BOULDER - Former advertising employees at agencies Crispin Porter + Bogusky LLC and Sterling-Rice Group Inc. have formed the new agency Grenadier in partnership with a Kansas City, Missouri-based firm.

Jeff Graham, Mark St. Amant, Rob Hofferman, Wade Paschall and Randy Rogers are partners in Grenadier, which is a subsidiary of Barkley LLC, said Graham. He declined to give financial details of the partnership. Barkley is the largest employee-owned advertising agency in the United States, with $414 million in capitalized billings in 2010, according to the company website.

Boulder "is obviously a great community to start up an agency," Graham said. "We're really bullish about Boulder and Denver as a market."

Grenadier is looking for clients who are "ideals-driven" and "challenger brands," according to a press statement. Partners in the firm have client experience that runs the gamut from corporations such as Microsoft Corp. to startup companies, Graham said. The name Grenadier was chosen to reference the 17th-century wartime specialists who served as small, disruptive forces capable of changing the course of battle, according to the press statement.

Grenadier's 3,000-square-foot office is at 1221 Pennsylvania Ave., in The Hill business district near the University of Colorado-Boulder campus. Clients of Grenadier also can receive Barkley services such as design, production, media buying and planning and campaign analytics, according to the press statement.

Grenadier is the latest local agency to be set up by former employees of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, which is based in Coconut Grove, Florida, but which has offices in Boulder, Los Angeles and London. Made in USA opened in Boulder in May with three former CPB employees. Victors & Spoils Inc. started in 2009 with two former CPB employees and others.

Barkley has numerous corporate clients, including The Hain Celestial Group Inc. (Nasdaq: HAIN); Ball Corp. (NYSE: BLL); Weight Watchers International Inc. (NYSE: WTW); Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. (NYSE: KKD); and Big O Tires LLC.