Young at Heart

Nicci Kobritz has immersed herself on opposite ends of the executive spectrum: She has run a multimillion-dollar company and she has been in charge of a large state bureaucracy — the latter of which she says was enough stress to last a lifetime.

But Kobritz says she learned her most valuable lessons about life and business when she was in her 20s, long before she ran any company or state government department. That's when she worked as a house-call pediatric nurse in rural Maine.

Kobritz drove around the state in a Jeep Wagoner, treating children of low-income families suffering from everything from ear infections to rashes to child abuse. She was so successful that the American Academy of Pediatrics selected her program as a national model to use in other states.