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Dugas's creativity is not limited to financing. To alleviate a shortage of paramedics, Acadian invested an initial $50,000 to fund an associate program through Southwestern Louisiana University's nursing school. Students get their clinical training by working with the paramedics at Acadian, and the company sends personnel to assist in teaching classes. Dugas claims that after graduating, the majority of students come to work for Acadian, where they continue to get in-house training. -- Stephanie Gruner

Sean Nguyen

Nguyen Electronics

Blaine, Minn.

Founded: 1986

Business description: Manufactures and assembles electronic components

Employees: 175

Projected 1993 revenues: $13 million

Sean Nguyen (pronounced "wen") turns 30 this month, but he's already amassed a list of mighty impressive accomplishments -- not the least of which is starting a company at the age of 23, a scant three years after fleeing Vietnam on a homemade boat with 39 other refugees. By the time the group had made it to Thailand, pirates had raided the boat seven times, taking the refugees' clothes, their money, and their motor. Nguyen spent nine months in refugee camps until a cousin living in Minnesota arranged for him, his father, and his brother to come to the United States.

With little money and few skills, and speaking very little English, Nguyen took the first job he could find -- testing circuit boards -- to provide for his family in the States as well as those he had left behind in Vietnam. He found that difficult to do on $4 an hour, so he jumped when he saw an opportunity to make extra money by bringing testing and assembly work home. In a stroke of precocious entrepreneurial savvy, Nguyen asked to be paid as a separate business entity rather than as an employee. He thus created Nguyen Electronics. Enlisting the help of relatives and friends, he soon had a booming 5-to-11 business to supplement his 9-to-5 income. He continued to operate the business out of his basement until 1988 but kept his day job until 1990.

Nguyen credits a combination of Vietnamese culture and American opportunity for much of his success. He says he's benefited not only from his own ingrained work ethic but also from that of his 85% Asian work force. He also feels he's benefited greatly from American openness and from long-term planning. "In America, if someone has a good idea, they come up to you and share it with you." Does Nguyen still work the same long hours? "I work about 80% as hard, which is still pretty hard." When he started the company, his urgency was born of necessity. "Before, I just had to support my family. Now I have to make the company grow." -- Christopher Caggiano

Mark Hawn

Legal Copies International

Atlanta

Founded: 1988

Business description: Provides facilities-management and reprographics services

Employees: 1,137

Projected 1993 revenues: $40 million

In 1980, while he was still in college, Mark Hawn met this guy -- retired at the age of 36 -- who had this idea for a copy service that would cater to the special needs of architecture firms. Would Hawn be interested in learning how to start a business or perhaps even in eventually running this one on his own? Why, sure. The business took off, but Hawn's employer, even though he was paying lip service to a national expansion program, wasn't keeping the capital in the company. "We didn't even have the plane fare to check out a new city," Hawn says. When the company announced layoffs and pay cuts, he knew it was time to go. While sitting out a six-month noncompete agreement, he raised $100,000 in seed capital by selling his house and cars and hitting up a couple of former clients. When he eventually started his business, it made a profit its first month, and it has been profitable ever since.

Hawn knew he wanted to grow his company very quickly. "My goal has always been to be in 60 major U.S. cities and have sales of $500 million." Sales have doubled every year since 1990, and Hawn plans to maintain that pace for 1994. His most important tool in managing rapid growth has been his compensation plan for his managing partners. As the company has expanded, Hawn has set up in each new city a "managing partner" -- sort of a mini CEO -- with complete autonomy and profit-and-loss responsibility for his or her particular city. A major portion of the managing partners' compensation is based on the profitability of the units in that city. A stock-sharing plan ties the partners to the company as a whole.

In addition to providing reprographics services, Legal Copies International (LCI) is heavily involved in facilities management, providing contract office services for law firms and major corporations. That means LCI performs functions that would normally be handled by a company's office services: rather than hiring office-services personnel and dealing with copy machines and other major office equipment themselves, companies hire LCI to install a turnkey operation that includes equipment and personnel. Although there's lots of competition, Hawn focuses on the big guys: Xerox and Pitney Bowes. How can LCI hope to compete with such monoliths? "They can buy up market share anytime they want. So we have to offer an apples-to-oranges difference." Hawn feels his focus on service sets him apart from the giants, whose service arms he sees as being tacked on. LCI isn't tied to any one manufacturer, so it can work with a company's existing setup or install the equipment that best fits the client's needs.

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