Entrepreneurs of the year

The world of entrepreneurship-like the rest of the world-seems to be comprised of haves and have nots.

While every entrepreneur looks to bring a product or service to the marketplace, some just seem to make it happen better than others.

In the next several pages, Small Business News profiles the leaders of 25 of the best area businesses, including the 14 men and women representing the 10 top run companies in Northeast Ohio.

SBN is proud to recognize the winners and finalists of the 11th annual Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year awards.

The winners were announced at a June 23 banquet in Cleveland. The event was founded and presented by Ernst & Young LLP.

The winners are selected through a process that began early this year with informational nominations to Ernst & Young. An application process followed that required submission of financial data (which is held confidential by Ernst & Young and has not been shared with SBN) and a series of written statements designed to learn more about each nominee’s skills in such areas as innovation and creativity, financial management, strategic planning and operations.

Based on those applications the field of nominees was narrowed to a group of finalists who were interviewed by a panel of outside judges.

These winners will move on to a national competition with those winners announced later this year.

Turnaround

Barry Phillips, CEO
Gradall Industries
New Philadelphia

Barry Phillips witnessed the end of an era as plant manager for the last Farmall plant. He had spent 26 years with International Harvester when the plant closed.

Phillips became part of a new era when he joined struggling Gradall Industries Inc. in 1985 and became CEO in 1995. Gradall is a leading manufacturer of hydraulic excavators and material handlers.

Under Phillips’ leadership, the company has done all of the heavy lifting needed to once again become competitive. It has developed 14 new products, targeted niche markets, improved the manufacturing process by following a “continuous improvement” strategy, increased distributor support and expanded the service parts division.

Phillips says having a vision and “good people around you” is necessary for success as an entrepreneur “because visions cannot be fulfilled with one person.”

“It’s important to create an atmosphere where people can work well together. And you have to be willing to let people make mistakes and not tear them apart for it. You have to surround yourself with people and encourage them to grow because when they grow, the company grows.”

Services

Louis Perry, president
Louis Perry & Associates
Wadsworth

Louis Perry Sr. doubled his company’s revenues last year, but he’ll tell you he had no choice.

Perry, founder and president of Louis Perry & Associates, created his firm in 1985 after 30 years of designing and overseeing construction of rubber and plastics facilities worldwide for Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.

With his core business of designing and managing the construction of new tire, rubber and plastics manufacturing plants, Perry enjoyed 12 years of steady growth and an international client base. By last year, however, Perry says he had to broaden his services.

“Clients keep saying, ‘Jeez, you’re doing the design and someone else is doing the construction.’ What’s happening in the industry is people want single-source responsibility,” he says. “If you don’t do design/build, you don’t get the design part.”

So Perry added a design/build subsidiary, The Perry Group Ltd., which generated $5 million its first year-nearly half of the parent company’s $11 million revenue in 1997.

Today the company employs 103 full time-Perry is especially proud that some 30 percent are older workers who lost their jobs during the demise of Akron’s rubber industry. Perry says that expertise and depth has helped the company build an international reputation for engineering and a resume that spans the globe.

Technology