Owning your own business is a lot of responsibility. I've got a lot of people that work for me and I feel a huge responsibility to make sure my business is viable — not just for me and my family but for their family as well, and that's a big responsibility.

So what is Wishon Evergreens? Wishon Evergreens is a wholesale Christmas tree wreath and garment business that I've actually built from scratch here in the mountains of North Carolina in Allegheny County. I actually started the business when I was still a college student. I planted a few hundred trees for two or three years just thinking it would be a good sideline income for me after I got a real job, so to speak. But I got a job teaching school here at Allegheny High School as an agriculture teacher for grades 9 through 12. It actually took me 10 years of teaching and planting trees that whole time and working two jobs to be able to quit my teaching job and have enough Christmas trees to be harvested to pay the mortgage.

Allegheny County is a great place for agribusiness. We've got resources here with college folks like myself who are in business. What I love about this region if you're in agribusiness is, and I'll use our Christmas tree company as a good example, you need to think outside the box. I would give them the advice to think outside the box. Don't be afraid to market your products outside of the borders of Allegheny County. Everybody buys things online now, and we've got the infrastructure in Allegheny County with broadband that sometimes you don't even find in big cities.

Well, the biggest pieces of advice that I can give somebody going into not just agribusiness but any business, you're gonna get knocked down. You're gonna have things that don't work probably. You're gonna get beat out of money at some point. But you persevere, you dust yourself off at the end of the day, and you keep going.

My name is Johnny Wishon, owner of Wishon Evergreens, and you want to see what we're all about check us out on the way up and Wishon Evergreens.