Contributors

For our 30th-anniversary issue, we talked to Inc.'s three longest-tenured employees, as well as two of our newest hires.

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Leigh Buchanan joined Inc. in 1997. Her first article was about a business owner with a severely disabled daughter. "He shared with me this incredibly powerful story of trying to build a business while caring for this very sick young woman," says Buchanan, now an Inc. editor-at-large. "It was so different from talking to corporate executives. I understood then that entrepreneurship is business at its most human and passionate." In this issue, Buchanan wrote a large portion of our 30th-anniversary package, including the list of the 30 books every entrepreneur should read.

For this issue, editor-at-large Bo Burlingham spoke with Jim Collins, author of the business classic Good to Great, about the evolution of entrepreneurship over the past three decades ("In Times Like These, You Get a Chance to Show Your Strength."). Burlingham, who arrived at Inc. in 1983, has seen much of that evolution firsthand. "Anita Roddick, Bill Gates, Yvon Chouinard: These were all people I knew through the magazine," he says. "We had a bird's-eye view of the huge changes happening in the economy." Burlingham is the author, with Norm Brodsky, of The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up.

Inc.com went live on Mike Hofman's first day at the magazine in 1996. Now, as the website's deputy editor, he leads its day-to-day operations. "It was fun to cover the period when businesses began operating online, and now it's fun to be a part of that world myself," says Hofman. He took on his new role last fall, and in January, Inc.com launched the first phase of an ongoing redesign. "Editing an ever-changing website is proving to be a great way to indulge my obsessive-compulsive tendencies," Hofman says.

Entrepreneurs are passionate about their businesses -- and often that enthusiasm extends beyond the office. As the writer of Passions each month, April Joyner has been taking a crash course in the extracurricular activities of CEOs. This month, she spoke with Tom Beaty, who unwinds by running a nonprofit organization that videotapes military veterans as they share their war stories ("Passions: Life Outside the Office"). "I think Beaty exemplifies the advice we've all gotten at some point -- do what you love," Joyner says.

Reporter Jason Del Rey wrote this month about Jim Skinner, owner of the James Skinner Baking Company, which was undergoing a major change in its business model: trying to establish a consumer brand after more than two decades behind the scenes ("Case Study: For Years, a Family Bakery Has Sold Unbranded Pastries to Supermarkets."). "I was struck by how emotional his decision was," says Del Rey, who interned at Inc. and joined the staff last year. "He wanted to leave a legacy to pass down to his son and thought building a brand was the best way to accomplish that."