Growing up in Detroit, Cedric Franklin Sr. almost didn’t consider attending college much less starting Harley Stanfield, a company that finances and manages environmentally-sustainable rental properties. After 28 years as a successful investment broker, Franklin left the field because he wanted more choice in what he sold and hated the inevitable task of breaking bad news to investors. He jumped into real estate as a complete greenhorn, “everything I’d bought in my life I had lived in,” he says. Franklin’s finance background gave him a unique perspective on real estate but he also credits his Senior VP of Product Development Paul Wingate for urging him to go green “before the hubbub.”

William Teel went from writing software for the Department of Energy after college to taking over the department’s entire IT infrastructure. His company, 1 Source Consulting, runs everything from cyber security to help-desk support for the DOE and has climbed from No. 76 on last year’s Inc. 500 to No. 68 this year, with revenue of $196 million.

Fez Ogbazion immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia in 1982 and he started his first business, Instant Refund Tax Service, in his sophomore year of college. After selling to a Fortune 500 company, he used the money to start Instant Tax Service, which now operates at a much larger scale than his dorm room venture with over 1,200 locations in 34 states.

Andre Gudger, CEO, Solvern Innovations, No. 121

Since the age of 12, Andre Gudger has been an “ethical hacker.” In addition to a fascination with computer programming, he was generally studious growing up. “I took every book home from my locker from 6th grade through my senior year in high school,” he says. (Read the rest here.)

Growing up in Detroit, Cedric Franklin Sr. almost didn’t consider attending college much less starting Harley Stanfield, a company that finances and manages environmentally-sustainable rental properties. After 28 years as a successful investment broker, Franklin left the field because he wanted more choice in what he sold and hated the inevitable task of breaking bad news to investors. He jumped into real estate as a complete greenhorn, “everything I’d bought in my life I had lived in,” he says. Franklin’s finance background gave him a unique perspective on real estate but he also credits his Senior VP of Product Development Paul Wingate for urging him to go green “before the hubbub.”

William Teel went from writing software for the Department of Energy after college to taking over the department’s entire IT infrastructure. His company, 1 Source Consulting, runs everything from cyber security to help-desk support for the DOE and has climbed from No. 76 on last year’s Inc. 500 to No. 68 this year, with revenue of $196 million.

Fez Ogbazion immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia in 1982 and he started his first business, Instant Refund Tax Service, in his sophomore year of college. After selling to a Fortune 500 company, he used the money to start Instant Tax Service, which now operates at a much larger scale than his dorm room venture with over 1,200 locations in 34 states.

Since the age of 12, Andre Gudger has been an “ethical hacker.” In addition to a fascination with computer programming, he was generally studious growing up. “I took every book home from my locker from 6th grade through my senior year in high school,” he says. Though he developed a desire to be an entrepreneur in his teens it wasn’t until his graduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that he really got a taste of the business world. He took classes in locales as far flung as China, Mexico, and Brazil, learning about venture capital, corporate ethics, and global operations. All this set the stage for Gudger to launch the IT and consulting firm Solvern Innovations in 2003. Now the company has revenue of over $12 million.

Edgar Smith acquired the entrepreneurial drive at a young age, growing up surrounded by his parents’ small business ventures. Though his father was a veterinarian who oversaw meat inspection for the USDA and his mother was a teacher, Smith’s parents also owned a radio station and a stake in Detroit City Cab, a group of African-American taxi drivers and owners founded in 1928. Smith saw that his parents’ endeavors required a lot of work but “in exchange for freedom and flexibility.” In 2004, the paper industry veteran founded World Pac Paper, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based distributor of printing and packaging papers.

Magdalah Silva, CEO, DMS International, No. 191

At the age of five, Magdalah Silva and her family traveled from Port-au-Prince, Haiti to the United States for her father’s job with the state department. In her new school, her “complicated” name and French accent made her feel insecure and removed from the other children. (Read the rest here.)