Entrepreneur finds recycled products
Helps agencies, firms to buy 'green'
by Mary Sidney Kelly
The Boulder County Business Report
Special Section 'SBA Guide'
June 1999
Broomfield - If life were a rodeo, Vanessa Morganti would be riding
the bull well after the eight-second bell clanged.
She would be hanging on, gripping the rope with white knuckles, swinging
her arm in the air, while the bull grew tired of her on his back.
Then she would walk away, wiping the dust from her hands.
"All in a day's work," she would say.
Morganti doesn't ride bulls for a living. Some days it may feel
like it, though. Morganti, 27, recently was named Entrepreneur
of the Year by the Small Business Administration for her ceaseless efforts
to bring recycled products to government agencies and corporations.
She single handedly carved out a niche as "The Solution Provider" by
finding supplies that meet the government's rigid standard for acceptable
recycled products. Her business, Broomfield-based Future Solutions,
caters to the government agencies in Colorado, such as the Department
of Energy, that must comply with an executive order requiring agencies
to buy recycled supplies.
She helps them find things such as environmentally friendly cleaning
supplies, carpet, paint, paper, envelopes, the usual tires and oil and
the myriad other products now available.
"I know I have a viable service to offer these industries."
Her first challenge was issues by an employee of Rocky Flats' procurement
contractor, Kaiser-Hill. When Morganti was working for a company
that sold recycled cartridges to agencies, she stopped by Rocky Flats
and asked Bill Freehling if she could find anything for him.
He thought for a moment and said, "Here's a list of nine items I need
to find a source for," Freehling said. "She looked at it and said
OK. She came back and had the list of sources; retread tires,
carpet; she managed to find sources for everything."
Morganti credits that request as the motivation for starting her own
business.
"I found out I can do it," she said. "This has been a huge education
for me. I was not exposed to really good recycling or recycled-content
products. Now education is part of my mission."
To educate the public about recycled materials, Morganti is offering
recycled-content gifts from her office in Broomfield. Shoppers
can find such items as tins and money clips made with old circuit boards,
children's clothing made from swatches of fleece, Montblanc-style pens
and desk accessories decorated with a material resembling granite, which
is really recycled resin and newsprint. Then she has greeting
cards with fibers that contain seeds that can actually be planted and
hundreds of other items.
Learning the business
Morganti's learning curve has been strictly vertical since she started
her business four years ago. Now she can speak the language of
all government workers - acronymese.
"I bet I can say an entire sentence in acronyms," she warns, then begins
a litany: "USP's, GSA's, FAR..."
Not only has she managed to understand the procedures and paperwork
for complying with government regulations, she has had to learn how
to run a business with no experience and no help from the ground up.
"All the little things of running a business: employees, taxes, insurance,
plus terms, payment methods, vendors, suppliers, distributors."
The list is endless, but Morganti has a big grin on her face when she
reaches the end.
"I'm not interested in having someone else running my company.
No angel investors, forget it, no way."
Morganti has been approached by interested investors, but she says she
isn't interested in anyone owning a piece of her hard work.
"This is my life. This is my baby. This is my marriage,"
said the divorced 27-year-old. "This is what I was destined to do.
I can't think of anyone else to work for but me. It's a passion."
It's a passion that was fueled at Thornton High School by her marketing
teacher Steve Urban. He, if anyone, is to blame for her success,
she says. His class taught her how to research, how to sell an
idea and "how to deal with people who are just plain irritating."
With Urban, Morganti went to national competitions two years in a row.
"She was a successful student in the area of entrepreneurism," Urban
said. "She took third place as a junior, and she was real upset
with herself. Any other kid would have been pleased. So
she came back as a senior and took first place.
"For a person her age to achieve what she's done, it's really remarkable."
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