Phone card firm connects. (Networks Around the World Inc.)(Company Profile)

When Randy Cherkas started Networks Around the World Inc., which provides customized phone cards, the market was dominated by the likes of Sprint, AT&T, MCI and WorldCom.

Those formidable competitors, however, didn't deter Cherkas from leaving a secure job at IBM to enter the fray.

Cherkas saw a deficiency in the service those companies provided and he was determined to fix that shortcoming. That determination, plus a lot of hard work, helped put his company at the top of this year's South Jersey 25.

In Cherkas' mind, those competitors may have had more visibility and clout than his start-up venture, but they weren't selling the product properly.

"They were phone companies. And what I brought was a more retail, marketing and merchandising focus to a telecommunications …