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.

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.”

By Greg Hoard, Photos by Ross Van Pelt

All day long the door swings back and forth. People coming in looking for help, looking for something they want, something their kids, their grandkids or their team needs. Some are coming for the first time, eyes opening in wonder at all that surrounds them, all that is offered.

Others have been coming through the door for decades, remembering the first time they came with their dad or grandfather, remembering how the floors used to creak and the smell of fine leather filled the place, and that sense, that knowing – full well – they would leave with something treasured.

They come seeking a new ball glove, not just a new one, but one that’s perfect – feels just right. They come looking for a new bat, one with good balance and the proper heft, and the cap that fits just right. They order uniforms here, just like the ones the pros wear. Pete Rose once called from Los Angeles to order basketball uniforms for his son’s team in California.

By Craig J. Heimbuch, Photo By Joe Simon

John Hutton is a hard guy to track down. Like every entrepreneur, he’s got a million to-dos on his list and not enough hours in the day. But Hutton is not only the owner of one of Cincinnati’s most beloved businesses – the Blue Manatee children’s bookstore on Madison in Oakley – he’s also a pediatric resident at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Yeah, great business and a career in medicine, this guy has a few things on his plate.

Still, Hutton was willing to do an interview the new old-fashioned way, over e-mail, and share his experience as a passionate business owner, a visionary and a dreamer for whom the reason for doing business has more to do with ideal than profit. But, as mentioned, he’s a busy guy and, in case he’s reading, let’s cut to the chase.

By Josh Katzowitz

Eddie Lane and his son, Mike, are men of contradictions. Eddie is a successful, respected businessman who takes some of his cues from the wait staff at Waffle House. He’s an Irish-Catholic who’s never tasted a drop of alcohol. He sits in his beautiful showroom in Montgomery and pets a beautiful standard poodle named Prince who’s spewing the vilest gas since the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles.

His son, Mike is a jeweler who, on this day at least, is wearing nothing glittery on his fingers or his wrists. He’s a former state champion football player from Moeller High School who played at Notre Dame under Gerry Faust, yet nothing would make him happier than selling you the prettiest, girliest diamond ring for the woman of your dreams.

The two of them curse and laugh on the golf course, and they poke fun at each other whenever an opportunity arises. They’re men who would like to beat your ass on the racquetball court. But when a family member is truly in need, they’ll fly through hellacious storms filled with hail and 2,000 foot drops to be at a bedside in an instant. When they talk, they speak about integrity and doing what’s right.

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.