Focus 7: Meeting Pulse

Rachel Kuhn stepped into A Special Wish Foundation of Central Ohio carrying a promise her grandmother made in 1982: give children with life-threatening illnesses and their families a moment of joy when they need it most.

Mike Mortensen started at ARG Industrial as a delivery driver in Anchorage, Alaska, and spent more than three decades working his way through nearly every part of the business. What began as a small, single-location distribution company eventually became an employee-owned organization with a much bigger future ahead of it.

What happens when the business you inherited starts falling apart before you’ve even found your footing?

When Michael Fleck bought his family’s Texas jewelry business in 2014, he thought he knew what came next. Instead, oil prices crashed, his right-hand leader passed away from cancer, and the future of the company was suddenly in question.