Leebern founded Georgia Crown as Columbus Wine Company Distributor in 1938, the same year Georgia prohibition was repealed. After the first rail shipment of legal liquor was received, someone -- reportedly the Dixie Mafia -- murdered him. Today the family-owned company distributes beer, wine, liquor, bottled water, juices, and soft drinks to Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. The bottler also distributes its brand of bottled water, Melwood Springs. CEO Donald Leebern Jr. is the grandson of the company's founder. The Leebern family still owns the business.

Gucci Group, an Italian company with a Dutch address that sells French fashion, does quite well in Japan, too. Offerings include handbags and other leather goods, shoes, ready-to-wear clothing, cosmetics, skin care, jewelry, and watches. Gucci family squabbles and imprudent licensing once nearly doomed the firm. New management revived it with fresh product lines and stricter licensing, as well as heavy investing in its Asian presence. Gucci operates about 425 stores worldwide and wholesales products through franchisees and upscale department stores. French retailer PPR purchased almost all of the remaining shares in the company in 2004, taking its interest up to 99.4%.

HMU was founded by Dean Williams in 2001. HMU, LLC company makes remanufactured office work stations, focusing on the higher-end Herman Miller brand. It buys the cubicles from businesses, ships them to its facility, where the cubicles are dismantled and rebuilt. HMU's customers include colleges, hospitals, businesses, and government agencies. The company acquired Open Plan Systems, a remanufacturer of Herman Miller products, from The Supply Room Companies in 2008.

Founded in 1965, Etienne Aigner oversees distribution of Etienne Aigner products in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe. Etienne Aigner Group, a separate company, distributes the brand in the Americas. Etienne Aigner has expanded its classically styled leather goods and apparel beyond its mainstay handbags and belts. The brand name adorns such items as costume jewelry, briefcases and computer bags, and shoes, and Etienne Aigner licenses its name for cosmetics, eyewear, men's and women's apparel, and watches. Its goods are sold in approximately 40 countries through about 135 company stores and some 350 point of sales worldwide.

New Era Cap, founded in 1920, makes more than 35 million licensed and non-licensed caps a year and sells them through retailers the likes of Dick's in the US and Aeon in Japan. It operates offices in Canada, Germany, Europe, Hong Kong, and Japan. Its US manufacturing takes place in New York and Alabama. The Koch family (now in its fourth generation of management), including CEO Chris Koch, owns New Era Cap. New Era Cap has all Major League bases covered -- or at least the heads above them. The company makes the uniform caps of every Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball team, as well as uniforms worn by youth and high-school baseball players. The company boasts a portfolio of more than 200 licenses.

GoldToeMoretz boasts licensing agreements with the likes of Kathy Ireland, New Balance, and Under Armour and ships some 360 million pairs of socks each year. Moretz, founded in 1946, was acquired by buyout firm The Blackstone Group in late 2006 and merged with 90-year-old Gold Toe to form GoldToeMoretz. The deal, valued at $400 million, created a pair of the US's largest maker of socks. GoldToeMoretz wants to sock it to the competition. It's a sockwear maker for sporting goods stores and retailers, such as Gap, Target, and Old Navy, and private labeler for companies including Cherokee, Faded Glory, and Pro Spirit. It peddles the PowerSox brand -- a heavy hitter in performance socks -- as well as Gold Toe.

Married Hungarian emigrants, chairman George Meszaros and president Ilona Makari, own the company, whose precursor they founded in New Jersey in 1965. Six years later they established the existing company in Colorado. ILONA company manufactures skin care and cosmetic products for the personal care products and salon industries. It also produces makeup, skin care, and items especially for men, as well as the fragrance Within. The company operates the ILONA Skincare Institute, a day spa, in Denver. Products are sold at the institute and through the ILONA Web site.

The family-owned firm was founded in 1949 by Ivan Combe, who created Clearasil in 1950 and made it the #1 acne medication before selling it off in 1960. Combe's products are sold in more than 60 countries. Combe makes powders and creams you're itching to buy. The company's products portfolio includes an array of items in the anti-itch niche, including Lanacane, Scalpicin, Gynecort, and Vagisil. Combe combats other human indignities, too, including loose dentures (Sea-Bond), stinky feet (Odor-Eaters), and gray hair (Grecian Formula, Just For Men). Combe's acquisition of J.B. Williams in 2002 added popular names Aqua Velva, Brylcreem, and Cepacol to its brands, among others.

Arquest makes training pants, swim pants for infants, and other specialty products. Its retail customers include mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart and J Sainsbury. The company, founded in 1991 as a spinoff from Johnson & Johnson, is among the top private labelers of diapers in the world and one of the largest suppliers of diapers under private label in North America. Arquest conducts its own R&D (including market and industry research) and boasts a licensing partnership with Scholastic Entertainment, which owns the Clifford the Big Red Dog license.

American Seating was the first company to manufacture the combination student desk and chair unit when it was founded under the name Grand Rapids School Furniture in 1886. American Seating wants you to be comfortable and take at least one of its seats. A leading manufacturer of seating for a variety of industries, the company has furnished offices, public transportation, schools, auditoriums and stadiums, and entertainment venues such as Busch Stadium in St. Louis and the Tabor Opera House in Colorado. The company sells its products in the US and Canada.

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