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#8 TEMPS & CO. WASHINGTON, D.C.

Many INC. 500 companies are wife-and-husband teams, but so far as we can tell, this is the only sister-brother collaboration. Like many siblings, Crystal and Steve Ettridge were quite competitive as kids -- she envious of his outgoing personality, he jealous of her academic success (she's a former Fulbright scholar). In the early days, she minded the shop while he made the sales calls, but this year, both are involved in buying up smaller competitors (they've acquired two so far) while managing and motivating a full-time staff that's grown to 96, in addition to 3,000 temps on their active roster.

"Are you married?" curious clients often ask the partners.

"Oh, no," Crystal replies. "I could do much better than that."

#31 ISLAND WATER SPORTS INC. DEERFIELD BEACH, FLA.

Wouldn't you know it? The day Kirk Cottrell opened his flagship store in Deerfield Beach, a hurricane rammed into the Florida coast. Sales were outta sight.

Hurricanes bring wind, and wind brings surf, and surf brings surfers -- kids, mostly. Cottrell calls them "grommets," and for the grommets of Deerfield Beach, Cottrell has become something of a Pied Piper. He surfs with them, and they "hang" at his store. Worried parents call Cottrell to see if he might talk some sense into their kids. And not coincidentally, the kids buy his gear -- the surfboards, the sweatshirts, the baggies (surfer talk for swimsuits).

There are 22 Island Water Sports stores now, most of them franchises, each one with its own specialty and its own set of gromments. In Dania, Fla., it's sailboards. In Tallahassee, it's water skis. In St. Louis (not much surf there), it's skateboards. This is retailing to the MTV generation. The Beach Boys meet Don Johnson.

#81 REPLACEMENTS LTD. GREENSBORO, N.C.

When we called, Robert Page was at home, nursing nine broken ribs, a broken arm, and a broken leg. It seems he had been in an auto accident. And his bones weren't the only things that broke in the crash.Page also lost 18 boxes full of china, crystal, and stemware that he planned to sell to customers who themselves had broken a luncheon plate or chipped a goblet from a discontinued pattern.

Replacements Ltd. started as a hobby. While an auditor for the state of North Carolina, Page enjoyed spending his weekends at flea markets and antique shops collecting odd pieces of fine china. The requests from friends and customers that he used to keep in a recipe box are today logged onto computers by a programmer and five data processors.And a staff that has grown to 55 now works a national network of 1,100 shops and dealers. The customers have changed, too: Beverly Sills has recently ordered some replacements for the Anemone pattern she uses in her country home, while the Vatican has written to order $430 in replacement pieces for Mother Teresa's Cobina.

Page himself uses no china or crystal in his own home. "Mostly, I eat out," he admits. "I have some stuff I can put in the microwave."

#109 PROMEGA CORP. MADISON, WIS.

It will probably be a few more years before biotechnology firms convert years of expensive research into government-approved and commercially viable products -- and before they start showing up on the INC. 500. In the meantime, there is Promega Corp., developer and manufacturer of some of the basic tools for the genesplicing trade: enzymes that do the cutting and splicing of DNA molecules.

Promega is now a nearly $3-million company with customers worldwide and subsidiaries in the Netherlands and Australia.The company is also part of a joint venture to transfer the miracle of biotechnology to potentially the world's largest biomedical market, China.

#151 KIRK HORSE INSURANCE INC. LEXINGTON, KY.

They insure horses, don't they?

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