Tiffany Klein, owner of La Fille Gallery in downtown Lansing, dreams big.

When she purchased a 10,000 square foot abandoned four-story building a couple of years ago, she wasn't intimidated by the work that lay ahead. She worked on every inch of surface and transformed the well-worn industrial building into four floors of exquisite decorative finishes.

For her efforts, Klein was recently awarded The Greater Lansing Business Monthly 2013 Award for an Entrepreneur on the Rise, a new award started this year. The panel of judges gave her this award because of her "internationally renowned beautiful work."

Read more: A Small Business with Big Goals

Willingness to take risks is one of the key traits necessary to make someone a successful entrepreneur. And starting a new business in 2010, in the middle of one of the country's most long-lasting and difficult recessions, takes a special kind of courage. It was a risk that Peter Kramer, President of Kramer Management Group, Inc., was willing to take. Seeing him receive the Emerging Entrepreneur Award from The Greater Lansing Business Monthly is one indication that his risk led to reward. Another indication is the success of his young company that, in 2012, doubled its volume of business and anticipates that 2013 will continue to bring significant growth.

Read more: Emerging Entrepreneur has Plans for Further Growth

Daryl "D.L." Kesler has left the footprint of his favorite cowboy boots most everywhere you look in Greater Lansing. As the owner of D. L. Construction and Sons in Lansing, Kesler has built homes, shopping centers, subdivisions, restaurants, car dealerships, offices and studios. He has remodeled and repurposed countless other structures that line the arteries in and out of the city. He has also developed premiere golf properties that have become destinations unto themselves.

"When I'm asked to build something, it's like asking a dog if he wants a bone," says Kesler. "To me, it's not all about money, it's about the accomplishment of building something."

Read more: D.L. Kesler Named Real Estate and Master Entrepreneur

Lessons for how to run a successful business started early for Jack C. Davis, Senior Attorney/Shareholder of Loomis, Ewert, Parsley, Davis and Gotting. When he was growing up, he would spend his summers working at one of the 12 chain stores his father had opened and operated.

More than four decades later, Davis is not only helping to run a successful law firm of his own but also advising customers/clients on how to build their own companies.

And at the same time, he has been a key local leader dedicated to helping the greater Lansing community thrive.

For his many achievements and accomplishments, The Greater Lansing Business Monthly recently awarded Davis with the 2013 Entrepreneurial Award in the category of Law.

Read more: Loomis Law Partner: Lessons Learned that Last a Lifetime

If there is one truth in farming and construction it's this: Equipment will break down. How quickly a person can find replacement parts will determine how soon those expensive pieces of equipment can be put back to work.

Technology is driving a new sales platform for aftermarket heavy equipment parts retailers. Savvy farmers are using computers and smart phones to find parts online instead of heading off to a tractor supply store with the dog in the back of the pickup.

Thomas "Junior" Salisbury had an idea in 2009 on how to strategically fill that growing niche market and build toward the future when he founded Reliable Aftermarket Parts, Inc., in 2009.

Read more: Reliable Aftermarket Parts, Inc. Named Sales and Distribution Entrepreneur of the Year

In 1968, Gary Seelye, today president and owner of Seelye Group LTD, literally got down onto his hands and knees in order to get his start in the carpet business. Of course, that's because he had taken a part-time job installing carpet while going to college.

Now 45 years later, Seelye brings a top down perspective to the floor covering installation and cleaning business, one that earned him the 2013 Entrepreneurial Award for Service.

After returning from the war in Vietnam, at the urging of several friends he had met in the carpet business, he went back to work installing carpets, which at the time "seemed like the path of least resistance." A few years later, he and some friends decided to go into business for themselves. The rest, as they say, is entrepreneurial history. Seelye went on to buy out his partners, eventually close the business, go into carpet sales and ultimately form the Seelye Group in 1996.

Read more: Seelye Group Earns Service Entrepreneurial Award

William A. Dart has been described as a quiet entrepreneur but his record of community giving has sparked conversation for decades.

Since the early 1980s, the Dart Foundation has bestowed $56 million to educational and philanthropic causes. About $14.4 million of those grants have gone to support organizations in mid-Michigan.

The Greater Lansing Business Monthly took the opportunity to note that commitment by naming the Dart Foundation as the 2013 Social Responsibility Organization of the year.

Read more: Dart Foundation Named Socially Responsible Organization of the Year

Accepting the 2013 Entrepreneurial Award for Construction, Stephen Russell said that this June marks his 25th year in business and joked that it seemed like just the other day "when I was 14 and started this company." He continued by saying that "Entrepreneur" is such a key word. "Our country was built on entrepreneurs. And to be one — and to work my way up through the Lansing school system — and to start my business here is just such an honor."

He went on to thank his wife, daughter, son and the other associates at A/C Electric. "If I don't have those associates," he said, "and if we don't work together, we're not successful and we can't take care of the customers in the Lansing area. It's such a great area to be part of, and I'm really humbled and thankful for this award."

Read more: A/C Electrical Named Construction Entrepreneur of the Year

Lance Thompson, president of Baseline Data Services, LLC in East Lansing and winner of the 2013 Entrepreneurial Award for Information Technology, believes "there are about 1,000 ways to develop a career" and be successful, and that the common denominators are "hard work, honesty, and persistence." One of the ways Thompson measures success is that these days, "I literally don't know how to turn on one computer in (any of) my data centers." One of his employees must always be with him. Otherwise, he said, "I might touch something."

Baseline Data Services is in the business of disaster recovery. In the early days, its primary customers were banks, as disaster recovery is required by the Federal Reserve. And in those days, Baseline became experts in recreating a customer's IT environment, and continues that work today for an ever-wider variety of industries. As Thompson explained, it's one thing to back up data off-site; it's quite another to have the expertise to, for example, completely build up a $20 billion bank's IT department, its network and mainframe, within hours. "That's a feat," he said. And "that's what we do."

Read more: Hard Work, Hard Lessons Lead to Success for Baseline Data Services