The Inner City 100 Profiles: 61-70
NO. 61 Spex Precision Machine Technologies
Rochester, New York
Machined parts manufacturing
G 230.1% R $6.7 million E 31
Spex has been part of the Rochester landscape since 1948. The company produces metal parts for 22 large clients--it makes nuts and bolts for the windshield wipers of GM vehicles, for example. Future growth will likely come from international clients, says CEO Michael Nolan. The company already distributes in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
NO. 62 Four Hands
Austin
Furniture importing and manufacturing
G 223% R $22.7 million E 54
Four Hands has an inner city headquarters and an international spirit. CEO Brett Hatton opened his first furniture shop in England, specializing in wares like those he had seen in Asia. Now he sells furnishings from India, the Philippines, and China through companies such as Crate & Barrel and Costco, as well as through show rooms in Austin, Atlanta, and High Point, North Carolina. Hatton is establishing a foundation to build schools in rural villages in India.
NO. 63 Circles
Boston
Events and concierge services
G 222.6% R $24.5 million E 287
Not many entrepreneurs have customer anecdotes that feature live sheep, but Janet Kraus has two. Kraus is CEO of Circles, a concierge service that she founded with Stanford business school classmate Kathy Sherbrooke. The company was born in Kraus's apartment ("I would put on my shoes when walking into the office bedroom to signify I was going to work," says Kraus) and originally it did things like snag tickets to hot events for time-strapped consumers. Today, Circles' customers are chiefly Fortune 1000 companies that hire it to do whatever cherished employees or customers desire--"so long as it's moral, legal, and nice," says Kraus. Eighty percent of the time that's still stuff such as making dinner reservations, sending gift baskets, and arranging housecleaning. But as for that other 20 percent…. In sheep story No. 1, a customer gave the company two days to assemble a live manger scene complete with sheep, camels, and actors playing the principal parts. In sheep story No. 2, a client traveling to Kenya asked Circles to come up with the appropriate gift for a tribal chief. "We delivered the flock right to the chief's farm," says Kraus.
NO. 64 Sneaker Villa
Reading, Pennsylvania
Footwear and apparel retail
G 219.9% R $24.5 million E 165
Chris Lutz was a crane operator and his wife, Ruth, was a waitress when the two launched a suburban footwear store in 1989. Their oldest son, Jason, joined the company full-time after college in 1995, and at his urging the family opened a location in central Reading, with merchandise reflecting the burgeoning hip-hop culture. Sneaker Villa continued to open urban stores around Pennsylvania and added apparel to the mix. In Philadelphia, where Sneaker Villa has seven of its 14 stores, kids get a 5 percent discount for each A on their report cards.
Read more:
Leigh Buchanan
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