The flower business has been ingrained in the Coleman family for years. So it was natural for Mervin and Lowell Coleman Sr. to open Coleman Brothers Flowers in 1971. They did so with their brother-in-law Thomas E. Wilkinson as co-owner.

Amanda Belcher chose Kara Buntin to design the cake for her September wedding after seeing Buntin’s eclectic, three-dimensional cakes. “I’m not a traditional bride,“ Belcher said. “My wedding dress was a 1950s-style red and white dress. I had been toying with the idea of doing a 1950s-style cake with apron prints.“ Buntin, owner of A Cake to Remember, suggested putting a gingham design on the first tier of the cake, two swallows with a heart on a string on the second tier and black and white polka dots on the top tier.

Sitting on a bench amid shiny gazing balls and stone gargoyles on a Saturday afternoon, Claudia Swanson is at work in the rain. While it’s not a promising sales day for the owner of Dirty Hands Garden Center in Powhatan County, the sole proprietor takes her role seriously. “If I say I’m going to be open, I need to be here.“ While that work ethic has had its challenging moments over the years as Swanson was a single parent raising four children, her perseverance has produced a reputation for personally connecting with her clientele and community.

Steven Parent took notice when small-business owners complained that their human-resource administrators were juggling multiple responsibilities they weren’t properly trained to handle.

Any morning, except Monday, you can find a crowd of regulars seated at the counter of Country Style Donuts in eastern Henrico County. The mix of retired patrons and on-the-way-to-workers say, in between doughnuts and sips of hot coffee, that they wouldn’t miss a morning.

Steve Barnett turns to Elissa Mast for her balloon expertise every year in the weeks before Valentine’s Day. “Valentine’s Day is a huge balloon day for us,“ said Barnett, president of Barnett’s Hallmark, which operates five area shops.

Soumitra Banerjee and David Goff are proud that their architectural designs have helped low-income neighborhoods. Chesterfield County-based Banerjee & Goff Inc. has designed about 140 homes in the Blackwell, Carver, Highland Park and Hamlin Creek Court neighborhoods.

Jay Burlison learned the joys of gardening from his maternal grandmother during his childhood. “I would help my grandmother in her wonderful gardens, which were even more remarkable because they were being produced in the hard climate of northeastern New Mexico,“ he said.

W.Scott Brannan learned the art of plastering more than 25 years ago by helping F. Richard Wilton Jr. with renovation projects. “When he would go to jobs to plaster, I would join him,“ said Brannan, who was a salesman for the contracting company at the time.

To many consumers a door is merely a door, but not so for Rodney Hyatt, president of Architectural Hardware of Virginia. “We have any kind of door you can imagine, from wood and hollow metal to watertight and acoustical,“ he said.

Sue Polyson Evans spent hours trying to come up with a name for the eLearning software company that she and Robert Godwin-Jones were forming. She settled on SoftChalk after playing around with the concept of blackboards and chalk.

Karen Bullard saw an opportunity for a new business after her son was born. She looked for birth announcements but couldn’t find any she liked. “I wanted something simple and whimsical,“ she said.

Susan Morrison calls Rich’s Stitches Inc. whenever she needs embroidered gifts and giveaways for her company. Morrison, senior vice president of Dorsey, Wright & Associates, an investment research company based in Richmond, orders a variety of items several times a year.

Vera Chumney and her husband, Dick, sought the advice of Virginia Wayside Furniture interior designer Sylvia Carter when they bought their vacation home in Virginia Beach 13 years ago.

Julie Sugarman always orders the holiday items she gets from Bon Air Seafood far in advance of this busy season. Sugarman knows that days before the holidays, the lines of people waiting to make a purchase can stretch down the sidewalk and into the parking lot. Sugarman has been a customer for 30 years. “I really like it,“ she said. “It’s very clean and appealing to me. It’s the only seafood store that I have ever been to that didn’t smell like fish.“