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Entrepreneurs

  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 23, 2007
Entrepreneurial Bug

Truly Nolen built the pest-control company that bears his name into one of the largest in the industry. One key to success: humor.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 23, 2007
Accomplish the mission

The best leaders don't boss others around, a pro says. They show them how to do it, starting with providing clearly defined goals.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 16, 2007
Icahn boosts pressure on WCI

Icahn says he'll offer $22 a share for WCI Communities. Meanwhile, three major hedge-fund investors disclose new stakes in the Southwest Florida homebuilder.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 16, 2007
A Big Reach

A small Sarasota company has had big sales - it recently surpassed $20 million in annual revenues - by doing lots of little things well. Its forte is quickly adapting to change.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 16, 2007
Customers at the Pinnacle

A four-office doctor's practice is bluntly going about improving customer service, normally a black eye in the medical field. Its model is a certain five-star hotel chain.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 16, 2007
Dividend Delight

William Schoen led a deal to borrow $3.25 billion and give long-suffering shareholders a $2.4 billion dividend. Here's an inside look at why and how the deal came together.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 16, 2007
Hospital Survival

Hospital operators in Southwest Florida are fighting to keep their organizations profitable, but they're taking different approaches. Which strategy will pay off?

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 16, 2007
'We're onto something Big'

EpicTide is at the forefront of a national push to protect patient medical records from thieves. Health care fraud cost an estimated $80 billion to $120 billion annually.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 16, 2007
'If not us, then who?'

A Gulf Coast nursing home is plowing ahead with a $23 million renovation project, despite being part of an industry that's a nasty combination of costly and unprofitable.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 16, 2007
Not Just Talk

An entrepreneur's chat with others about starting a bank turns into reality as the group hires a CEO and files an application with state regulators to form GulfShore Bank. It has raised several million dollars in the first couple weeks of its capital campaign.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 16, 2007
Chasing the Best

Secrets are for sharing, not storing. So says the founder of a Gulf Coast-based business who lets all his employees see the firm's financials.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 9, 2007
Not Your Father's Chamber

Night life. Condo towers. Hip retail shops. St. Petersburg isn't what it used to be. It's a vibrant, changing city.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 9, 2007
Save Our Homes ... again

Lee County Property Appraiser Ken Wilkinson, the father of the 'Save Our Homes' amendment, says he's in favor of a proposal to eliminate property taxes for homesteaded properties. But less radical reform is the more likely outcome, he concedes.

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 9, 2007
How to Wow 'Em

BankAtlantic CEO Jarett S. Levan was in the Tampa Bay area recently to meet employees and personally thank them for their service.Many of BankAtlantic's 300 employees in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties showed up at the Florida Aquarium for the annual employee appreciation event, called Red Carpet Night.Levan, who succeeded his father, Alan Levan, as CEO in January, hopes that his one-on-one interaction with employees will help foster the type of relationship the bank wants employees to have with customers."We have a culture that we call the 'wow experience,'" Levan says. "It's a culture of wowing our associates and wowing our customers."

  • Entrepreneurs
  • For Subscribers Only
    By
  • Business Observer Staff
  • March 9, 2007
Nailing it In

The 200-year-old nail industry isn't exactly a high-tech magnet. That hasn't stopped a trio of Gulf Coast entrepreneurs determined to hammer the industry with innovation.

  • Entrepreneurs
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