Third consecutive year for Power Partners, Inc. listing in the top 25 woman-majority owned companies in the United States

Marilyn Carlson Nelson
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Carlson Companies

Marilyn Carlson Nelson is chairman and CEO of Carlson Companies, a global group of integrated companies providing leisure travel, hotel, restaurant, cruise and marketing services. With headquarters in Minneapolis, Minn., Carlson-owned and franchised operations employ about 170,000 people worldwide.

The Carlson family of brands and services include: Regent International Hotels®, Radisson Hotels & Resorts®, Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Country Inns & Suites By Carlson, Park Inn® hotels, Regent Seven Seas Cruises®, T.G.I. Friday’s® and Pick Up Stix® restaurants, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Cruise Holidays, All Aboard Travel, Cruise Specialists, Fly4less.com, CruiseDeals.com, Results Travel, Carlson Destination Marketing Services, Carlson Leisure Travel Services, SeaMaster Cruises®, SinglesCruise.com®, CW Government Travel, Carlson Marketing®, Peppers & Rogers Group®, and Gold Points Reward Network®.

Forbes magazine has regularly selected Nelson as one of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.” She is on the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council and in 2004 co-chaired the Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. She recently completed a presidential appointment as chair of the National Women’s Business Council, an advisory council to the president and Congress.

Kathy Lehne Founder and President
Sun Coast Resources, Inc.

Kathy Lehne was just 23 years old when she decided to venture out on her own and create Sun Coast Resources, Inc., a wholesale petroleum distributorship, in 1985.

As president and founder of the Houston, Texas, based company, Lehne and Sun Coast market high-quality petroleum fuels and lubricants on a wholesale basis in 16 states, including Texas, New Mexico, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. The company also provides disaster relief services to areas affected by hurricanes and calamities. Sun Coast currently has nearly 500 employees, including 285 professional drivers and controls a modern delivery distribution fleet in Texas with more than 160 vehicles, from transports to bobtails and bulk lubricant trucks. Sun Coast markets gasoline, diesel fuel, marine and aviation fuels, plus a complete line of Chevron lubricants. The company also offers equipment and transportation services to thousands of end-users and retail enterprises.

Sun Coast’s sales revenue in 2005 totaled in excess of $850 million, ranking it as the largest woman-owned business in Texas. The prospects for future growth have never looked better.

Anne Meinig Smalling
Chairman
Windsor Quality Food Company

Anne Meinig Smalling is chairwoman of Windsor Quality Food Company and president of HM International, LLC, a closely held corporation providing management services to the joint interests of the Hojel and Meinig families. Her primary responsibilities for Windsor include obtaining financing, evaluating investment banking opportunities, reviewing and approving all capital expenditures, heading management oversight and supervision, leading management organization, succession planning and strategic planning for the growth of the company. Prior to her positions with HM International, LLC, Smalling was a market manager for FMC Corporation and SmithKline Beecham. She is also chairwoman of the board of directors of EnLink Geoenergy Services, rateGenius, Inc., and Ninth House, Inc., and serves on the board of directors of Quick Arrow, and Igasamex. Additionally, she is chairwoman of the Community Investment Committee and a board member of the United Way of Central Texas, and serves on the Children’s Hospital of Austin Foundation Council.

Sharon Hoffman Avent
President and CEO
Smead

Fifty years ago, Ebba Hoffman embarked on a journey that transformed Smead from a relatively small family-owned business into an industry leader. Hoffman’s daughter, Sharon Avent, has continued this legacy by leading Smead into the international arena, navigating significant growth and extending the company’s philanthropic vision even further. The mother-daughter legacy created during the last 50 years has earned Smead a unique place in history.

Smead Manufacturing Company was founded in Hastings, Minn., in 1906. Charles Smead began the company with one product, The Bandless File, and six employees. Acquired by the Hoffman family in 1916, the company is now in its third generation of family ownership, and has been a woman-business enterprise since 1955.

Smead is a leading manufacturer and distributor of paper filing supplies and records management software. Products sold only through office products dealers and authorized resellers.

Heidi Spiess
President
All Performance Staffing Incorporated

Through hard work, networking and keeping her eyes on the big goal, Heidi Spiess opened up her own service in 1995 and began her steady mission. Spiess has created a high-energy environment and has assembled a motivated team of individuals who stay on the cutting edge of the ever changing needs in the human resource field.

All Performance Staffing had sales of $6 million in 2005. This has not come easy! The focus has always been the customer and it seems as if the rest of the business falls into place.

In 2003, Spiess was able to purchase her own building which was one of her big goals. Spiess looks forward to continued growth in the medical and professional placements as well as continued services in the industrial market.

Marcia Garrison Taylor
President/CEO Bennett International Group

Marcia Taylor is the president and CEO of Bennett International Group, an acknowledged leader in the trucking/transportation industry.

After assuming control of a small regional trucking company following the death of her husband in 1982, Taylor developed Bennett and its related entities into a multi-faceted system of innovative transportation-related companies. These companies are involved in such diverse modalities as drive away, manufactured housing, heavy-haul freight, logistics, warehousing, port services, international freight forwarding and transportation- related insurance.

In addition to her work at Bennett, Taylor serves on the executive board of the Georgia Motor Trucking Association and has received numerous recognitions for her professional and civic accomplishments, including being named Entrepreneur of the Year by Venture magazine, and Industry of the Year by Henry County Chamber of Commerce.

Maureen A. Henegan
Chairwoman and CEO
Henegan Construction

Henegan Construction, led by chairwoman and CEO Maureen Henegan, has a strong track record of competing successfully against New York City’s largest and most prominent construction firms. In her 20-year career, Henegan has played a role in virtually every aspect of the construction industry, from hands-on project management and computer technology to marketing, legal affairs and finance.

With a full range of construction management and general contracting services, Henegan plays a key role in creating corporate offices, sophisticated trading floors, technology and communications centers — any and every interior installation, renovation, alteration and upgrade clients require to keep the lifeblood of their business flowing.

An attorney and member of the New York State Bar Association, Henegan is also a member of the NY Building Congress, the Building Owners’ and Managers’ Association of New York, the Young Presidents’ Organization and Professional Women in Construction.

Established in 1923, Turtle & Hughes is a leader in the distribution of Electrical and Industrial equipment, offering a full line of customized value-added services and programs.

Turtle & Hughes is committed to recommending to each customer the most compatible product offering for their needs along with the highest quality services and support. Our vast product selection, representing many of the finest quality branded lines in the industry, and our extensive inventories, ensure prompt shipment from our central distribution center or from any of our nine integrated locations in the United States.

Customers have remained the priority at Turtle & Hughes for four generations, and much of our market success depends on the long-term relationships with our customers. As a certified Woman Business Enterprise, Turtle & Hughes remains an independent force that has forged a reputation for service and technical excellence.

Marjorie Ruth Rutland
President and CEO
Wholesales Electric Supply Company of Houston, L.P.

Since 1949, Wholesale Electric has been managing the procurement of electrical products for companies building or expanding facilities throughout the Gulf Coast region. The success of the company is directly linked to the proactive customer satisfaction philosophy and its demonstrated commitment to making the materials procurement process as efficient and cost effective as possible.

Well into her 80s and still going strong, Rutland, CEO of Wholesale Electric, is responsible for creating, scheduling and overseeing the board of directors and managing monthly meetings. She also supervises and participates in all aspects of management and daily decisions of the company. The company’s electronic systems and exporting expertise enable it to mobilize with clients to sites anywhere in the world.

Janie McLure
CEO
McLure Oil Company, Inc.

In 1985, with $20,000 in the bank, a $40,000 bank loan and three phones in a one-bedroom condominium in Norcross, Ga., Janie McLure started the humble beginnings of McLure Oil. Today, the company remains wholly owned by McLure and has grown in excess of 96 million gallons of petroleum annually, enjoys gross revenues of more than $160 million and quotes prices from 20 suppliers in nine Southeastern states.

McLure Oil has been one of the top three privately owned female companies in Atlanta, Ga., for seven years in a row and top 50 nationwide.

McLure was elected to become a member of the Committee of 200, a very elite group of women entrepreneurs who own business with gross revenues of $50 million or higher, in 1996. Janie is the past president for the Atlanta chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners, and has served on the advisory board for the Women’s Leadership Exchange and Alliance South.

Lori Nalley
President and founder
Tiger Natural Gas, Inc.

In 1991, Lori Nalley, an American Indian woman business owner, saw an opportunity to fill a niche in the midst of the deregulation of the natural gas industry. In order to market natural gas primarily to the end-use customers, Nalley formed Tiger Natural Gas, Inc., in Tulsa, Okla. As president and founder of Tiger, Nalley started her company by supplying to a total of 10 customers in California. Today, under her leadership, Tiger supplies natural gas to over 4,000 facilities across the country, including small businesses, large consumers and Fortune 500 companies. This vast increase was achieved with a thorough understanding of three things: 1) Good customer relations are key elements to successful business dealings; 2) Knowledge of the natural gas business provides the highest level of support to customers; 3) It is imperative to stick to the key line of business.

Meredith Reuben
CEO
Eastern Bag and Paper

From its modest founding in 1918, Eastern Bag and Paper has become one of the largest paper distributors in the Northeast. Louise Baum succeeded her late husband as president in 1983, and the company’s current CEO is their daughter, Meredith B. Reuben.

In 1992, Eastern Bag and Paper Company acquired Salem Paper Company, located in Massachusetts. In 2002, Eastern Bag established a distribution center in Cranbury, N.J., from which the company now services all of New Jersey, Philadelphia, Long Island and metro New York.

Eastern Bag and Paper has always been customer- driven, enhancing product lines, investing in new information technologies, fine tuning distribution and increasing value-added services.

Eastern Bag and Paper pursues every timeand product-saving technique and system possible, and it trains, updates and retrains employees in the safest possible application of these products and techniques.

The Eastern Bag and Paper Group was one of the first in the industry to computerize its operations.

The Millcraft Paper Company has been recognized as one of the fastest growing, privately held businesses in Ohio. Millcraft has become one of the largest independent merchants in the Midwest, by approaching every project with a single-minded perspective of what is best for the customer, and viewed as the easiest to do business with.

For 85 years, Millcraft has been part of Katherine McKinney Mlakar’s family. In 1920, her grandparents, Harold and Pauline Keil, started The Millcraft Paper Company. They gave Millcraft their business philosophy, which was an extension of their values and principles— treating everyone with honesty and respect. In 1956, Harold Keil passed sole ownership to his wife, which began Millcraft’s legacy of being a woman-owned business. In 1976, Millcraft went to Keil’s daughter, Jane Keil McKinney. McKinney owned the company from 1976 until 1986 when she passed it on to her daughter, Katherine as majority shareholder and owner.

Dr. Sherrie Ford
Chairwoman and Vice President
Power Partners, LLP

Dr. Sherrie Ford has been in organizational consulting for the past 16 years and stands today as Power Partners, Inc’s chairwoman and executive vice president of culture. In 1996, Ford founded Change Partners, LLP, an organizational consulting company specializing in cultural change, a natural progression for the Center for Continuous Improvement she created for the Athens Area Technical Institute. Ford, who continues to lead Change Partners, is a judge for Industry Week magazine’s Best Plant competition, an examiner for Georgia Oglethorpe Award (modeled after the national Malcolm Baldrige Award), former Southeast regional president for the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, and an acclaimed author and presenter on work-culture, and economic and workforce development.

Power Partners’ environment is team-based and measurement-focused, and is built upon disciplined processes. The company is innovative, reliable and safe, and is driven by an informed, highly trained and committed workforce.

Cynthia J. Pasky
Founder, president and CEO
Strategic Staffing Solutions

Cynthia J. Pasky is the founder, president and CEO of Detroit-based Strategic Staffing Solutions (S3). S3 is a provider of information technology consulting services, customized project solutions and vendor management programs with corporate headquarters in Detroit, Mich., and branch offices all over the United States.

In 1990, at 30 years old, and with savings and borrowed money, Pasky launched S3. Today, S3 customers now exceed 100 and the company has 1,500 employees.

Pasky has been recognized as one of Detroit’s top business leaders, and in 1999, she was honored by Ernst & Young as one of its “Entrepreneurs of the Year” and named one of metro Detroit’s “Best Places to Work.” For eight consecutive years, S3 was awarded one of Detroit’s “Future 50” by the Detroit Regional Chamber.

Over the past 12 years, Pasky’s company has helped raise over $190,000 for My Sister’s Place, a women’s shelter for victims of domestic violence.

Marlene A. Messin
President and CEO
Plastic Products Company

Marlene A. Messin is the president and CEO of Plastic Products Company, Inc., of Lindstrom, Minn. PPC is a worldclass manufacturer of high-quality, injection-molded parts and assemblies, distributing to the largest appliance manufacturers in the country.

Advanced robotics and auxiliary processes like Gas Assist give PPC unique capabilities not found at other contract manufacturers. PPC is a tier two supplier to many tier one automotive contractors. PPC manufactures and assembles many components for products used by consumers every day. Automated operations and custom-designed equipment increase efficiencies and lower costs.

Messin is the recipient for the Diversity 200 women-owned business in Minnesota and is a member of the Society of Plastic Engineers. She is also involved in the American Swedish Institute of Minnesota State Historical Society as well as the Chicago County Historical Society.

Patti A. Penny
President and founder
Penmac Personnel Service

During its first year of business, Patti A. Penny, president and founder of Penmac Personnel Service, worked mostly with small clients within the community. Soon, Penmac landed two big accounts with General Electric and Reckitt & Benckiser, formerly known as French’s Mustard. Penny’s single-office business has since exploded into a 45-branch operation in seven states. In the last two years, eight offices were opened, four of which opened within the last year. Penmac has over 1,800 business clients, 14 vendor- on-premise locations, 130 branch employees and 30 corporate employees.

Despite the phenomenal growth her company has seen, Penny has remained involved in her community. She is a member of the Missouri State Unemployment Council, chair of the Missouri Training and Employment Council, and member of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors. Penmac was recently named one of the top 500 women-owned businesses in the country by Working Woman magazine.

Bonney Stamper Shuman
CEO
Stratix Corporation

Bonney Stamper Shuman serves as CEO of Stratix Corporation, a company that has helped hundreds of end users, distributors and other organizations gain a competitive advantage by utilizing automatic data capture since 1983.

Shuman, a noted lecturer, conducts numerous seminars each year that focus on the benefits of bar coding and other automatic data capture technologies. She was primarily responsible for the content of the book, “A Guide to Bar Coding,” which has been recognized as a leading reference manual for those interested in utilizing such technologies.

Shuman was a member of the board of directors for the automatic data capture trade association, AIM, USA, and she served as its president for a two-year term. “As a WBE, I am proud to be able to continue to grow the company, offer more opportunities for our associates, and provide more solutions for our customers that truly make life better in many aspects,” Shuman said.

Beth Dortch Franklin
CEO
Star Transportation, Inc.

In 1989, Beth Dortch Franklin began work at Star Transportation, Inc., a family-owned, irregular- route truckload carrier located in Nashville, Tenn. She served as vice president of the company from 1989 to 1993, and became president in 1993. She was voted Industrial Business Owner of the year in 1993 by the National Association of Women Business Owners, and that same year the company was named Minority Industrial Business of the year. Star Transportation has increased annual revenues by 150 percent during the last 12 years, proving itself as one of Nashville’s top 100 companies.

Franklin is on the board of overseers of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville and is serving her first term on the Bank of America Nashville Advisory Board.

Currently, Franklin is serving her second term on the board of directors of Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, Inc., a not for profit corporation.

Mary Skipton is president of Energon, Inc., a full-service energy company that specializes in providing natural gas supply and management services to commercial, residential, industrial and governmental end-users in Illinois and Michigan. Skipton launched Energon in 1992 after serving as an executive with a federal agency, chief procurement officer for the City of Chicago, Ill., and vice president for a local oil and gas company.

Energon’s client list includes a variety of Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, most of which are ranked first or second in their respective categories. Industry types include transportation and distribution, real estate, insurance, lodging, aerospace, banking, communications, food sales and distribution. Energon is one of the largest independent marketers in the Chicago area.

Skipton’s board memberships have included the Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, Martin Luther King, Jr. Boys & Girls Club, Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, National Institute of Governmental Purchasing and the American Contract Compliance Association.

Maureen Beal
CEO
National Van Lines, Inc.

Since taking over as CEO for National Van Lines after her father’s passing in 1993, Maureen Beal has seen the organization, started by her grandfather, enjoy steady double-dig-it growth. Within the company, Beal plays a vital, hands-on role, making sure National Van Lines should “never be so large as to lose sight of the personal connection we have with our family of agents and drivers, and of course, our customers,” she said.

Beal serves on the board of directors of the American Moving and Storage Association and is a director of the Household Goods Carriers Bureau. As immediate past chairman of The American Cancer Society Board of DuPage County, Ill., she remains an advocate for women’s health issues. Actively involved in community service, Beal is the chairman of the board of Aspire, an organization that works with children and adults with developmental disabilities, as well as serving as a trustee for Benedictine University located in Lisle, Ill., and an associate at Northwestern University located in Evanston, Ill.

Brenda J. Rivers
President and CEO
Andavo Travel

Brenda J. Rivers acquired Andavo Travel in 1988 and has been president and CEO since 1991. Andavo Travel specializes in business travel management and meeting, event and incentive planning. It is the largest independent travel management firm in Colorado and the fourth largest in the North San Francisco Bay, Calif., area. Additionally, Andavo Travel is the second largest woman-owned business in Colorado and Andavo’s San Francisco office ranks as the 14th largest womanowned business in the Bay Area. Andavo Travel’s client list includes: Time Warner Telecom; Adelphia; Corporate Express; Restoration Hardware; AON Warranty; Hyperion Software; Pixar Animation Studios; National Conference of State Legislatures; Frito-Lay; and YumYum divisions of PepsiCo and divisions of Coors.

River’s contributions to the community include: Race for the Cure, American Research for Down’s Syndrome, Marin Woman’s Shelter, Diabetes Research Foundation, Aids Walk and Max Fund.

Sharon Cannarsa owns and presides over Systrand Manufacturing Corp, a business that transforms materials such as cast iron, steel and aluminum into camshafts, transmission converter housings, engine blocks and other automotive components. Cannarsa’s company provides a variety of specialized services, including raw material design, milling and honing. Founded in 1991, the firm is headquartered in Brownstone Township, Mich., and clients include Ford, Daimler Chrysler, General Motors and Volkswagen. Under Cannarsa’s leadership, Systrand took bold steps to tap new markets and further strengthen its bottom line. The firm bought a machining facility in Busan, South Korea, to supply Asian automakers with parts. It partnered with ThyssenKrupp of Germany to open a new factory in Danville, Ill., that produces 700,000 camshafts annually. All facilities, including the flagship plant in Brownstone, employ about 200 people.