ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 17, 1997 TAG: 9702170006
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: McDAVID STILWELL THE DAILY PROGRESS
David Kopans wants to beat the garbage man to your house, lighten the letter carrier's sack and cut the telemarketers off your phone lines.
By reducing the amount of direct-marketing clutter in Americans' lives, the 28-year-old Charlottesville resident aims to save a few trees from the paper mills and a few family dinners from unwanted telephone sales pitches.
And on top of it all, Kopans plans to make a profit.
For $15 a household, Kopans' business, Zero Junk Mail, will work to move its members' names from thousands of lists in direct marketers' files to a new list labeled ``do not contact.''
The company claims it can reduce the junk mail and sales calls by 75 percent for his clients.
Kopans said it takes about a tree and a half to create all the paper an average household receives in junk mail each year. ``They are not reading half of that, and they are only responding to about a twig's worth,'' Kopans said.
``When you give information to companies, they can go out and sell that information. Our company helps individuals get out of the loop.''
Kopans said he and his colleagues have compiled a list of thousands of direct marketing companies they contact on behalf of customers.
The companies respond when they are asked not to contact a specific person because federal and state laws require them to, Kopans said. But they also reduce their own costs when they don't mail a catalog to someone who doesn't want it to begin with, he said.
Kopans said some customers hate direct marketing in any form, while others may enjoy catalogs but dislike telemarketing pitches and unwanted e-mail.
Zero Junk Mail can reduce the unsolicited number of e-mails and phone calls receive without slowing the flow of glossy catalogs.
Kopans worked for eight years in New York City as an accountant for Coopers & Lybrand and a financial officer for a small computer start-up firm. He got the idea for Zero Junk Mail when he and his wife continued to receive direct mailings addressed to relatives who had died years before.
``There are some things you just can't do on your own,'' he said. ``You can't contact 2,000 direct marketing firms on your own, but we can do that for you.''
The company was established last year by Kopans and a colleague in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Since the business was still small, it was easy enough for Kopans to move it to Charlottesville when his wife, Lauren, began graduate school this semester at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education.
Kopans said he expects the company to grow quickly, and he intends to add staff at his headquarters - the wood-paneled basement of his home in Charlottesville.
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