Rob Kaiser

Barbie Adler is trying to bring the rigors of corporate headhunting to the business of love. In December, Adler, a former executive recruiter and public relations official, bought Chicago-based Selective...

For a long time, Ash ElDifrawi's parents didn't know about his new business partner. Ariel Litvin still doesn't talk about his partner with family members in Israel. "I don't want...

If today's standards existed in 1997, Eric Sigurdson wouldn't have qualified as a Krispy Kreme franchisee. Now he is one of the company's most successful franchise owners. Unlike when Sigurdson...

In 1988, Chet Krause created an employee stock ownership plan to ensure his company--which publishes special interest magazines, including Stamp Collector, Rural Builder and Gun List Magazine--always would remain in...

Growing up, Julie Smolyansky was jealous of Lifeway Foods Inc., the company that consumed her father's time and attention. Going to work at Lifeway five years ago, she grew to...

Among the more intimidating prospects most new business owners face is meeting with a lawyer. And those meetings yield an even scarier result--hefty legal bills. There may be another option....

One company had a lock on the federal contract for mops until the Small Business Administration intervened, Melanie Sabelhaus explained this week. Sabelhaus, recently appointed the SBA's No. 2 official,...

Lavinia Dover bought a 13-room, 5,000-square-foot house in West Pullman to speculate on the Far South Side neighborhood's child-care needs. Welfare-to-work legislation has sent more and more mothers into the...

Bob Katzman conducts half his business online, or so he says. Actually, Katzman doesn't even have a computer at his Morton Grove store, Magazine Memories Inc., which stocks tens of...

This time, the Small Business Administration appears poised to stick with the deadline it set for small firms harmed by the Sept. 11 attacks to apply for low-interest loans. The...