Ken Lantis: where there's smoke, there's fire(works).

• Author: Beers, Heather
• Position: People

HE'S built a multimillion-dollar international business, but he admits it could go up in smoke any day--and that only makes it sweeter.

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The kid from Sioux City, Iowa, whose first exposure to the business came from working summers in the family's fireworks stands, has since become one of the world's foremost leaders in fireworks and laser displays.

Over the past two decades, Kenneth L. Lantis has shot shows for kings and queens, the president of the United States, and the firemen of Morgan, Utah. No matter the size of the show or the cost of the pyrotechnics. Lantis pours his soul into his work, and he surrounds himself with similarly enthusiastic people.

"It takes many hours to choreograph and prepare for a show. It's a lot of hard work--grunt work--and our people work real hard. I still choreograph, but I could not do this by myself; we have a lot of wonderful people who work for us," says Lantis.

Based in Salt Lake City. Lantis Fireworks employs up to 200 in the peak summer season and produces shows throughout Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Utah, and as far away as Australia. Lantis says his company ranks among the top five in the world, and that he often fraternizes with his colleagues around the globe.

"I know every major fireworks person in the world, and they know me. We're like a family," Lantis relates. He recently returned from Spain, where he and colleagues attended a world school on explosives. "We all run our companies like a high-explosives business. Our safety engineer has worked with Hercules--we're large enough to afford these [highly trained] people," he says.

"Large" has long been Lantis's goal. From the days when he staffed his father's fireworks stands, one constant has been his...