Dear readers,

It's no secret that there are scores of great businesses in the Las Vegas Valley and that successful businesses got that way through a commitment to providing excellent products and superior customer service.

But there is more than one path to success. Inside this issue of Business Profiles, which is our second annual edition, you'll find the stories behind each contributor's success. Read how these companies got their start and the strategies that were used to make their mark on the business community.

The first thing you'll notice is that it's a different approach from any of the other business-related publications we've produced. Instead of assigning writers to tell their story, in Business Profiles, we've asked the local businesses to tell their own story — in their own words.

This content approach is called an "advertorial." Now, advertorials are not new to newspapers or the rest of the world — actually, the word first appeared in Webster's Dictionary back in 1961 — and their value is derived from the fact that they give companies the opportunity to tout their own achievements.

Each company represented here was invited to showcase something unique about itself, from a new product or procedure to the signing of a new client. In many stories, companies chose to spotlight their mercurial growth or the philosophy that helped them attain that growth.

The value of advertorials comes from a "pure" delivery of the company's message through something other than a display advertisement. You will find varying degrees of promotional content.

Enjoy these success stories and find out more about each contributor's products and how they operate. We hope you enjoy the profiles, and more importantly, that you find them informative and useful.