M. Conley Entrepreneur of the Year Award Nominees

The summer of 1975 was hot. Ernie Schott had moved to Canton and bought his first house just off Fulton, on 16th Street in 1971. On steamy summer nights he and wife Patti walked their…

On a summer afternoon in 1975, Mark Kratzer and fellow employees of The Barn sat in the United Bank drive-through lane and held their paychecks up for the teller to see. She gave the thumbs-down…

In 1905 Henry Belden was facing disaster … again. Debts at his Canton Pressed Brick Company threatened everything he owned. For the fifth or sixth time Belden was flat on his back, looking for a…

It had been a frustrating day for Mike Abbott as he spent hours searching fruitlessly for some critical pipes in the former Mercy School of Nursing. Finally he called his father Jim who remembered installing…

In 1900, a german-speaking Canton grinding foreman named Tom Grabowsky died of black lung disease. His son was only 10 years old and didn’t know what big things were in store for him. 60 years…

Writers great and not-so-great have written odes to spring as the season of renewal. The Spring family of Canton has taken them at their word. Today, almost a century after their great-grandfather started installing basic…

High above the New York City streets, a young man sat in a conference room at one of the worlds largest public utilities. His starched white shirt and sedate tie blended perfectly with the other…

When Abner Yoder opened a builder’s trade magazine in 1963 and saw a small advertisement for Gain Nail truss-building machines, the lives of millions of Christians worldwide, thousands of local residents and builders throughout northeast…

Ron Miller has spent his entire life cleaning up after other people. His company is represented at almost every major local event, but no one pays attention. Without him everyone’s life would be a lot…