Lake County has evolved from a patchwork of farmland and family-owned businesses into a conglomeration of technology companies, medical concerns and big retailers.

Belief in a product or service, plus a good dose of passion, have fueled most of the businesses that continue to make an imprint on the county.

Computer Discount Warehouse, now located in Vernon Hills, began in 1982 in desperation at a kitchen table.

Michael Krasny, broke after a few dead-end business attempts, banged out a $3 classified ad for his used IBM personal computer.

Little did the then 29-year-old Krasny know that one sale would blossom into an enterprise with $1.7 billion in sales and 1,500 employees.

At the time, many people had not seen a computer, much less used one. But Krasny took a leap of faith based on his own fascination with technology.

"CDW was not a vision created from a business plan," Krasny said matter-of-factly. "It has been an evolution of passion - for technology."

In 1989, CDW's 80 workers moved to a 28,000-square-foot building in Northbrook. The following year, CDW University graduated its first class of trained account managers.

In 1993, CDW went public and by 1995, it launched an e-commerce Web site. The company relocated to Vernon Hills in July 1997.

Scott DeGraeve in Lake Zurich also is reaping the benefits of seeding a simple idea and growing with it.

In 1991, he began taking phone and fax orders for groceries and delivering them throughout Lake County. A few years later, he jumped onto the Internet and now Scotty's boasts 4,000 customers in the Chicago suburbs with the average order being $130.

His mission of helping people save time by not having to spend hours at the grocery store fits the suburban marketplace niche.

Scotty's Home Market was acquired in October by Streamline.com Inc. for $29 million in stock. The sale will be finalized early next year.

Scotty's, which expects to do $7.5 million in sales by the end of this year, predicts sales of $100 million in seven years.

For Lake Zurich, this means a boom in sales tax revenue.

"This is a unique concept in that it does not bring in shoppers, people traveling into the community," said John Dixon, Lake Zurich village administrator. "It gives a nice service with sales tax involved with no traffic."

Merging with Streamline.com will enable the Lake Zurich-based company to expand nationally soon, said DeGraeve, who will remain in charge of the Chicago operation.

In unincorporated Libertyville Township, Abbott Laboratories grew from equally humble beginnings in the basement of People Drug Store in Chicago.

As a young doctor, Wallace Calvin Abbott spent time manufacturing tiny pills in the search for a new and better kind of medicine.

Worldwide, Abbott now has 56,000 employees and is among the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country. Last year, the company brought in a profit of $2.3 billion on sales of $12.5 billion.

Achievements include developing Norvir, an HIV protease inhibitor. HIV is the virus that can develop into AIDS.

Abbott's story of leaving the city for the greater space of the suburbs is a common one.

Intrupa Manufacturing Co., a manufacturer and distributor of replacement parts for forklifts and other handling equipment relocated to Lake County from Chicago.

The small, family-owned company came to Grayslake in 1985. Still family-owned, the company has expanded internationally and has customers in more than 27 countries.

Mundelein has bragging rights to a health-related company whose presence reverberates far beyond Lake County.

Mundelein-based Medline Industries Inc. - which began as a garment manufacturer - has evolved into the largest privately held maker and distributor of medical supplies and equipment in the country.

Founded in 1910 by A.L. Mills, Northwestern Garment Factory produced nursing and surgeon's gowns.

Today, the company has more than 500 sales representatives serving hospitals, extended care facilities, surgery centers, home care deals and physicians offices with a variety of supplies - from gloves to surgical instruments to wound care products.

Today, it is a Subchapter S corporation with 30 employee owners.

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