California-based Sun Devil 100 honoree shares journey as a recovery coach

The Sun Devil 100 Class of 2025 features six exceptional alumni-led businesses based in California that collectively generated $615.1 million in revenue during the 2023 fiscal year.

Meet Gregg Champion, one of the outstanding alumni recognized in this year’s class.

When Gregg Champion, founder and partner at START UP RECOVERY, returned to Arizona State University as a Sun Devil 100 honoree, it was more than just a moment of recognition for his business. It was a profound homecoming.

Walking the campus and seeing transformed buildings alive with innovation and progress, he reflected on his own entrepreneurial roots. What began decades ago as designing and selling T-shirts in his fraternity has evolved into a powerful career in behavioral health as a recovery coach

 and entrepreneur.

“It’s a full-circle moment,” Champion says.

Over the course of his life, Champion has navigated three careers. He started with sports broadcasting, shifted to the entertainment industry and now works in the world of addiction recovery.

“One of the great things about ASU is the number of people who are still my lifelong contacts, both personally and professionally,” he says.

After teaching an entrepreneurship class at the University of Southern California and mentoring dozens of young people, Champion found a new calling when he was 23 years sober. He wanted to help people early in their journey, to share not just wisdom, but experience.

“A great mentor gives you their mistakes,” Champion says, reflecting on the moment START UP RECOVERY was created. “If I’m going to create a program, I’m going to create a program with entrepreneurship, long term sobriety, mentorship and coaching.”

In 2017, alongside partners Patricia Meyers and Jeffrey Vann, Champion launched START UP RECOVERY in the heart of West L.A.’s recovery community. The company is a transitional living and wellness program that integrates business principles with behavioral health, driven by the mission of "shifting addiction to passion.”

And for many clients, that’s exactly what happened. Champion leverages his own knowledge of ASU’s online program to have some START UP clients complete their college degrees. Others have opened businesses or even launched careers as professional artists. The key point in the program’s success is that every client is treated uniquely.

But on January 7, 2025, everything changed for Champion. He lost his personal home and three of START UP’s buildings in the Palisades Fire, wiping out a large chunk of revenue.

“Our biggest challenge was figuring out how to take care of our clients who were there on that hill, how to find new clients and how to rebrand START UP RECOVERY to be the same dynamic product that we had in the Pacific Palisades,” he says.

Clients were soon relocated to a new property in Santa Monica, and operations began to stabilize. Staff were retained, the lights stayed on and the bills were paid – but profit margins disappeared. Still, Champion saw this challenge not as an ending, but as an entrepreneurial redirect.

“It’s almost like START UP is starting over again,” he says. “And any good startup has to know how to pivot.”

For Champion, that meant helping clients, paying key staff and upholding the reputation and quality of services that defines the brand.

His resilience can be traced back to personal experience and adaptation, supported by the education he received at ASU. In 2013, Champion returned to finish his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts as a sober adult, inspired by his family.

“I would encourage anybody who has lingering credits or is only a semester away to go back,” he says. “Go back as an adult. Go back sober. I promise you'll enjoy the journey, and your GPA will be much higher than before.”

Now a successful recovery coach and addiction expert, Champion lives by one motto: mentor other people’s causes. His own cause is clear – helping others rebuild from the ashes, literally and figuratively.