Before joining the Colorado Stars, Schmitz tended bar, waited tables and ran a lawn-mowing business.

WSJ: Missy Franklin: How Not to Ruin a Swimming Prodigy

Wells Mason's chairs, benches, and tables are simultaneously playful and--with their stark joining of organic and man-made materials (such as the Baltic birch, stainless steel, and fiberboard embedded in a telephone pole in the Shelf Life chair, bottom)--aesthetically and intellectually challenging.

FORBES: Above photo courtesy of John Langford