Walter Alexander, the company's president, is a grandson of the founder, John Alexander, who ran Alexander Lumber until his death in 1944. Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Alexander Lumber can tell you about 100 years of selling wood. More than a century, in fact. The family-owned company was established in 1891. Alexander Lumber conducts wholesale and retail sales of tree products from about 25 retail lumberyards in Illinois and Wisconsin. Alexander Lumber's manufacturing division, Cortland Components, designs and builds wooden trusses and joists for construction at a plant in Cortland, Illinois.

Park Group takes the last minute out of Christmas. The holiday gifts supplier lets customers place orders through its print and online catalogs and make payments throughout the year, avoiding large credit card bills. Customers can earn discounts, commissions, and bonuses by passing around catalogs and taking orders from friends and family. Park also offers corporate and consumer gift vouchers, which can be redeemed at about 20,000 stores in the UK. In addition to its retail businesses, the company operates Park Travel, a full-service travel agency, and Low Cost Cover, an insurance brokerage. Park was founded in 1967.

Since its founding in 1889, the firm has developed the boysenberry along with varieties of peaches, oranges, roses, and the patented Hotbiscus Hibiscus and Wadda Tomato. In addition to its 100-acre nursery, the company has about 30 retail garden centers that operate under the Armstrong banner in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as about 15 Pike Nurseries locations in Atlanta and North Carolina. Its stores carry shrubs, flowering plants, fruit trees, and vegetables, as well as an assortment of dirt, planters, and garden tools. Company employees own 100% of Armstrong Garden Centers. It's strange to think that any company "invented" a fruit, but Armstrong Garden Centers does just that.

Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy wants to offer far more than the prescriptions, over-the-counter aids, and greeting cards peddled by those other pharmacies. Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, Inc. operates about two dozen retail pharmacy and health stores in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington. Although filling prescriptions accounts for a large portion of the firm's revenues, Pharmaca also offers complementary medicines and products and even has herbalists, naturopaths, homeopaths, and other alternative-care advisors in its stores to help customers find what they need to treat what ails them. Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, Inc. is expanding its presence in its established markets, most recently by acquiring Bay Pharmacy in California.

HOM Furniture, Inc is a middle-market to high-end home furnishings retailer operating more than a dozen stores in Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Wisconsin. HOM stores offer wooden (cherry, maple, oak, pine), upholstered (including leather), and patio furniture, as well as mattresses, area rugs, and other decorative accessories. Many locations also provide free design consultations to assist customers with buying decisions. In addition to its namesake chain, HOM operates Gabberts Design Studio & Fine Furnishings, based in Edina, Minnesota. HOM's retailing roots reach back to 1973, when CEO Wayne Johansen established JC Imports, the chain's forerunner.

Founded in 1963, Leslie's is majority owned by affiliates of Leonard Green & Partners. Leslie's Poolmart is the big fish of pool product retailers. The company sells pool and spa chemicals, cleaning and testing equipment, pumps, covers, and recreational items through some 620 stores in some 35 states, mostly in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. The company also sells its products through catalogs and its website. Leslie's makes chlorine tablets and repackages other chemicals to be sold under the Leslie name as well. Pool chemicals, major equipment, and parts account for a majority of the company's sales.

QuikTrip provides a quick fix for those on the go. QuikTrip (QT) owns and operates some 535 gasoline/convenience stores in nine states, mostly in the central US. QT stores, which average 4,200 to 5,000 sq. ft., feature the company's own QT brand of gas and diesel fuel, as well as brand-name beverages, candy, and tobacco, and QT's Quik 'n Tasty and HOTZI lines of sandwiches. QT's 15-plus travel centers offer scales, food, fuel, showers, and other services for truckers. The firm's FleetMaster program offers commercial trucking companies detailed reports showing drivers' product purchases, amounts spent, and odometer readings. QT was co-founded in 1958 by chairman Chester Cadieux. His son Chet runs the company.

Calloway’s Nursery is an independent Texas-based garden center founded by local nurserymen, Jim Estill, John Cosby, and John Peters. Calloway’s operates 17 stores in the Dallas and Fort Worth market and two stores in the Houston market. More than half of the company’s employees are Texas Certified Nursery Professionals.Calloway’s opened its first store in the spring of 1987 in Richardson, Texas and by the end of that spring had opened three more stores in the Dallas area. Calloway’s continued to grow rapidly expanding into the Fort Worth market and entering the Houston market through an acquisition. In 1999, Calloway’s acquired Houston-based Cornelius Nursery.

The doors may be closed at Price Rite Pharmacy, but priceritepharmacy is open for business. Operating what's known as a closed-door pharmacy, Price Rite Pharmacy provides prescription and over-the-counter medications, nutritional products, skin and wound care supplies, incontinence supplies, and more to customers in the San Diego area. The company also offers "Medicine-On-Time" service, which packages a customer's multiple daily medicines in sealed dosage bubble packets. While priceritepharmacy serves the general public, it does not operate any retail locations; instead it fills orders via mail order and delivery service.

Northern Tool rings up revenues through its catalogs (biggest sales channel), websites, and more than 60 retail stores in a dozen states. CEO Donald Kotula founded Northern Tool as a mail-order shop in 1981. Serious do-it-yourselfers put their kids to sleep with bedtime stories from the catalogs of Northern Tool & Equipment. Stocked with more than 27,000 products, the company offers an assortment of heavy-duty tools as well as construction and industrial equipment (such as air compressors, power generators, and pressure washers). Its primary customers include building contractors, automotive shops, and the do-it-yourself crowd. The firm also markets gadgets and gifts through its Kotula's division.

Inviting Real Estate Agents, Job Placements Agents, Educational Institutes, Software Service Providers, Real Estate Builders, Marriage Bureaus, Travel Agents, Restaurant Owners, Health & Fitness Centers and other Local Businesses to Post a FREE Classified Advertisement on Cootera.com Classifieds Website.