Alpine, from its earliest days as a business plan with zero funding to 2011 as a company with about $25 million in annual revenue.

Regardless of motivation, the ongoing successes of Alpine Waste earned it this year's Association for Corporate Growth-Denver's Emerging Company of the Year Award.

Nobody would blame Griffith for feeline anxiety over the launch of Alpine. The company began in 1999 when he learned he was due to be laid off by BFI Waste Services, a giant trash removal company that has since changed hands several times.

'When your bosses start writing you unsolicited letters of recommendation, that's not a good sign," he notes.

Griffith began by asking, "'What else is there for me?' I was about to lose my job, and I started telling everyone I was about to start this, and it got to the point where I would seem like a blow-hard if I didn't actually do it. I was a sales manager for BFI, and I knew how to sell the service, but I just didn't know the back end. So I began playing with the numbers."

The number that eventually launched Alpine's stage one was $700,000, the amount of the private stock Griffith sold for his nascent business.

Not that this success let him off the hook.

"I was concerned I wouldn't get it, but it took only a few weeks; it was a very easy sell. The angels, everybody was somebody I was familiar with, which was nice. That was nice and it's not nice. If you foil, then you're out of friends and family. But if you succeed, then you don't have people breathing down your neck like you might if they were angel investors."

Alpine gained a foothold in the waste disposal industry because of Griffith's ability to hire, and then delegate, and his business' ability to spot niches.

His first hires included Griffith's brother-in-law, now-company CFO Alek Orloff, and Tom Reed, previously a BFI shop manager, now plant manager for Alpine's Altogether Recycling division.

"Alek helped me at the start with the company P&L statements, the financials, and some of those pieces that are not my strong suit," Griffith says. "And Tom was helping me price out trucks. He asked...