Mar 19, 2007

Local business owners credit mentors with helping them succeedBy Homer BrickeyToledoBlade.com

Do you remember your first-grade teacher? How about an early boss who inspired you to do your best? Or an associate who taught you a valuable business lesson years ago that still comes in handy?

Perhaps they were mentors.

Many small-business owners rely on mentors when they start their enterprises. They can be other business owners, retired executives, a favorite university professor, trusted advisers like accountants or lawyers, close family members, or even total strangers.

Before Stacey Turner opened Blessed Blossoms, a flower and gift shop on Lagrange Street in Toledo, seven years ago, she sought advice from a florist she had never met, Jean Emery, who operated Emery’s Flowers & Company in Maumee.

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