Her goods have gone to the dogs.

• Position: People - Sylvia Pickett - Brief Article - Biography

It all started with a bad case of puppy love. In 1999, Sylvia Pickett was working as a rep for furniture accessory lines when she decided to take her Shih Tzu, Tashi, to a trade show. Pickett bought a denim baby snuggly--the kind mothers strap on their chests to carry infants--pinned up the leg holes and slid the 11-pound pooch inside. She liked it so much that she used it to carry Tashi everywhere. When she went into a chain pet store, "the cashier practically jumped across the counter" to find out where she'd gotten it. "I knew right then I had my next company."

To start Global Pet Products Inc., Pickett enlisted her sister Carol Polk, who has an MBA from Wake Forest. Polk, who was chief operating officer at Salem Computer Group in Winston-Salem, is Global Pet's president. Pickett is vice president of marketing, but they share ownership equally. By early 2000, they had two manufacturers and a product--the PetPocket. When they unveiled it at a trade show in Atlantic City, N.J., "we couldn't get a breath," Pickett says. Global Pet Products now sells 52 pet products, including...