Networking: strategic plan helped Darby Communications build a small, boutique PR firm in Asheville with clients from coast to coast.

• Position: DARBY COMMUNICATIONS

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Coral Darby, who once coaxed a limping Toyota Tercel 1,100 miles in pursuit of her ideal career, now owns a thriving marketing company in downtown Asheville that helps clients chase their goals with ease.

Darby Communications, a boutique public relations firm specializing in the outdoor, fitness and wellness industries, was incorporated eight years ago with three employees and a single deal with a backpack and gear company. Today, its office in the historic Montford neighborhood has a coast-to-coast portfolio nurtured by a staff of nine on the ground floor of "a really cool building" with exposed brick walls and an open floor plan, where everyone is within reach.

Darby, 45, is making it big by keeping it small. Individual roles--accounting, sponsorship, digital marketing--for the all-woman cast overlap to maximize output. "Being small is an advantage because we can be nimble, we can be flexible, we can make adjustments whenever we need to," Darby says. "I'm very much about having a rapport, a relationship with the crew here. It enables me to do what I do on a day-to-day basis, because I love these people. You really want to enjoy the environment and the space.

"On the flip side, our clients appreciate it because they feel we're an extension of their team, because they can get in here and work with us. It just works. We've been able to maintain our profit margin (while providing) health insurance and matching IRA."

Services include media outreach, digital media, trade shows, athlete management and event marketing. The health-and-nature niche is Darby's passion, born when the western Massachusetts native enrolled, sight-unseen, in Colorado State University in 1989. She lived on the Outdoor Adventure floor of a themed dormitory with students involved in rock climbing and camping. Her path to a degree in apparel merchandising wove through California, with an internship at the Ventura headquarters of Patagonia Inc.

"I packed my bags and drove my beat-up Tercel cross-country" to the job with Patagonia, she says. "That helped me build a resume. I went back to Fort Collins (Colo.) and graduated, then made my way to Montana and got a job with an ad agency that specializes in (working with) gear manufacturers. When I went independent, I started to make things work. I've networked with some incredible people. They trusted me and believed in me, and that gave me the confidence."

Asheville, with its mountainous terrain, vibrant...