Entrepreneur of the year: The finalists.

PATRICK SOON-SHIONG, M.D.

Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer

American Pharmaceutical Partners, Inc.

In 1993 Patrick Soon-Shiong made medical history by engineering a protein into a nanoparticle 1/100th the size of a red blood cell. The nanoparticle, ABI-007, was designed to aid in the treatment of diabetes, and because it mimics the natural function of cells, requires no drugs to prevent rejection. But when Patrick submitted his new discovery to pharmaceutical companies, he was told it was impossible to produce it in large amounts.

A medical doctor and a research scientist by training, Patrick is a born entrepreneur as well. When he was told something couldn't be done, he found a way to do it. That tenacity led to the creation of American Pharmaceutical Partners (APP), the only nanoparticle manufacturing facility in the U.S.

One of APP's key strategies is to use its rights to nanoparticle technology to invent and develop new proprietary versions of cancer-fighting treatments. One such example where APP has integrated its patented technology is with paclitaxel, the active ingredient for breast cancer's leading medicine, Taxol. This version of ABI-007 is in phase Ill of clinical trials for metastatic breast cancer and is scheduled to launch in 2004.

APP currently has more than 67 FDA approvals, with 11 more drug applications pending and more than 50 products in development. As the only U.S. nanoparticle manufacturing facility, APP is uniquely positioned for growth.

APP additionally fulfills an important need of the medical community as a reliable provider of a broad portfolio of sterile, difficult-to-manufacture, urgently-needed pharmaceutical products for acutely ill patients. The company is one of the largest producers of injectable pharmaceuticals, with more than 130 generic products, in more than 360 dosages and formulations.

Patrick's multidisciplinary skill set as scientist, doctor and CEO enable him to originate breakthrough science, understand the potential medical value and act on that knowledge to facilitate the development of amazing advances in biotechnology.

ADRIENNE LISE MOREA

President

Atlas Homewares

"If you can imagine it, you can achieve it," said the cardboard sign Adrienne Morea's father slipped into her Christmas stocking in 1984. Little did he know that his belief in her ability to achieve anything she desired in life would set a standard for her career endeavors for the next 20 years.

Educated at Colorado State University, with a B.A. in Journalism and a minor in Fashion Design, Adrienne joined forces with her sister to form a successful trend-driven costume jewelry company. "You and What Army?" provided timely designs for stores that included Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Barney's.

A decade later, challenged with a kitchen badly in need of a face-lift, Adrienne knew that the dull hardware designs available would not give her the look she wanted. She decided to create her own, and it was the beginning of Atlas Homewares. Adrienne discarded the idea that functional hardware should also be unimaginative, and created "jewelry for cabinets" -- upscale, artistic accents that amplified a home's beauty. The concept was embraced by consumers.

The company motto, "Atlas Homewares ... because Style matters!" is the business model. Adrienne believes it is what separates her company from competitors. Atlas is a trend designer, not locked into a specific look or architectural style. The company is prolific and varied in its designs, and Adrienne relishes the opportunity to take chances with a new look. The greatest challenge is always to be first-to-market with a trend. Atlas has become a valuable resource to the growing number of lifestyle megastores, which have come to rely on the company not only for style innovation, but top-of-the line packaging, merchandising and value.

Adrienne's attention to detail, fearless approach to competition and the quality of her designs have put Atlas at the forefront of their market. The company's elegant hardware is sold through retail giants like Expo Design Center, The Great Indoors, Restoration Hardware, Home Depot, Lowe's and Sears. Her father's gift of the little cardboard sign with the beautiful words, sits on her desk still today.

LEONARD M. HENDRICKSON

President & Chief Executive Officer

BioSource International, Inc.

Len Hendrickson fuses a background in chemical engineering with a brilliant record in building businesses. He brought both to BioSource International when he joined the company in 2001. BioSource is a life science reagent company, supplying proteins, antibodies and assay kits to medical researchers at. pharmaceutical and biotech companies, as well as academic medical research institutions.

BioSource had a solid reputation as a quality supplier in a number of reagent categories. It had very good assay development abilities, and a growing product line of difficult-to-produce antibodies. However, the identity of the company was poorly defined. In addition, two rapid leadership changes had left it without direction.

Len clarified BioSource's objectives and set about expanding and focusing the company's areas of expertise. He added almost 50% to the budget for research and development, to give BioSource even greater depth in its products. As a result the company has become the leading provider in the fields of cytokine and cellular signaling technologies.

BioSource pioneered the application of traditional assay technology to the signal transduction arena. This combines traditional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with phosphorylation site antibodies to quantify the amount of important signaling proteins. This, in turn, enables researchers to follow changes in the amount of these proteins with various stimuli. The new technology is superior to other techniques because it has significantly higher throughput and can be quantified and validated. Also, because it uses equipment already existing in biomedical research labs, it can be easily adapted by drug development companies. This new process, called phosphoELISA, is currently awaiting patent certification.

CHUCK DAVIS 

President & Chief Executive Officer

BizRate.com

While other dot-coins have collapsed in the troubled economy, Chuck Davis built BizRate.com into an e-commerce powerhouse.

From its inception, BizRate.com's mission has been to harness the connectivity of the Internet to empower consumers with the information and tools that will enable buyers to connect to sellers. BizRate.com began operations as an online research company, rating retailers at a time when e-commerce was new and consumers were wary about online shopping in general.

As consumer mindsets evolved from suspicious to savvy regarding online shopping, BizRate.com's business model also evolved. The company took its core online research capability and used it to build the most reliable and comprehensive comparison shopping search site on the Web, with a host of other features to meet online shoppers' needs. Currently the BizRate.com site offers shoppers best-of-breed comparison shopping features, including user-friendly Smiley Scale merchant reliability ratings compiled from a vast proprietary feedback network consisting of over 7,000 merchants, who allow BizRate to solicit direct feedback at the point-of-sale, and after fulfillment, from over 10 million customers each month. The Smiley Scale rating system green-flags well-performing merchants and red-flags poorly-performing merchants. These services allow users to feel confident about the choices they make in their online shopping.

In addition to merchant reliability information, BizRate.com offers product specs, consumer ratings and reviews of products, a comprehensive price comparison, including taxes, shipping and handling, as well as hundreds of special offers across 20 popular shopping categories.

This powerhouse information source attracts an amazing 11 million visitors each month, is consistently ranked in the top 5 e-commerce sites on the Web, and proves that e-commerce can, in fact, be highly profitable.

MELISSA ORR

President & Chief Executive Officer

Campaigners, Inc.

Campaigners Inc. was the brainchild of Melissa Orr. She recognized that while many high technology firms excelled in their own fields, they lacked the expertise to promote their products. Melissa created Campaigners to provide a world-class sales and marketing force to such companies, on an outsourced basis.

Delivering exceptional services has meant providing a way for clients to speedily evaluate the effectiveness of individual marketing campaigns. Historically, manufacturers have not had real-time access to their campaign results until days, even weeks, after an event takes place. To supply clients with immediate results, Campaigners created ResultsNOW, a real-time, web-based reporting system displaying up-to-the-minute results, easily accessible to clients 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week.

Online tracking is one of Campaigners' three main areas of focus. In addition to 24/7 web reporting, Campaigners provides field sales services and event marketing and promotions, including sponsorship management. When Sierra Mist sought to launch their national presence at the Super Bowl, they went to Campaigners for help. The company delivered a targeted product and brand awareness campaign in San Diego that included: limo-style Navigators operating as "tipsy taxis"; distribution of Sierra Mist products and T-shirts; a 5 day campaign in San Diego leading up to the Super Bowl; street marketing and impromptu visits by the Sierra Mist Super Team; and a "secret shopper" program on college campuses. The effort was tremendously successful, the brand launched and the client was extremely satisfied.

Campaigners quickly expanded from handling high-tech companies only to a complete range of retail clients. Five years after its founding, Campaigners has developed and launched over 150 profitable and successful campaigns. The firm conceives, executes and manages sales and marketing programs for a client list that includes Fortune 1000 companies such as FujiFilm, Samsung and Adaptec.

JOHN DORMAN

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Digital Insight Corporation

At the time John Dorman took over the helm of Digital Insight, the company was a small website builder looking to add to its services with the development of online products. John's background in the financial industry and experience with building his own successful company made him just the man for the job. In the last five years, John has grown the business over twenty times its original size and earned it a 40 percent share of its target market.

Digital Insight specializes in online financial services for mid-sized banks. Early in his tenure, John understood that to ensure success as an outsourced Internet banking provider, the company needed to partner with data processing vendors (DPVs) that handle customer data for all banks and credit unions. By implementing this theory, Digital Insight would be able to offer real-time data to online banking end users. This, in turn, would spur higher adoption of the online channel. Digital Insight has established partnerships with more than 40 DPVs, covering approximately 75% of their addressable market.

John recognized that the true value of the online channel was its ability to deepen customer relationships through cross-selling of additional Internet-based products and services. As a result, while many competitors were focused exclusively on Internet banking offerings for consumers, John championed Digital Insight's entry into online lending and online cash management -- Internet banking for a financial institution's commercial customers. This model has become widely accepted in the industry today. John's vision led to the company's broad product offering, which uniquely positioned Digital Insight to deliver value to their clients.

Digital Insight constantly upgrades its products with new enhancements that meet the evolving needs of the growing online banking base. The company's sophisticated services meet the needs of over 1600 clients and approximately 3.5 million end users.

ANTHONY PALMA 

President & Chief Executive Officer Easton Sports, Inc.

Tony Palma brought his love of winning to Easton Sports. Not satisfied with the company's standing as a manufacturer of baseball bats and hockey sticks, he focused the business on R&D and set out to make Easton the premiere brand in baseball, hockey and bicycle components.

Six years later, he's done just that. Tony established creative and systematic product development within Easton. Innovative baseball bats, hockey sticks, ball gloves and bike components increased sales two-fold and propelled the company's growth.

A research project in applying a rare earth element, Scandium (found only in the Ukraine), paid huge dividends as it allowed for the development of a multimatrix alloy. This strong but lightweight alloy enabled Easton to pioneer new products in both the baseball bat and bicycle components categories.

Easton became a pioneer in applying composite (graphite) technologies to sporting goods products. It was the first company to bond graphite to aluminum, and created the breakthrough C-Core bat that balanced performance and durability. The company developed graphite hockey shafts and then hockey blades and increased its exposure in the NHL. In 1999, Easton launched the Synergy hockey stick that again revolutionized the sport. Nearly 60% of NHL players currently use Easton sticks.

In the specialty bike market, Easton set the bar by developing the strongest, yet lightest weight, components. Using both aluminum and composite materials, Easton has innovated new handlebars, forks and stems and has become a premiere brand name.

Product development efforts are guided by comprehensive studies of market dynamics. By knowing what athletes want and need, and being the first to deliver it, Tony has made Easton a leader in the team sports industry.

GREGORY T. FORGATCH

President & Chief Executive Officer

eHarmony.com

With three out of four marriages resulting in either divorce or unhappiness, Greg Forgatch believed that people could form better relationships if they were truly compatible. In 1997, along with Dr. Neil Clark Warren, Greg launched a nationwide research project examining in-depth the marriages of 5,000 people. The results from this project led to the proprietary comprehensive matching engine that has served as the foundation for eHarmony.com.

eHarmony allows people to realistically evaluate the compatibility of others before investing time and emotion in a relationship. The company uses an intricate questionnaire to evaluate 29 points of psychology critical to compatibility. A client is placed in a virtual room containing only individuals who are highly compatible with them, based on evaluation of the critical dimensions that are predictable in relationships that work. eHarmony then assists the client to get to know each person in a safe and anonymous fashion, while helping them ask the important questions, and then allowing them to discover the chemistry. Simply put, eHarmony creates the opportunity for people to fall in love for all the right reasons.

eHarmony.com adheres to the core belief of matching only on characteristics that determine long-term success, rather than asking clients for shopping lists of superficial criteria. The company also screens out users who are not relationship-ready by testing for emotional health, honesty and requiring users to be at least 21 years of age.

The effectiveness of the system has been proven by the success of the company, which has grown 200% each year of its existence and has generated hundreds of solidly compatible relationships for its users. With 98 million single adults in the United States, the market for eHarmony's services is vast. This year the company will add new services to assist married couples to assess and improve their marriages through online instruments and tools. Additionally, eHarmony.com will provide resources for dating couples to better understand their relationship and the challenges they will deal with as they go forward.

NICHOLAS L. TETI, JR.

Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer

Inamed Corporation

NicholasTeti began his business career as a sales representative for Dupont-Merck Pharmaceuticals. When he left the firm 24 years later, he was CEO.

Arriving at Inamed Corporation, Nick found a company so fragmented it didn't know its own name. Four decentralized operations existed, none of them using the name Inamed.

The largest of Inamed's business lines was the McGhan breast implant division, which in turn contained a newly-acquired entity that sold collagen dermal fillers. These operations were located in Santa Barbara. Another business line marketed the newly-approved Lap Band system used in obesity surgery. A third entity, McGhan International, operated out of Dublin, Ireland. Each division existed as a stand-alone operation, with its own manufacturing, finance and human resources.

A final branch of the splintered company was the corporate office, housed in New York. "Needless to say," Nick says, "the management was not connected to the business."

Although it was clear the company needed unification, achieving it was far from simple. Interests of management and employees were centered on their own operations. People had, as Nick says, "their own turf, their own rules and their own power to protect."

Nick closed the corporate office and relocated it beside the company's largest division, in Santa Barbara. He recruited a new management team, replacing eight out of ten of the existing executives. He unified the staff with a reward system based on overall company achievement and clearly defined company goals -- and most importantly, showed people how they would achieve those goals. From barely-attached pieces, he forged a single entity, reclaimed the company name, and put it on a path of exponential growth.

SCOTT JARUS

President

j2 Global Communications 

j2 Global Communications began with one service -- Internet-based fax delivery. From that single product, it evolved into a comprehensive messaging and communications firm, providing outsourcing solutions to over 4 million customers worldwide.

As it grew, j2 Global struggled to integrate its diverse functions and bring focus to the company. What was needed was an executive with powerful organizational and communication skills -- a leader with a brilliantly clear vision, and the strength and understanding of how to implement it. j2 Global found the leader it needed in Scott Jarus.

During Scott's tenure, j2 Global has become the dominant provider in its industry. The company's network extends around the world, providing local access in more than 1,000 cities located in 18 countries on five continents. Substantial numbers of customers are added daily. In late-2000, j2 Global acquired its largest competitor, eFax.

j2 Global differentiates itself in several areas: product breadth, network reach, customer size and financial strength. The company's product suite enables its customers to manage virtually all of their messaging needs. With j2 Global services, customers can deliver voicemail via the Internet, and send facsimiles directly from a subscriber's PC application (Word, Excel, WordPerfect, etc.) without a separate fax line. j2 Global offers document management and archiving, as well as communications services such as Web-based conference calling. Capabilities will soon include wireless messaging, specialized notification capabilities and enhanced voicemail service which will allow the user to send, receive and manage all messages over the telephone instead of at a PC.

Under Scott's direction, j2 Global has become one of the fastest growing technology firms in North America.

ERIC CHEN 

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Markwins International

At the time Eric Chen founded Markwins International, the concept of an economical, imported cosmetic package was unheard of. When the company encountered resistance from retailers, Eric's partners walked away. But Eric did not. Relocating the company to Los Angeles, he worked on developing the products by customizing them to each vendor and their clientele.

Markwins' cosmetic collections soon took off, and Eric's tenacious work ethic propelled the company to an amazing 70% of the market share. The company developed an outstanding reputation for designing cosmetic and beauty care collections and accessories under its brands, The Color Institute and The Color Workshop.

Markwins' business is founded on offering non-conventional cosmetic collections that are constantly redesigned and innovated. This flexibility is a reflection of Eric's business philosophy: always seek new business; always look for alternative ways to proceed.

Equally important to Eric is a hands-on approach to business. With factories in China, and distribution and sales offices in eight countries, Eric still involves himself in every aspect of the business. He is the force behind the products that drive Markwins, personally overseeing the design, manufacturing and marketing of virtually every product. With attention to detail and boundless energy, Eric is intent on fulfilling Markwins' mission: to manufacture and sell beauty-related products, in the best quality, at the best price, in the most direct manner possible.

Forsaking the distributor model used by most other companies, Markwins staffs U.S. and foreign sales, marketing, design and administration with company employees. Markwins products reach consumers around the world through virtually all channels of retail.

Eric's innovative approach and refusal to abandon his vision introduced a unique cosmetic concept to the world, along the way creating a vertically integrated sales and distribution model that includes offices in London, Paris, Wiesbaden, Moscow, Barcelona, Dubai and Hong Kong.

LYNN & ED HOGAN

Vice Chair & Chairman

Pleasant Holidays

Forty years ago, Ed and Lynn Hogan founded Pleasant Holidays on a shoestring budget. With creativity, courage and the fundamental belief that you must deliver a great product with great service, they built an empire in the travel industry.

As the concept of packaging tours for vacations took hold in the early days of the travel industry, Ed and Lynn began packaging trips to Hawaii. In 1962 they moved their family and business from the East Coast to Los Angeles, where they could focus on the Hawaiian market.

Ed and Lynn reinvented the travel business when they began selling travel packages to agents, and not just to consumers. The concept of a travel wholesaler revolutionized the industry and put Pleasant Holidays on the map.

By establishing relationships with car rental companies, transfer companies, hotel operators and Hawaiian leisure activity companies, Ed and Lynn were able to package vacation deals which made "paradise affordable" for average tourists.

The Hogans' unique approach to marketing and advertising also made them stand out from the competition. Lynn Hogan's training in commercial art facilitated their ability to take Ed's creativity to print advertising. Using themselves and their four children in humorous advertising campaign photos, they soon became the most recognizable faces in the travel industry. Catchy slogans that were targeted at everyone from honeymooners to family vacationers created a consumer demand for a Pleasant vacation, and travel agency customers began to watch for what would come next.

Four decades of innovation and dedication to quality took Pleasant Holidays from modest beginnings to unimaginable success, and made Ed and Lynn Hogan a great American success story.

SARA MILLER McCUNE

Publisher and Chairman

Sage Publications, Inc.

Ideals were the cornerstone on which Sara Miller McCune founded Sage Publications. Her mission was to publish works of scholarship, her goal, to contribute to the world. For forty years, Sara has stood by her ideals and fulfilled her mission.

Sara started her company with $500 she received from the sale of a used air-conditioner. She worked by day, and built Sage Publications by night. She did nearly all the editorial acquisition work, all the marketing, as well as supervising production in a rapidly changing technical world. She adopted a niche strategy that began with a social science journal and then publishing a booklist around it, while holding to strict financial milestones.

As the company developed, she grew it by carefully acquiring companies that complemented the core business, such as Paul Chapman Publishing in London and Technomic Publishing in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. When acquisition opportunities were scarce, Sara organized internal start-ups, most of which still operate successfully. She expanded Sage's product line to include handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, textbooks and professional books. She launched new imprints, such as Corwin Press publishing for K-12 educational professionals, and Pine Forge Press publishing undergraduate and graduate textbooks in sociology and the humanities.

Sara has succeeded not only in creating and sustaining a successful international publishing company, but also in creating and sustaining a successful, healthy workforce community. Ongoing, effective communication continues to be the emphasis between Sage Publications employees, new and veteran authors, and clients. Sara has always understood that operating a successful publishing company depends more on relationships than hard assets.

Today, Sage Publications is staffed by more than 350 employees, and publishes more than 300 journal and 500 book titles, encompassing 40 disciplines.

D. STEPHEN SORENSEN

President & Chief Executive Officer SELECT Personnel Services

Stephen Sorensen joined SELECT Personnel Services in 1987, and has grown it to become one of the largest independent staffing services in the United States. He has been involved in all aspects of the company's growth, including the recruitment of new clients, the development of employee compensation and reward programs, and negotiating merger and acquisition transactions.

Stephen has differentiated SELECT through innovative service offerings and a consultative approach to client relationships. SELECT was the first company in the industry to offer on-site employee management. On-site services include all aspects of providing temporary employees: managing employee traffic, time-keeping systems and safety issues, as well as providing periodic employee usage reports and meeting with management regarding personnel needs and performance quality. This minimizes the customer's time and involvement in overseeing, tracking and supervising large numbers of temporary employees.

Another specialty feature is the company's payrolling service, called SELECTPay. This service allows a client to save administrative and accounting costs by hiring personnel without putting them on payroll. This also serves as a buffer for clients, shielding them from potential liability without sacrificing their employer advantages.

SELECT has also created and implemented its own internal report writer, called Data Warehouse. This is available to all of SELECT's employees for instant, up-to-the-minute access to comprehensive client and employee reports.

SELECT'S staff employees are highly trained to maximize clients' return on their investment in human assets. The typical SELECT office has a staff of 10 to 16 individuals -- up to four times greater than industry average.

The temporary employees offered by SELECT are rigorously tested. An intense screening process enables SELECT to thoroughly examine the aptitudes and skills of employees and create the best possible match for clients.

SELECT currently operates 44 offices in three states, with processes in place for further expansion. Wells Fargo, Nordstrom and Countrywide are among the company's blue-chip customers.

BARRY LEVIN

President & Chief Executive Officer Snak King Corporation

Over twenty years ago, Barry Levin became the general manager of Snak King, a failing snack food manufacturing company. Within a year, Barry had turned the company into a money-making enterprise.

Originally Snak King manufactured and supplied products primarily for other labels. The strategy of manufacturing niche products for others had the ancillary benefit of developing organizational knowledge and expertise as the product lines expanded to include popcorn, caramel corn, cheese puffs, tortilla chips, seasoned pretzels, nuts and trail mixes.

Over the past 10 years, Barry evolved the company's strategy. Snak King developed a complete line of traditional and specialty snacks under its own labels, and currently 75% of the products manufactured by the company are under one of its in-house brands.

Always looking for better ways to do things, Barry redesigned the manufacturing equipment to yield more product without sacrificing quality. To increase brand-name exposure, he negotiated the sale of 100 million bags of Snak King brand product to airlines. He developed in-house brands, such as Healthy Bites (featuring nutritionally superior products), the El Sabroso brand (designed for the Hispanic market), and innovative gourmet dried fruits, nuts and trail mixes under the Jensen Orchard label.

Realizing he did not want to be dependent on others for product distribution, Barry formed a distribution company in 2002 to carry Snak King products to retail grocers. In less than a year 85 routes have been established, delivering to over 2000 stores in southern and central California, as well as Nevada.

Barry's relentless creativity has grown Snak King into a prosperous national enterprise, selling its products through some of the biggest retailers in the country, including Ralph's, Vons, Albertson's, Gelsons, Bristol Farms, Cost Plus, Wal-Mart, as well as club stores such as Sam's Club and Costco.

GABRIEL ROUCHON

Chairman & Chief Thermal Architect

Swiftech

Although Gabriel Rouchon founded Swiftech in 1994 as a support company for laser imaging systems, four years later he transformed the company into a completely different entity. Since 1998, Swiftech has researched, developed and produced heat-management systems for overclocked microprocessors.

Swiftech has aggressively pursued the most advanced technology possible to satisfy its speed-hungry customers. The company was the first to release thermoelectric refrigeration solutions based on the Peltier effect. The MC1000 heatsink, introduced in the spring of 1999, quickly became a world standard.

Another significant moment occurred with Advanced Micro Devices' development of the Athlon processor. Hailed at the time as the most powerful processor in the world (yet only half the cost of its competition) the device also radiated twice as much heat. Swiftech was in an ideal position to handle the resulting frenzied demand for high-performance cooling devices.

Swiftech is credited with a number of first releases and consistently sets industry standards. Among the most significant patented designs are copper heatsinks, helicoid aluminum pins and liquid cooling systems for personal computers. Traditionalists resisted the concept of liquid-cooled electronics, but Gabriel refused to be dissuaded. The technology proved successful, and the demand for Swiftech's liquid cooling devices has increased exponentially.

Gabriel's intense devotion to excellence and innovation have raised Swiftech to a preeminent position in its field. The company has garnered almost 40 awards for its products. Already a favorite with over-clocking enthusiasts, major OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) have invited Swiftech into their labs. For the last year-and-a-half Swiftech has been working with the leading chip manufacturer on developing future technologies and products, and large hardware manufacturers have approached Swiftech to supply thermal management solutions for their products. Swiftech's presence in the R&D labs of key manufacturers puts it up to 18 months ahead of the nearest possible competition.

TOM J. THOMAS

President

Union Supply Company, Inc.

When the surplus store where Tom Thomas was working got an order from a prison for 1100 dog tags, Tom realized an untapped market existed. He drove the length of California, talking to penitentiary purchasing officials, learning the requirements and issues with which they dealt.

In 1991 Tom formed the Union Supply Company specifically to cater to the penitentiary market. He established himself as a reliable vendor who was willing to listen to the needs of the buyers and inmates. Special orders were taken from inmates, after approval of the items by the commissary. Tom was willing to work with their unique needs and with the state and federal guidelines. Many prisons called with special requests, and from these requests, the first Union Supply catalog was created.

Tom strives constantly to develop new products. Because jails avoid clothing with colors or metals, Tom worked with major athletic shoe companies to develop all-white shoes that use wood shanks and nylon eyelets. Prison officials don't like what they can't see, so Tom worked with suppliers to develop a line of clear electronic products. To avoid metals, Tom has private-labeled a number of plastic products in all categories. He discovered most items requested by the prison buyers were not bar coded, so Tom instituted bar codes for all his products, which allowed him to manage inventory better and fill orders more quickly.

In the last three years, Tom has opened three new divisions: Food Express USA, which focuses on dried and packaged snack foods; and US Inmate Direct and Food Express Direct, which allow prisoners and their families to order directly from a catalog.

Union Supply Company has grown 20% each year since it was founded, and ships over 4000 different items of clothing, personal care, electronics and dried foods to more than 600 prisons around the country.

TONI ERICKSON KNIGHT

Founder & Chief Executive Officer WorldLink LLC 

Within a year after founding WorldLink in 1997, Toni Erickson Knight had guided the company to profitability and was on the road to surging growth. Her vision for starting WorldLink was simple, yet groundbreaking: provide a comprehensive approach to the splintered worldwide marketplace for buying and selling direct response television time. The company offers services in media sales activities, including media placement, negotiation, billing, accounting and collection.

From four employees, the business has grown to a roster of nearly 70. WorldLink enjoys extensive relationships with over 250 advertising agencies and represents more than 200 national, regional and international cable networks, broadcast stations and syndicators. WorldLink's expertise has extended beyond direct response to include general market and U.S. Hispanic market ad sales in broadcast, syndication and unwired media, and is one of the world's fastest-growing fullservice media sales firms. Under Toni's leadership, WorldLink has become the largest woman-owned business of its kind, earning it official certification from the Women's Business Enterprise National Council.

Among WorldLink's clients are Fox Sports Net and Fox Sports World, Fox Sports en Espanol, techtv, Pax/CNI, Comcast SportsNet, Rainbow, Twentieth Television, MGM-NBC Syndication, Young Broadcasting and Granite Broadcasting. Internationally, the firm represents such prestigious companies as Cosmopolitan Television, Latinoamerica, CNBC Europe, Canal Fox, MGM/Casa Club, Fox Sports Latin America, STAR and National Geographic.

Toni's business approach incorporates a strong sensitivity to the fact that she is in a constantly changing industry. She focuses early on new trends and positions WorldLink to capitalize on them. Crafting solutions to the changing marketplace, WorldLink is involved in product integration packages, sponsorships and cross-platform packaging, such as joint television and Internet opportunities. Similarly, as the digitization of television creates a new frontier, WorldLink is partnering with media outlets to create new ways to develop meaningful advertising revenue streams in this area.

DAVIS D. MOORE

President

Worldwide Facilities, Inc.

As 1994 began, Worldwide Facilities was languishing in a period of no growth. When Davis Moore became president that year, things began to change immediately. Despite a soft insurance market, Worldwide has grown premium volume each year since Davis assumed leadership. Within the last three years, premium volume has more than doubled.

Worldwide specializes in unusual and hard-to-place business insurance. The company has established its niche with its ability to handle virtually any class of coverage. With access to over 100 carriers and in-house underwriting, Worldwide is uniquely qualified to respond to unusual requests and place cases with difficult risk.

Worldwide's clients are diverse and their coverage requirements vary, from those with small standard risk, to sophisticated multinationals who require products tailored to their specific needs. The company has facilitated coverage programs for numerous high-risk industries including invasive medical products, heavy machinery, race cars, hotels, municipalities, HUD properties, trucking cargo, earthquake and social service organizations. Numerous innovative coverage programs have been developed to cover nearly every aspect of the construction, marine, and oil and gas industries.

Vision and experience give Worldwide Facilities the ability to recognize trends, anticipate market changes and understand the client's needs. Under Davis' guidance, the company continually strives to develop coverage that sets a standard for the market.

In an industry known for its resistance to change, Davis keeps Worldwide agile, responding quickly to changes in client requirements. Above all, he maintains a focus on quality, ensuring that clients are provided with expertise, timely service, the most comprehensive coverages possible and experience seamless ease in doing business.