The Yager file
Walter Yager
Co-founder and CEO
Alpine Fresh Inc.
Born: San Francisco, Calif.
Education: Bachelor degree, finance, University of Florida
Who has been the most influential person in your life?
Jesus Christ. He’s a guiding light in trying to do the right thing. Our director of sales is John Lyons. Years ago, when he was with us, we were relatively new, and we were having some logistical issues. He came to me and he said, ‘We have a problem. We don’t have any product, and I don’t know what to tell the customer. What should I tell the customer?’ And I said, ‘Tell them the truth.’ He looked at me like I was talking Chinese. ‘What do you mean? In business, you tell the truth?’ (Jesus is) just a guiding principle to try to do the best we can and try to be as truthful as we can in what we’re doing.
What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you?
One of our first bankers who we went to get financing from to work on this project, he said there will always be another deal of a lifetime.
We argued that there wasn’t and that this was the deal we had to do. Of course, we did it and lost money at it. Usually, when you lose money is when you learn your best lessons. You tend to not listen when things are going well. We didn’t learn it right then and there. It may be a deal of a lifetime that you pass up on. But there will always be another one.
