When Salvatore H. Alfiero was profiled in newspaper articles in the late 1980s, after his business, Mark IV Industries, had become Buffalo's first new Fortune 500 company in a decade, reporters remarked how different he was from other corporate executives. 

Jerry Zremski described him in 1988 in The Buffalo News as "an affable, rumpled fellow," adding, "Alfiero is a working chairman; you can tell that by looking at his desk, which looks as if a filing cabinet has just been emptied onto it. He rarely wears a suit coat; instead, he works with sleeves rolled up.