The story of Wilkinson Hardware defines DIY, and not just because the do-it-yourself trend has made the business a success and has allowed it to ride out a couple recessions. Founded in Leicester in 1930, Wilkinson Hardware Stores operates more than 330 home and garden shops throughout England and Wales. Each of its locations peddles some 25,000 products. Wilko, as the company is known, is one of the largest privately-held companies in the UK. The business is led by the founding Wilkinson family. J.K. Wilkinson founded the original store after gathering the seed money by saving £1 a week from his wages for nearly six years. Chairwoman Karin Swann is the founder's granddaughter.

Specialty Merchandise Corporation (SMC) wants to be the first company you call. SMC warehouses thousands of gifts and home decor accessories, and its members sell them at a markup. Its inventory includes everything from bird feeders to cutlery sets to billiards tables. The company offers its members merchandise catalogs, a business coach, a personalized e-commerce site, and selling manuals and videos for either $300 upfront (gold plan) or about $480 paid in monthly installments (silver plan). Marketing information covers running a business via home parties, flea markets, mail order, and fundraising, among others.

The Children's Place Retail Stores, Inc. operates as a children's specialty apparel retailer in North America. The company provides apparel and related accessories for children from newborn to 10 years of age. It designs, contracts to manufacture, and sells apparel and accessories and other children's-oriented merchandise under The Children's Place brand name. The company has differentiated departments to serve the needs of girls and boys, baby girls and boys, and new born. As of January 30, 2010, it owned and operated 947 The Children's Place stores and an online store at childrensplace.com. The Children's Place Retail Stores, Inc. was founded in 1969 and is based in Secaucus, New Jersey.

Monrovia Nursery Company was founded in 1926 by the aptly named Harry Rosedale. A rose of any color keeps Monrovia Nursery in the black. Monrovia grows more than 20 million container-grown plants in 2,000 varieties at its five nurseries in California, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon. Among its offerings are camellias, conifers, ferns, perennials, rhododendrons, and trees. The company has introduced some 300 exclusive varieties, holding more than 200 patents and trademarks. Monrovia supplies more than 5,000 garden centers with its plants and also crafts topiary forms, including some at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. It has additionally developed more than 40 specialized soil mixtures.

Bevo is the largest supplier of propagated plants in North America, providing greenhouses, field farms, nurseries, and wholesalers across the continent with healthy, vigorous, pest-and-disease-free plants. Plant propagation is a system under which seedlings are nurtured to the ideal level of development for finished growth in greenhouses. Each seedling is cultivated in a specific controlled temperature, nutrient, fertilizer, light and moisture environment to ensure the highest quality plant. Bevo's main products are vegetable plants such as tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, and cucumbers, along with other plants such as bedding plants, flowers, trees, berries, and grasses. Bevo markets its products to established greenhouse growers, farms and nurseries throughout North America. Since incorporation in 1989, planned expansions have grown the Bevo propagation greenhouses in Langley, BC to the present 34 acres. As greenhouse growth and consumer demand for quality products continues so does the requirement for new vegetable, flower and other plants. The use of greenhouses to grow vegetables and flowering plants continues to increase.

American Home operates three (down from a dozen in 2007) furniture and housewares stores in New Mexico under the American Home banner. Its products include mostly mid-priced (but some upscale) home furnishings (Kemp, Hillcraft, Natuzzi, DeCoro), lamps, bedding (Sealy, Simmons, Tempur-Pedic), rugs, dinnerware, related accessories, and gift registry and interior design services. Founded in 1936 as American Furniture Company by Emanuel Blaugrund, the company changed its name to American Home in 2000. The furniture retailer emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2010 after closing most of its stores, including all of its locations in Arizona.

The Jean Coutu Group (PJC) is one of Canada's leading drugstore chains with more than 375 franchised outlets in New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec under the PJC Jean Coutu, PJC Clinique, PJC Sante, and PJC Sante Beaute banners. The company dominates the Quebec market but trails rivals Shoppers Drug Mart and Katz Group in overall store count. Its Pro-Doc subsidiary (acquired in 2007) makes generic drugs. In mid-2007 the company sold its troubled US arm, the Brooks Eckerd chain of more than 1,850 drugstores, to Rite Aid in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $4 billion. The sale made PJC Rite Aid's largest shareholder with about 28% of the firm's shares.

E & S International Enterprises, Inc was founded in 1945 as an electronics distributor. E & S International Enterprises (also known as ESI) has its fingers in a lot of pies. E & S International Enterprises, Inc manufactures and sells a variety of consumer products through its subsidiaries. Once a consumer electronics distributor, the company has expanded its product line to include such items as sporting goods, mobile phone batteries, and appliances. It also acts a broker between manufacturers and retailers, sometimes handling warranty and support functions for the makers. ESI is also in the business of acquiring commercial and residential real estate.

GULFEAGLE is a full line distributor of residential and commercial roofing and building products that offers jobsite delivery to our customers. The company was originally founded as Gulfside Supply, Inc. in 1973 by Mr. Jim Resch. Mr. Resch remains as the current owner and CEO. The company started in Tampa, Florida with one branch and has grown to over 50 locations nationwide. This growth has come from acquisitions, start-up locations, and diversity of products. The first acquisition was Service Lumber in Jacksonville in 1975. Others include Southern Diversified in Miami, Sun Supply in Melbourne, United Wholesale in Pompano, Ft. Myers and Sarasota and Stringfellow Supply in Gainesville. In 1995 a major step was taken by acquiring American Wholesale which included locations in Huntsville, Montgomery, Dothan, Mobile, Pensacola and Panama City. The Standard/ Bieler acquisition further expanded into South Florida. In 1997 the company acquired Roofline Supply in Macon, Georgia. New start-ups over the years include Orlando, Sarasota, Ft. Myers, Daytona, Tallahassee, Decatur, Alabama, St. Petersburg, Ft. Pierce, Palm Coast and Buda, TX.

Medical Pharmacies Group operates about 25 pharmacies in medical buildings throughout Ontario. It is the province's leading provider of pharmacy services to long term care facilities, including nursing and retirement homes. Pharmacies do not include the usual sundries, just medicaments and medical supplies; customers are therefore clinic-oriented. Medical Pharmacies Group Inc. was the first in Canada to utilize an automated prescription refilling system. Erast Huculak, a pharmacist and the company's president, founded Medical Pharmacies Group in 1957. The firm is still owned and operated by pharmacists.

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