"Avon calling" -- calling for a younger crowd, overseas reps, and improved global operational efficiencies. Avon Products, the world's largest direct seller of cosmetics and beauty-related items, is busy building a global brand and enticing customers younger than its typical middle-aged buyers. Direct selling remains the firm's "modus operandi", but sales also come from catalogs and a Web site. Its products include cosmetics, fragrances, toiletries, jewelry, apparel, home furnishings, and more. Avon boasts about 5.8 million independent representatives. With sales operations and distribution in some 110 countries and territories, the firm has expanded on a multiyear turnaround plan launched in late 2005.

Fruit of the Loom wants to be in your drawers. In addition to its mainstay basics -- underwear made under the BVD, Fruit of the Loom, and Lofteez names -- its products include activewear, casual wear, and children's underwear sold under names such as Russell, Loom Fit For Me, Funpals, Fungals, and Underoos (which feature characters Batman, Scooby-Doo, SpongeBob, and Dora the Explorer). Fruit of the Loom's products are sold primarily in North America through discount and mass merchandisers the likes of Wal-Mart and Target, as well as to department stores, wholesale clubs, and screen printers. To trim costs, Fruit of the Loom uses Latin American production. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns the company.

Lambriar Animal Health Care, LLC was formed in 1994. Lambriar Animal Health Care, LLC company distributes health care products for dogs, cats, horses, and other animals, as well as kennel, pet, and veterinarian supplies including vaccines for livestock, birds, cats, dogs, and other animals. Lambriar Animal Health Care has two distribution centers in Kansas and Nebraska and a retail outlet in Fairbury, Nebraska. The company prides itself on its knowledge of pet care; several licensed vets and veterinary pharmacists are on staff and its phone agents all have animal care experience.

Baxter of California is embraced worldwide by well-groomed male Baby Boomers. Named for Baxter Finley, who founded the company in the mid-1960s and sold it to president and CEO Jean-Pierre Mastey in 2000, the firm makes men's grooming products for shaving, skin care, anti-aging, and hair and body. It's one of the first personal care products companies to cater exclusively to men. Baxter of California products are sold in spas, salons, and specialty stores such as American Male and the UK's House of Fraser. The company rounds out its personal care products with apparel, candles, and grooming accessories.

Lather Inc. Company makes and markets hair care, skin care, and body products for women, men, and babies. It also sells aromatherapy items and accessories such as pumice stones. Lather sells products through its handful of namesake shops in Arizona, New York, and California; national and international upscale department stores (Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's); QVC; and a catalog. It also wholesales its products and provides them to hotels and resorts. The company is expanding into other states, such as Georgia, by way of a new niche -- airport stores.

Domtar Corporation engages in designing, manufacturing, marketing, and distributing uncoated freesheet paper; papergrade, fluff, and specialty pulp; and lumber and wood products in North America. The company operates in three segments: Papers, Paper Merchants, and Wood. The Papers segment offers business papers, including copy and electronic imaging papers, which are used with ink jet and laser printers, photocopiers, and plain-paper fax machines, as well as computer papers, preprinted forms, and digital papers. It also provides commercial printing and publication papers, including uncoated freesheet papers, such as offset papers and opaques, and coated groundwood used in offset presses and digital printing; and publication papers comprising tradebook and lightweight uncoated papers used in book publishing applications, such as textbooks, dictionaries, catalogs, magazines, hard cover novels, and financial documents.This segment also offers converting and specialty papers, which consist of base papers that are converted into finished products, such as envelopes, tablets, business forms, and data processing/computer forms. It sells papers to paper merchants, office equipment manufacturers, stationers, retail outlets, commercial printers, converters, and end users. The Paper Merchants segment offers business, printing and publishing papers, and industrial products to small, medium and large commercial printers, publishers, quick copy firms, catalog and retail companies, and institutional entities. The Wood segment manufactures and markets lumber and wood-based products, as well as manages forest resources. The company is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

VF Imagewear, a subsidiary (or "coalition") of apparel giant V.F. Corporation, manages corporate identities, including uniforms, corporate image, and career apparel programs. It serves customers nationwide in government, transportation, utilities, telecommunications, foodservice, hospitality, and other industries. It also caters to sports leagues (such as the NFL, MLB, and Harley-Davidson) through licensing agreements and via its Majestic Athletic unit. The company's brands include Bulwark, Chef Designs, LiteFX, Red Kap, and The Force, as well as its licensed brands.

In the 1950's there were dozens of ballpoint models, and nearly every one took a different cartridge. In 1953 Paul Fisher invented the "Universal Refill" which could be used in most pens. It was a good seller, since stationery store owners could reduce their stock of assorted refills.Fisher Space Pen makes pens containing pressurized visco-elastic ink, which makes it possible to write upside down, underwater, in all temperatures, and in zero gravity. The company's pens have starred in space as the official pen of NASA and on TV in a "Seinfeld" sitcom episode. Urban legend has it that NASA spent millions to develop the pen.

The office products maker was founded in 1952 by its namesake, Peter Pepper. Peter Pepper Products company designs and manufactures office furniture and accessories, including clocks, coat racks, magazine holders, tables, benches, waste baskets -- even planters. Peter Pepper also imports items from Canada, Europe, and Asia. Products are sold through corporate and government contract sales, as well as through retailers (which have included Boise Office Solutions, Ivan Allen Workspace, and Herman Miller). The company operates two facilities in Southern California, runs a showroom in Chicago, and has factory representatives across the US.

Libby Laboratories, Inc. was founded by Dr. Henry Libby, father of current president Susan Libby, in 1959. Libby Laboratories company is a contract manufacturer of cosmetics and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Libby Labs also develops skin care, hair care, and bath products, as well as pet products (shampoos, conditioners, powders). The firm uses both natural ingredients and chemical preparations in its products, with everything from botanical blends and herbal extracts to antioxidants and peptides.

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