2020 Nominee Two: Julz by Alan Rodriguez
Julz owner Alan Rodriguez’s devotion to the downtown area is noticeable, but so is the design of his store. With a unique look, Julz can be easily seen by those driving the streets of Canton…
Read MoreM. Conley Entrepreneur of the Year Award Nominees
2020 Nominee One: Norman Eckinger, Inc.
One evening in 1971, Norm Eckinger Sr. was at the dinner table with his wife and five young children. The oldest, Norm Jr., was all of 10 years old and distinctly remembers his father telling…
2019 Nominee Nine: Taggart’s Ice Cream
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…
2019 Nominee Eight: Quonset Hut
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…
2019 Nominee Seven: The Belden Brick Company
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…
2019 Nominee Six: Abbott Electric, Inc.
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…
2019 Nominee Five: Standard Plumbing & Heating
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…
2019 Nominee Four: NAI Spring
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…
2019 Nominee Three: Peoples Services, Inc.
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…
2019 Nominee Two: Stark Truss Company, Inc.
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…
2019 Nominee One: Miller & Company Sanitation Services
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…