When Sylvia Medina left a secure job in 1997 at the Idaho National Laboratory to start North Wind Inc., a contracting, engineering and consulting firm, she had several strikes against her.

First, she was a Hispanic white-collar business owner in Idaho Falls, which was not exactly rich in that type of entrepreneur. Second, she was a woman entering a male-dominated field.

But Medina had the tools to succeed. As a teenager, she worked alongside her father, a land surveyor, helping run a transit, chain property and maintain logbooks. She graduated from college with degrees in environmental engineering and biology. She had the education, and she knew how to work.

That work ethic kept North Wind afloat in its lean early years as an environmental mediation and waste management company. It also has led Medina to embrace new opportunities to broaden the company's capabilities into natural resources, cultural resources, construction and public involvement.

Though the company has benefited in some cases from qualifying as a "disadvantaged" business, Medina prefers to downplay that label and focus instead on providing high-quality services and effectively competing against bigger firms.

Though still a small business in its field, North Wind offers "best in class" environmental and engineering services to its clients, who include key government facilities.

Medina's employees have been invigorated by the ever-expanding challenges the company's dynamic vision offers them, as well as by a company culture that recognizes their ideas and hard work.