Features

In the mere three and a half years since Donald “Don” Jones and Janon Costley met, they have bridged the 18-year difference in their ages to build together “something different,” even “industry changing,”

In July, attorney Carolyn House Stewart, a shareholder in the Tampa, Fla., law firm Macfarlane Ferguson & McMullen P.A., was installed as the 28th international president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., presiding over its 250,000 members in 975 chapters worldwide. Stewart spoke to TNJ Executive Editor Rosalind McLymont about her goals for her administration. 

Facing unprecedented budget pressures as the worst recession since the 1930s continues to roil the economy, public and private-sector institutions alike are slashing costs to the bone, taking such measures as consolidating supply chains to favor larger suppliers who can offer greater bang for limited bucks.

My brother and I started a very successful specialty foods business a couple of years ago. We’re not rich, but we’re making enough to support ourselves and our families. Recently, a major distributor that wants to take our products nationwide approached us, selling them in supermarkets, gourmet groceries and specialty food stores.

By U.S. government accounts, the longest economic slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s came to an end on March 31, a date that sealed the third consecutive quarter of growth. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the country’s gross domestic product — the measure of its total output of goods and services — grew 3.2 percent in the first quarter of 2010 as consumer spending rose at the fastest pace in three years, after growing 2.2 percent in the third quarter of 2009 and 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter.

When New Jersey entrepreneur Avis Yates Rivers started her first business more than 20 years ago, she ran it part time out of the basement of her home and still worked a full-time job. After a series of setbacks and comebacks, Rivers managed to parlay her business acumen into a successful multimillion-dollar technology business.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the nearly 250,000 Africans taken between 1519 – 1810 as slaves to what is now Mexico, or what became of slaves who fled the United States for that same country?

The year ahead will bring huge benefits to enterprises that are well managed, competitive, innovative and proactive enough to exploit public- and private-sector actions aimed at enhancing the nation’s small businesses.

Receiving a life-altering medical diagnosis is difficult, but patients of Donna M. Mendes, M.D., may find that message a little easier to bear. As an African-American senior vascular surgeon at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, Dr. Mendes mirrors the race of her patients and understands the behavior that leads this population to have higher incidences of diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions that can result in circulatory problems.