Tina Harrison says she's been planning since July for the kickoff to the holiday season.

Stacked on a pallet in an East Chattanooga warehouse, the boxes of wool socks bound for Bulgaria make Jim Markley's point perfectly.

A decade ago, Doris Schober began looking in Ooltewah to build another Lupi's Pizza restaurant, but she had trouble finding a suitable site in one of the fastest growing parts of the Chattanooga region.

The median annual wage in Tennessee in 2018 for the nearly 3 million employed Tennesseans was $34,895. Among the 22 major occupational groups in Tennessee, the biggest five all paid below the statewide average:

1. Erlanger Medical Center - 545 beds*

Deb Socia says she loved being a middle school math teacher in Boston, but with an entrepreneurial passion she soon moved into leadership roles in education to help empower her fellow teachers and the inner-city students she taught.

Pop up shops are coming to Hamilton Place mall this holiday season.

What if the systems that made you successful wind up being the very systems that cause you to fail?

What started as a side hustle cooking healthy meals for her personal training clients led Alison Oakes to a full-time gig running her Naked Foods restaurants in Chattanooga and Knoxville.

Dancer-turned-nutritionist Maite Bou has a thriving business teaching healthy-living concepts to Chattanooga-area clients — mostly mothers and/or busy career-women.

Those looking for favorable tax laws and flexible options for creating and operating trusts have historically gone to states such as South Dakota, Delaware or Nevada. But with new trustee laws and the phase-out of the so-called Hall income tax on unearned income, Tennessee has emerged as one of the top states for trust formation and services.

Furniture maker La-Z-Boy debuted a new $18 million innovation center in Dayton, Tennessee, in September, making the state-of-the-art facility the research and development hub for the Michigan-based company.

History: Founded in 1969 as Allied Arts, a "united arts fund" for the purpose of centralized fundraising to support local arts organizations. The organization changed its name to ArtsBuild in 2012 to continue that support through grant making, and also to better describe the organization's strategic efforts to build a stronger arts community through initiatives in arts education, arts leadership and arts advocacy.

Miles Huff joins the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce as Senior Director, Talent Initiatives, the Chattanooga Chamber. Most recently, Huff oversaw corporate social responsibility including volunteerism, community engagement and corporate giving for Unum's Chattanooga and Glendale, California campuses, as well as Unum field offices. Huff serves on the Regional Advisory Council for Susan G. Komen and acts as a host for Dining Out for Life benefitting the Cempa Community Foundation. Miles is a Leadership Chattanooga alum and the previous Business & IT Industry Council Chair for the Hamilton County Schools Future Ready Institutes.

While his professional role for more than 32 years was at First Tennessee Bank, Michael Griffin has spent much of his career volunteering as a director, fundraiser or chairman for more than a dozen community groups, clubs and nonprofits. In both his hometown of Chattanooga and in his home for the past seven years in Cleveland, Griffin has been active in the local United Way, the Rotary Club, and the Chamber of Commerce, among other other nonprofits and civic groups.. He is also chairman of the region's biggest hospital, Erlanger Health System, and formerly headed the UTC Alumni Association, the Museum Center at Five Points and Junior Achievement of the Ocoee Region. In the past year, he helped raise a record $1.6 million as co-chair for the "Momentum '22" campaign for the Cleveland/Bradley County Chamber of Commerce.

Crisp air conjures sugar plum visions, and you're feeling festive.

Being a small business owner is difficult and rewarding. You are the CEO, the marketing department, the accountant and more. In the midst of your never ending to-do list, you need to hire employees.

Growing up, my family didn't go for beach vacations.