Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN)
Wally Bowen
Asheville, NC
15 Employees
We operate a cooperative modeled after the rural electric and telephone co-ops of the 1920s and 30s. MAIN offers affordable dial-up Internet access in 13 mountain counties, free Internet service for 60 public access terminals in rural libraries, and discount access for disabled citizens with severe economic hardship. MAIN helps people throughout WNC connect with people all around the world through broadband service.
I Play Baby Wear
Becky Cannon
Woodfin, NC
10 employees
We design, manufacture and distribute baby wear [manufactured in China] in places like Target, Wal-Mart, Babies R Us, and grocery stores like Harris Teeter and Giant Food. Currently, we are actually putting a lot of attention in specialty stores. So those are our larger customers. But we really want to build our specialty store. I have a distributor in Germany and she sells to 12 countries. We also sell to Singapore and Japan.
Kimmel World Wide Movers
Paul Samuels
Asheville, NC
20 employees
We’re importing or exporting people’s stuff and pets. We take care of getting belongings packed up, taken to the port and loaded into a container. After the container is on a ship and sails on whatever ocean, we make sure that at the next port the container is taken off and either put in a warehouse or is brought to the residence where all the stuff is unpacked. And people do move with their cars and dune buggies and dogs and goldfish.
Volvo International
Paul West
Arden, NC
250 Employees
We build heavy construction equipment for the North American market right here in Western North Carolina. I work as a technical training specialist for different dealerships. There are four of us dealing with different product lines, and we do approximately thirty courses per year. I am from England, and before I came here I was a technical trainer in Sweden in what we call the “global hub.” During my time there I traveled to approximately thirty different countries all over the world including Russia, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Poland, Germany, France, New Zealand and China.
Ten Thousand Villages
Jennifer Elliott
Asheville, NC
5 Employees, 20 volunteers
We are part of a larger network of over 100 non-profit stores. All of us are committed to buying products that are handmade by artisans in Third-World countries and providing those artisans with a vital, fair income for those products. We sell those products in a North American market, and we tell their stories to North American customers. So there’s a selling part of our mission and there’s also an educational part of our mission.
Xai Xai Imports
Mini Matthews
Asheville, NC
3 employees
We work to expose people here to work from Africa and help find agents here to represent African products. It’s very difficult, however, because of exchange rates that change all the time. Most of the women and families that I work with don’t have email or phones. So I go to Africa myself and I hand pick what I think will sell. I have a store here in Asheville and also distribute through stores in Europe.
National Wiper Alliance
Jeff Slosman
Asheville, NC
20 Employees
We recycle rejected nonwoven materials for cleaning materials. My whole belief from growing up under Maw Maw [Nettie Slosman] was that we should recycle and help out, so that’s still what we focus on; taking a lot of recycled, secondary products that would otherwise go to a landfill and giving them secondary homes.