Free Enterprise

We like to think of family businesses being passed down from generation to generation, but the fact is, only 3 percent of family-run businesses make it to the fourth generation. New York-based Fireworks by Grucci is one of them.

For some dads, Father’s Day is one of a handful of days every year in which they can count on a call from the kids. But for Patrick Markey, that’s far from the case.

Dennis Mashue is on a mission.

Dennis Mashue is on a mission.

Dennis Mashue is on a mission.

Up, up and away.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual America’s Small Business Summit starts next week in Washington. Check back each day this week for summit previews and speaker interviews, and follow along next week via the ASBS homepage and the Twitter hashtag #IAmSmallBiz for updates and live-stream events.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual America’s Small Business Summit starts next week in Washington. Check back each day this week for summit previews and speaker interviews, and follow along next week via the ASBS homepage and the Twitter hashtag #IAmSmallBiz for updates and live-stream events.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual America’s Small Business Summit starts next week in Washington. Check back each day this week for summit previews and speaker interviews, and follow along next week via the ASBS homepage and the Twitter hashtag #IAmSmallBiz for updates and live-stream events.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual America’s Small Business Summit starts next week in Washington. Check back each day this week for summit previews and speaker interviews, and follow along next week via the ASBS homepage and the Twitter hashtag #IAmSmallBiz for updates and live-stream events.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual America’s Small Business Summit starts next week in Washington. Check back each day this week for summit previews and speaker interviews, and follow along next week via the ASBS homepage and the Twitter hashtag #IAmSmallBiz for updates and live-stream events.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual America’s Small Business Summit starts next week in Washington. Check back each day this week for summit previews and interviews with some of the speakers, and follow along next week via the ASBS homepage  for updates and live-stream events.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual America’s Small Business Summit starts next week in Washington. Check back each day this week for summit previews and interviews with some of the speakers, and follow along next week via the ASBS homepage for updates and live-stream events.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual America’s Small Business Summit starts next week in Washington. Check back each day this week for summit previews and speaker interviews, and follow along next week via the ASBS homepage and the Twitter hashtag #IAmSmallBiz for updates and live-stream events.

America is on the cusp of a technological revolution that will impact every sector of the economy and every corner of the country. In the same way some cities rose and others faltered during the industrial era and the first technological revolution, this next wave of innovation and disruption has the potential to redraw America’s economic map as new cities emerge as leaders in the digital world.

Sandy Wood and Alex Laufer first met as students at Vassar College in New York. After graduation, Laufer, a biology major, took a job in the biotechnology industry in Silicon Valley, while Wood headed off to law school before embarking on what he thought would be a long career as an attorney in Washington, D.C. But in 2012, Wood began reading about small-scale distilleries, and slowly, he started to develop an entrepreneurial itch. Knowing he couldn’t build a distillery from the ground-up alone, he reached out to his college pal Laufer.

While the Dallas area is home to several high-profile companies, such as Exxon Mobil, American Airlines and AT&T, immigrant-led startups are quietly fueling an entrepreneurial boom in the city and boosting local innovation.