Business is really picking up for idealist turned trash man.

• Position: David Kirkpatrick's SunShares Inc.

David Kirkpatrick, a self-admitted idealist, has made some serious missteps in his career. The director of the Durham-based nonprofit corporation SunShares Inc. was inspecting a church attic for insulation when he stepped between the rafters and took a shortcut to the sanctuary.

Kirkpatrick's co-workers were in stitches, but they aren't laughing anymore. After graduating from Duke University with a dual major in physics and history in 1982, the Columbia, S.C., native built a two-man outfit pushing homemade solar collectors into a 40-man, $2 million-a-year recycling company.

His timing was flawless. With landfills filling up, recycling has become a necessity. Waste-hauling giants such as $3.1 billion-a-year BFI Inc. and $7.5 billion Waste Management Inc. have capitalized on the opportunity and driven many nonprofit do-gooders who pioneered recycling out of business. Not so SunShares.

In 1988, SunShares won the curbside recycling contract for Durham, beating out BFI and Triangle Waste, a division of Waste Management. The key to success has been pushing participation with door-to-door campaigns.

"In three years, we have enrolled 60% of Durham's households in our curbside recycling program," he says. "We get that kind of participation by going directly into the community, recruiting volunteer block...