There’s no dancing around it; working in the social services is tough. From the unpredictable hours, the even more unpredictable customers, to the emotionally intense work, it takes a special person to even consider this field.

When Jim and Maria Kantzios immigrated to the United States from their native Macedonia in 1951, they settled in Cleveland and opened Athens Imported Food and Deli. Selling Greek foods to the area’s growing Greek population, their business expanded when Jim—who also worked the assembly line at Ford Motor Company—developed a machine that made a perfectly thin phyllo dough. The technology he developed more than 60 years ago makes Athens Foods, headquartered in Cleveland, the largest manufacturer of phyllo dough and phyllo products in the world.