Ernst & Young's Entrepreneurs of the Year.

• Author: McKimmie, Kathy

THIS YEAR'S WINNERS of Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Awards are as diverse as tomatoes and trucking, implants and insurance, footwear and feeds, technical writing and technology reporting. One even has Santa Claus on the payroll. But their common threads are taking risks, following their gut, staying focused and finding the best talent.

Six individuals were chosen by industry category, one for realizing untapped business potential, and two as Master Entrepreneurs for their lengthy and successful stints as business innovators.

MANUFACTURING

Brian Reichart, president and CEO, Red Gold, Orestes

After graduation from Purdue, Brian Reichart joined the family business in 1972 as plant manager and chief engineer. It had only 10 full-time employees. His grandfather started the seasonal tomato canning company 30 years earlier as Orestes Canning, named after the Madison County town in which it operated, and his parents took over the second-generation leadership. The company name changed just before Brian came on board when a small local company named Red Gold was acquired. Reichart's vision was to transform the company into a year-round operation with full-time employees, expand the product line and go head-to-head with the large tomato processors in California.

Under his leadership, Red Gold began making ketchup and tomato sauce to stretch the short 45-day fresh production season in Indiana, and steadily grew with private-label packaging and institutional food contracts. It continued to grow through acquisitions of name brands, such as Redpack, Tuttorosso and Sacramento, and through successful marketing of its own label. Red Gold now produces more than 100 different styles and flavors of tomato products in 41 different sizes and containers.

Under the Red Gold label are 60 flavors, sizes and types of products. Combined with its three other brands, the company produces 6.5 million cases a year. The bulk of its production, however, is still for private-label and institutional markets.

Reichart is sole owner of one of the largest privately owned tomato processors in the nation, with more than 1,200 full-time employees. The company has three manufacturing facilities and a distribution center in Indiana, a transportation fleet of 95 tractor trailers with both company and owner-operator drivers, and sales to all 50 states and 16 countries.

"I've always been driven to think of a better way of doing things," says Reichart. As Red Gold has grown, he's always invested back into the company to get the newest technology and high-speed equipment. "What we do the best is trying to take as much risk as possible out of the process."

Where some people fail is in their lack of focus, he adds. "We stay focused. We don't do anything but tomatoes."

LIFE SCIENCES

Toby Buck, chairman, president and CEO, Paragon Medical, Pierceton

"Never, never, never quit," says Toby Buck, two-time winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award, echoing Winston Churchill's scant speech to a graduating class before walking off the stage. "People have a desire to start a business, but a lot of folks never survive long enough to succeed. A lot of people throw in the towel too soon. Creating an atmosphere where employees can thrive will help ensure success. A lot of companies talk about employee empowerment; we actually live it."

Paragon Medical, strategically located east of the orthopedic capital of the world in Warsaw, has carved a niche as a "total delivery solution for the orthopedic-implant community." That means it manufactures whatever it takes to implant that knee from Zimmer or that hip from Biomet. It has about 35 percent of the "tackle box" market, the reusable polymer, metal and hybrid trays (called delivery systems in the trade) used to hold surgical instruments. It is getting to be a bigger player in custom surgical instruments and even makes some implantable components...