Brand names keep him in stitches.

• Position: Bernhard Conrad, president and CEO of A-B Emblems and Caps

Bernhard Conrad, president and CEO of A-B Emblems & Caps, can't say his Weaverville company has sewn up the competition. But the 46-year-old family business has managed to put a cap on sales it was losing to foreign companies.

Last year, A-B had revenues of $12.5 million: $7 million in emblems, $5.5 million in caps.

Conrad's great-grandfather, Albin Conrad, got things started in Plauen, Germany, in 1892. Bernhard's father, Henry, carried on when he came to the United States and founded A-B Emblem Co. (named for Bernhard and his older sister, Annerose) in 1947. Thirty years ago, the company moved from Union City, N.J., to Weaverville. "My dad wanted to expand, but we were stuck between tenements," Conrad, 52, says.

It was a "foregone conclusion" that Bernhard would someday take his place in the company. He spent two years at the University of Pennsylvania, then apprenticed at a Brazilian embroidery company for a year before going to work full time as the "boss' son" in 1962. "I wore a lot of different hats," he says. He became president in 1975 and CEO shortly after his father died, at age 83, in June...