John Raeder will never forget the images of ash-covered people rushing from the scene of the Twin Towers disaster on Sept. 11, 2001.

"It was horrible to see the complete scattering of people," recalls Raeder, the president and chief executive officer of Denver- based IQNavigator Inc.

The scene was a vast contrast to Sept. 10,2001, when Raeder and his team met with fierce investment bankers in Manhattan - including some already stung by the burst of the Internet bubble - to try to secure financing for his software company, founded in 1999. Raeder was hammered with difficult questions but emerged from the meeting with $20 million in financing from Baker Capital.

"It meant our survival to get that financing," said Raeder, who employed 60 at the time. "And then it was like a nuclear winter hit and it would affect our business over the next three years."

His situation became even more chilling when Raeder realized that had he not cancelled an appointment at Morgan Stanley when a breakfast meeting with DeLoitte Touche came open, he would have been in the heart of the South Tower when the second plane hit.

Stunned, he and his colleagues holed up in their hotel rooms where they viewed the inferno and worried about getting home.

"I realized that my family and America was under siege," he said. "It wasn't until Sept. 14 that we were able to drive home, and then for the next 30 days we did everything we could to save our business."

In the wake of 9/11, Baker Capital almost immediately cancelled financing packages for two companies. IQNavigator was one of them.

"I came back stronger than ever that next week," said Raeder. He and his team traveled four to five days a week to sign new customers and demonstrated to Baker Capital and other investors that the procurement and optimization solutions software maker had legs by pointing to several big customers IQNavigator had already signed - Shell oil, Nike, Sony, Northrop, Xcel Energy, CH2MHMI and Level 3 Communications.

Today the logos of those companies and 20-plus Fortune 500 companies that use IQNavigator's software are framed on a wall in Raeder's Denver Tech Center office.

"We had to develop innovative products and today we continue to grow," said Raeder. "Twenty-five percent of our business is now outside U.S. borders. We tripled our revenues in '04 and we plan to double revenues in 2005."

Last fall, IQNavigator, which now employs 110, raised another $8.7 million from investors, and Raeder is meeting with investment bankers about an initial public offering targeted for 2006.

Raeder's resilient spirit was not only fueled by the events of 9/ 11 but by the long line of entrepreneurs in his family.

"I'm a fourth generation Coloradan who knew business was my calling from the day I watched my dad and my mom operate their businesses," said Raeder, 41, a Littleton High School graduate who went on to the University of Colorado to study business and after graduation worked on the West Coast for 14 years.

"It was typical for us to talk business when we were young. And even during the holidays at the dining room table it became like a mini-stockholder meeting as we'd all talk about our businesses."