From looking at his resume, you might think that Matt Druten, cofounder of Edison Spaces, makes for a somewhat unlikely entrepreneur. The Kansas City, Kan., native and University of Kansas graduate spent years working in the financial space, where his employers included Deloitte & Touche, American Century Investments, Atrium Doors & Windows and SPX Cooling Technologies. Those adventures led him from Kansas City to Dallas to Maine to Kansas City…

Gina Stuelke never intended to run, join or be anything other than a cheerleader for her family’s more-than-100-year-old business, Kenton Brothers Inc. It’s not that she was opposed to the business, which began as a lock-and-key business in the late 1800s — it just wasn’t a part of her overall life plan. “I was the first generation to go to college,” said Stuelke, “and I was ready to slay the…

Carrie Kiefer and Morgan Georgie met as graphic design students at the University of Kansas. Today, they run Ampersand Design Co., which creates designs that appear on products ranging from textiles to stationery to home décor to fashion for companies such as Crate & Barrel, West Elm, Target and Chatbooks. Ampersand also has its own line of products sold online and in shops across the world, including the company’s first…

We all know that Mother Nature works in mysterious ways. Nobody knows that more than Felici “Phil” Giordano, owner of Grade-A Tree Care. Working full-time as a tree trimmer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Giordano had picked up extra jobs and customers off and on for a few years, but a winter storm in the early 1980s catapulted his business into high gear. Before the storm, Giordano had…