Data Destructors

The go-for-it-with-gusto sales instincts Miranda Monahan had when she worked at an Internet-based hardware technology sales firm in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1999 was bottled up for a simple reason: Monahan was a receptionist.

But Monahan treated entry-level monotony like a full-time paid training session to learn all the departments within the company. Then 22, Monahan also pestered the sales director for a promotion. After a few weeks of Monahan's relentless pleas, the director made a deal with Monahan. The novice sales rep could take sales calls on a fill-in basis for people on vacation.

Monahan discovered she was good at sales. A decade later she turned that knack, along with her steely resolve, into her own business. The 3-year-old firm, M-PowerTech, run out of an office in northeast Manatee County, is in the fast growing and fragmented $10 billion electronic waste and recycling industry. These are companies that safely and properly destroy, refurbish and recycle technology hardware products and data other businesses use.