Retail

Megan Johnson almost left HR after her first job was conducting layoffs. Now she leads people and culture at one of Oklahoma City’s most beloved brands and is building a cheer tech startup on the side.

Johnny Berguson borrowed $500, trained a trick horse, and accidentally built one of North America’s largest church AV suppliers through faith, cassette tapes, and a misprint.

John Tsiones of Cermak Fresh Market shares how he built a $100M Hispanic grocery program and drove double-digit growth by centralizing pricing across a 17-store regional chain.

Jesse Vidrine bought a failing 99-year-old Louisiana pharmacy with his 401k and grew it 2,400% — now building a vertically integrated compounding, telehealth, and PBM company.

Bob Lang spent 30 years learning what drives franchise businesses from the inside — at Pearl Vision, Bright Star Care, and now Blue Moon Estate Sales, the largest estate sale franchise in the country.

Morgan Bajardi uses math, Gestalt psychology, and ancient weaving techniques to lead design at The Rug Company — and wants to change how the world sees textiles.

Joe Griebel went from laser tissue fusion to $2M packaging savings at Sunday. The design process, he says, is always the same — whatever the problem is.

Ben Cooke spent 25 years building other people’s companies before losing everything on his own. Now he’s turning Marathon Sports into New England’s trail running brand.

Eric Simsolo grew up inside Next Level Apparel, started as an intern, and stepped into the president’s role during a major turnaround — now building the company to outlast him.

John Prothro acquired Foot Solutions one week before COVID and rebuilt it into a 3D printed orthotic franchise with a 97% success rate — now targeting 350+ US locations.

Rick Blackshaw grew Chuck Taylor to $1.8B, doubled Hey Dude to $1B+, and signed Taylor Swift for Keds. Now he’s building Stoke Shoes for the 75% of men with wide feet nobody was serving.

Todd Lucas of Family Farm and Home shares how a radio background, 11 years at Menards, and a workforce age crisis led him to build a training department from scratch with a deer urine video.