Abby Schilling
My grandfather started the farm in Saint Joseph, Michigan in the 1940’s and my parents bought it from him in 1980. Growing up on the farm in Southwestern Michigan, I always loved working both on the farm and in Chicago, where we sold the fruit and vegetables we grew. Read more>>
Lisa Masseur
I am one of those few people who knew at an early age what I wanted to do. I remember telling my mother when we were watching a movie when I was maybe 12 years old – my name will be up there someday (referring to the opening credits). After graduating from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University with a major in “Producing for Television Radio and Film”, I landed at a commercial production company in NYC. Read more>>
Leslie Wardman
I would like to think that Ambiance is one of the most experienced matchmakers in the industry with over fifteen years of work in the field. Following a twenty year career in ESPN production and advertising, I decided to put my passion and natural talent for networking into what I call the most important part of life – finding your significant other. Read more>>
Amy Lawless, Clodagh Lawless
We grew up in Ireland where our parents owned numerous pubs/restaurants/small hotel over the years. So we were literally brought up in the restaurant/hospitality industry. You could say that it is in our blood and DNA! From an early age, we had always worked for our parents in their restaurants. Read more>>
Amy Tardif
I’ve been a journalist for 30 years. I started in public radio in college, worked in commercial television, as a public information officer for a police department and returned to public radio in the early 1990’s. I grew from reporter/host to News Director and Station Manager. Read more>>
Shashin Patel
Painting to Gogh was created with the following goal in mind: to provide customers with a fun and creative outlet. No matter where you live or how much painting experience you have, we have curated an experience that is easy to follow & accessible. We deliver all the art materials and provide step-by-step digital video tutorials to help you create paintings from our growing catalog. Read more>>
Rima Dekhtiar
Originally the space started out as a full-time coworking space… while we do still have coworking areas on different floors of the building, we decided that we wanted to focus more on special events. We give our clients full creative freedom to decorate the space and turn it into the event they truly imagined, and we love seeing people’s ideas come to life. Read more>>
Richard Perrott
When I was 17 years old I told myself that I would start my own business someday. I didn’t exactly know when, how or what it would be, but the ambition ran pretty deep. I always felt confident that “someday” didn’t mean “never”. Read more>>
Carshon Hampton
I first started learning grooming at Aubrey’s pet grooming here in Sycamore Illinois and at that time I was laid off of work for 7 months and couldn’t stand to be at home anymore. At that time I was a licensed plumber and the economy kind of took a swing and I had to find a different line of work. Read more>>
Nicole Caylor
What started out as a casual conversation between two cousins in June of 2014, quickly turned into the launching pad for Running Vines Winery. I was bonding over a glass of wine in my cousin Walt’s first winery, Nova Cellars in Pulaski, Pennsylvania, discussing both of our fitness and business adventures. Read more>>
Kelley Kitley
As a sixteen year old who was being treated for an eating disorder by a therapist on Michigan Ave. I said to myself, “Someday, I too want to help people over come adversity and be a therapist on Michigan Ave.” After working as a social worker in the non profit sector for over a decade I took a leap of faith and opened Serendipitous Psychotherapy on Michigan Ave. three years ago. Read more>>
Bela Gandhi
I grew up in a loving family with educated parents who immigrated from Bombay, India, to the suburbs of Chicago, and one younger brother. If you’ve ever seen the beginning of the film, The Namesake, their beginnings were pretty similar. Read more>>
Amy Bone
Hi, I’m Amy Bone and I’m not your grandmothers pet photographer. I began Paw Prints back home in Charleston, SC after I quit my Corporate job. I was unhappy at work and felt like I was contributing nothing to the greater good of society. I was recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disease as well and simply kind of lost. Read more>>
Veronica Benduski
Always an avid reader and writer, I grew up as an unofficial English tutor for my three younger siblings. I took my love for the literary with me to college, where I completed both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English Literature. Read more>>
Mercedes Parrilli
Originally from Argentina, I moved to Chicago with my family when I was seven years old. Initially, I had a successful career in the fashion industry for 25 years. In 2014, my family moved to Hong Kong for three years when my husband was relocated for a job opportunity. During this time, I worked for the Hong Kong school system tutoring children in Spanish. Read more>>
Jen Gensler
I am blessed to have three beautiful daughters. Which means I am also “blessed” with their opinions on all things fashion related. From the time they were small – they had their quirks with not wanting to wear certain things. The concept of a camp required tee, was the Bain of our existence. Read more>>
Daniel Bocik
Upon graduating from the California Academy in San Francisco, I started working in a wide variety of restaurants throughout the United States, Paris and Milan. I opened a tavola restaurant in 1995 on a shoestring budget of small savings combined with a loan from a close friends. Read more>>
Mel Dermody
While growing up with a hearing loss, I could hear and understand a lot but would miss out on things. For example I was hearing 70% to 90% of the time, I was graded on these numbers at school and only partook in this amount of conversation with my peers. While this was deemed good enough by some, the harsh reality was that I was missing large portions of my life. Read more>>
Jesus Santos
Hello my name is Jesus, Im from mexico, since i was a child my attraction for the photography was there. around 2005 I got my first film camera,The pentax k1000, I photography my new baby girl almost every single day. Read more>>
Lindsay McFarlane
I graduated from the University of Illinois in ’09 with a bachelors in advertising. While in Champaign, I figured out pretty early on freshman year that I wanted to go into the fashion industry. I got lucky with a family connection and landed my first internship in NYC that summer with Theory. Read more>>
Matthew Chapdelaine
I had been a commercial real estate broker in Chicago for 10 years heading into 2012. The real estate industry was always fun, and I had my own firm with my business partner Nate. We were paying to much for technology solutions that really did not provide a lot of value. Read more>>
Gayle Voss
I had a bookkeeping business out of my home and one of my clients, Brian Gerloff, was a bovine veterinarian. He started a cheese company to help sustain a few 100 year old dairy farms and started by selling the cheese at farmers markets. I filled in once in a while at the farmers markets and loved it. Read more>>
Anthony J. Marinaccio
I graduated from Northern Illinois University and after a couple months at home I moved to the city of Chicago and jumped right into residential mortgage lending. I had a passion for housing and loved interior design, but the finance side of the business intrigued me the most. Read more>>
