By Elaine Stone, Photos by Ross Van Pelt

Whether Mike Gilkey is selling windows, spending time with his family or learning to dance the rumba, life is good.

Gilkey’s family has been involved in the residential and commercial building industry for as long as he can remember.   While attending high school and college, he worked for his father in the concrete business.  They did several big projects such as the tennis facility at Kings Island.

“Everything was going great until the Teamsters went on strike and there was no concrete to be had,” Gilkey remembers.  “I was married by that time and we had a baby so I needed a job quick!”  Mike had cousins and an uncle in the electric business, the masonry business and the lumber business.  The family is very close and everyone encouraged him to get a job in home improvement. That is where he gained valuable knowledge about replacement windows. Read the rest of this entry…

By Greg Hoard, Photos by Ventre Photo Illustration

She was the queen of Rock N’ Roll in Cincinnati, the woman behind the misty, whispery voice that awakened the city each day and helped catapult WEBN to the zenith of FM radio.

Today, Robin Wood reigns over an entirely different realm, one filled with beauty, color, creativity and flowers – every where there are flowers, and the music in the background, well, it’s not Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers or AC/DC, it’s Chopin and Mozart. In her second career, Robin Wood is a picture of peace and contentment, trimming flowers, talking with clients and her designers, all the while offering a smile that comes from some deep store of satisfaction.

After 25 years in radio and television, she began Robin Wood Flowers at the kitchen table of her home in Mt. Lookout. That was in the fall of 2001. Last December, the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce named Robin Wood Flowers “Woman-Owned Business of the Year.” Read the rest of this entry…

By Nina Kieffer, Photos by Joe Simon

In January of 1989, the Harvard Business Review published an article by Felice Schwartz titled “Management Women and the New Facts of Life.” Schwartz was president of Catalyst, a nationally recognized consulting firm whose mission was to assist women re-entering the work force and help corporations find qualified women to serve on their boards. She spent the rest of her life dealing with the firestorm of controversy that her article instigated. In it, Schwartz contended that U.S. companies would have to be more open to the needs of working mothers if they wanted to attract and retain them. She identified two types of employees—those who put their careers ahead of all other life responsibilities and those who wished to balance demands of both career and family. In suggesting that employers temporarily reduce job duties to help women equalize obligations of job and home (dubbed the “Mommy Track” by The New York Times), Schwartz raised the ire of feminists who saw the suggestion as promoting sex discrimination and second class status for working mothers. Read the rest of this entry…