Annabelle Candy Company: Paving the Way for Happiness Since 1950

The Annabelle Candy Company, more popularly known as Annabelle’s, is a candy manufacturing company based in Hayward, California, USA. It was founded by Russian immigrant Sam Altshuler in San Francisco, California in 1950. The name Annabelle’s was inspired by Altshuler’s daughter’s name.

The company manufactures ten varieties of candy bar, including the most popular Rocky Road, which is known for featuring the rocky road flavor of marshmallow, cashews, and chocolate. It is ranked among the best selling chocolate bars on the West Coast of the United States.

Although founded in San Francisco, CA, the company had to move its headquarters to Hayward, CA. The move happened in 1965. Annabelle Candy Company also engaged in acquisitions. In 1972, it acquired the Golden Nugget Company. Meanwhile, in 1978, it purchased the Cardinet Candy Company, adding Look, U-NO, Big Hunk, and Abba Zaba to its list of candy bar products.

Casco Bay Lines: Providing Quality Transport Services to the People of Casco Bay Since 1878

Casco Bay Lines (CBL), also known by the name Casco Bay Island Transit District or CBITD, is a publicly owned and operated transportation company that provides services to the residents of the Casco Bay islands. These islands include Little Diamond Island, Peaks Island, Great Diamond Island, Long Island, Diamond Cove, Cliff Island, and Chebeague Island. The company has a fleet of five vessels, and schedules to the islands vary depending on the seasons. For instance, during summer, more ferry trips travel back and forth to the islands, with significantly fewer trips during the winter.

The company began providing services as the Casco Bay Steamboat Company, offering permanent year-round service to Casco Bay Islands in 1878. In 1881, the Harpswell Line started to provide regular service to the islands outside the bay. These two lines merged in 1907, forming the Casco Bay and Harpswell Steamboat Company. However, in July 1919, the company shut down due to World War I. That winter, a smaller company was developed: Casco Bay Lines.

Meanwhile, CBITD is a non-profit organization established through the emergency State legislation in 1981. It acquired CBL assets through bankruptcy proceedings, ensuring the continuation of the transport service between the main terminal hub in Portland, Maine and the Casco Bay Islands. CBITD is led by a board of 12 directors, 10 of whom were elected from the island communities. Furthermore, one of them is appointed by the City of Portland while the other is appointed by the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Transportation.

A lot of workers from the island communities rely on CBITD as they go to their respective jobs every day, and take them home eventually. School children (from 6th grade and up) living on the islands also use the CBITD service to go to school and back home, as well.

MAKO Surgical Corp: A Medical Device Company

Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, MAKO Surgical Corp is in the business of innovating and marketing of medical devices. Founded in 2004, the company is known for their RIO Robotic Arm Interactive Orthopedic System and for their RESTORIS, a family of implants used for MAKOplasty.

MAKOplastry is a proprietary procedure that offers a less invasive method for total hip arthroplasty and knee resurfacing. This procedure is comprised of about 300 US and foreign patents and applications. The RIO system aids orthopedic surgeons in creating reproducible precision for patients with knee or hip joint replacement. The initial MAKOplasty was performed way back June 2006. In just about 3 years, the company was able to perform their 1,000th MAKOplasty in March 2009.

MAKO is publicly traded on the NASDAQ. For its innovative approach to hip and knee replacement surgeries, it has received various accolades, including the award the fastest growing technology business in 2011.

Lionbridge Technologies, Inc.: Helping Companies Compete in the Global Market

When businesses want to be globally competitive, they need to break down language barriers. When it comes to translation, global content management, application testing solutions and online marketing, Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. is a leading name in industry. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Lionbridge helps businesses break through and speed up the adoption of their products in the worldwide market.

Commonly referred to as just Lionbridge, the business has been around since 1996. It has helped companies, big and small, penetrates the international market and made them profitable with the help of their professional cloud workers. The innovative solutions provided by Lionbridge have tangible results and has shown their clients the benefits of choosing them as a global partner. Their Global Customer Lifecycle Framework has been proven to increase global website traffic by up to 30%, it is also known for increasing results in top 10 search listings by up to 40%, 35% reduction of their global campaign cycle times and a reduction of their global marketing costs by up to 20%. Because of these tangible results, businesses have made the company the partner of choice in entering new markets.

Today, Lionbridge maintain their operations in 26 countries through their solution centers. It employs more than 5,000 employees worldwide and is capable of generating more than $489 million in annualized revenue. The business continues to assist brand names in entering unchartered markets while enhancing their brand loyalty, increase efficiency costs, breakdown language barriers and ensure continuous growth in revenue.

Several companies have entrusted their venture to Lionbridge. Among these businesses are Nokia, Samsung, Adobe, Dell, Eli Lilly, EMC, Google, Expedia, Motorola, Golden Living, Caterpillar, Rolls Royce, Porsche, Pfizer and even the US Department of Justice. Since its inception in 1996, the company has received several accolades including the “Vendor of the Year” award for providing the development, test and globalization services worldwide to Microsoft.

Brookdale Senior Living: Ensuring Safe and Comfortable Aging

Brookdale Senior Living is a company that operates a number of senior’s residences in the US. Founded in 1978 and headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee, it is the largest owner and operator or senior living communities throughout the entire country. Currently, it has over 570 senior living and retirement communities under its belt. In these facilities are around 35,000 staff and 55,000 residents.

Aside from senior care homes, the company also offers independent and personalized assisted living services, as well as dementia and Alzheimer’s care, rehabilitation, and skilled nursing services. The company has a wholly owned subsidiary company, the ISC or Innovative Senior Care, which provides rehab, fitness, and educational programs, along with basic health services.

Brookdale started in the late 1970s with the focus of building large upscale urban retirement facilities in large cities such as New York, Chicago, and Miami. These early communities were can be compared to five star hotels such as Hyatt and HIlton of the modern era in terms of looks and appeal. The company is now owned by Fortress Investments, with shares of 51% of the holdings.

Shutterstock: Placing Imagery in a New Marketplace

Shutterstock is a photo stock agency established in 2003 by Jon Oringer. From its headquarters in New York City, Shutterstock serves the international marketplace with its operations in over 150 countries and 20 different languages. To date: Shutterstock has a library of more than 30 million royalty-free stock images, illustrations and vector graphic, on top of more than one million videos for license. When Oringer founded Shutterstock, he had a simple mission in mind: to connect creative people all around the globe through photos, videos, illustrations and vectors from thousands of contributors from anywhere in the world.

After establishing Shutterstock, Oringer himself has uploaded about 30,000 of his personal stock photos. He made these photos available through subscription, which ultimately laid the foundation for Shutterstock. From its small beginnings as a subscription site, Shutterstock slowly expanded and evolved from subscriptions and moved into la carte pricing in August 2008.

To further its expansion efforts, Shutterstock acquired its nearest rival at that time, the credit-based microstock photo agency Bigstock in September 2009. Then  in February 2011, Shutterstock and AIGA forged a partnership that would inspire its members’ creativity. The partnership was to last for two years. One year into the partnership, Shutterstock’s stock photo downloads exceeded the 200 million mark, making Shutterstock the first stock photo company to reach such milestone.

Shutterstock filed its IPO in May 2012 at the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO was completed in October. Its ticker was SSTK. Following its IPO, Shutterstock opened international offices in Berlin and London. Today, Shutterstock is available in 20 languages, including Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Uploading photos on Shutterstock would require the photographer to apply for eligibility. Initially, photographers are asked to submit at least 10 images for screening of quality and suitability. At least seven approved images are required before a contributor becomes active. Once eligible, the contributors upload their work to the Shutterstock website, supplying important information such as keywords and category. Photos are examined for quality and copyright. The flat rate of downloaded images is 25 cents.

Institute Sarita: Providing New Lessons in Etiquette

For many centuries, elaborate banquets and entertainment have been a major part of the Chinese business culture. However, the old format of dining - the one dominated with Honghe cigarettes, endless toasts and endless rounds  of grain-alcohol baiju - does not represent today’s globally-minded Chinese businessmen.

In 2013, a Hong Kong native named Sara Jane Ho, established Institute Sarita, an etiquette school based in Beijing. Ho established her institute provide a modern flavor to the old-fashioned concept of etiquette. In an interview, Ho said that Institute Sarita is there to awaken the senses of Chinese entrepreneurs on the important role of etiquette. Etiquette is something that would bring diverse people together, rather than divide classes or cultures.

Ho attended the Harvard Business School and a premier finishing school in Switzerland. Using her training and experiences from these schools, Ho was able to develop a 12-day course that include important topics in etiquette such as menu planning and a detailed course on how to make a shy visitor join a lively table conversation.

Fitbit: For a Chance at a Healthier and More Dynamic Life

Fitbit is a health and fitness company that provides products that help people experience transformed lives. Although health and fitness is a serious industry, Fitbit believes otherwise. For Fitbit, life goals can be reached through a fun-filled and empowered life.

Fitbit was founded in 2007 by Eric Friedman and James Park. They have witnessed the rapid evolution of sensors and wireless technology and thought of a way to create amazing experiences that would promote health and fitness. This began a journey that would lead to the founding of a company that would manufacture a wearable product that would change the way people move.

Among these cutting-edge wearable devices include activity trackers that measure the quality of the user’s sleep, the number of steps walked, and such other personal metrics that pertain to health and fitness. Fitbit’s products bear the company’s name and the first of these was the Fitbit Tracker.

According to Friedman and Park, Fitbit has the dynamism for inspiring and empowering people to experience a healthier and more active life. Its products were designed and developed to seamlessly fit into any kind of lifestyle in order to help its customers realize their personal health and fitness goals.

Although still categorized as a startup, Fitbit has won a number of awards that recognize its potentials. In 2008, Fitbit was a runner at TechCrunch50. It was also distinguished as an honoree and was chosen as the best company in Health and Wellness category at the CES 2009 Innovation.

In June 2011, Fitbit’s privacy settings were widely criticized because the default settings made the users enter the physical activities manually so that the information would be accessible for public viewing. Although Fitbit allows the user to make his information private, most users were unaware that the default settings were set to public. The “blunder” escalated because some users included their sexual activities in their daily exercise logs not knowing that they were public by default. Fitbit responded in time by changing the default settings to private and by asking search engines to remove profile pages from being indexed in their databases.

Hutchinson Technology: The World Leader in Precision Technologies

Rooted in their culture of excellence, Hutchinson Technology has been developing innovative products that not only help their customers but also bring value to their shareholders. The company specializes in the designing and manufacturing of precision technologies.

Based in Hutchinson, Minnesota, the company operates globally. Their product portfolio is studded with various suspension assembly products that hold magnetic read-write heads at microscopic distances. These technological advancements are located above the disks in rigid disk drives. Their manufacturing plants are located in Plymouth, Minnesota, Eau Claire, Wisconsin and in Ayutthaya, Thailand, They also have service offices in China, Japan, Malaysia and in the Philippines. The company’s history compared to other businesses is quite humbling considering that their first plant was housed in what used to be a chicken coop.

Despite their shabby start-up, the company was determined to grow and now competes in the global market through their two major divisions: BioMeasurement and Disk Drive Components. Their products have further the advancements of various gadgets that we now enjoy.