Pearl Interactive in Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Pearl Interactive Network provides outsourced call center, administrative, and IT help desk services to companies such as Pfizer by hiring people with disabilities, service-disabled veterans, and other workers with challenges. "People with disabilities are discriminated against. Employers just don't know how to hire them," says founder Merry Korn, 53. Her employees work from home, eliminating the difficulty that many disabled people face getting to work. Korn employs 18 people working on five permanent contracts for clients, but she expects to employ hundreds as Pearl Interactive moves into serving federal agencies as well as the private sector. While the company is ostensibly an outsourcing firm, Korn says the heart of the business is workforce development. "What I really do is take a workforce of people who have incredible challenges and I create jobs for them," she says. Korn is now being approached by economic developers in rural Appalachian communities to see how her model could create jobs there.

###