The opening lines to Ben E. King's classic song "Stand By Me" describe the situation American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan face every night when their enemies are on the move. Fortunately, the U.S. leads the world in night-vision technology, which helps deny the bad guys their would-be invisibility cloak.

From a natural disaster to employee theft to bad-for-business regulations, the threats facing the small business owners we interviewed for this issue are real and could happen to any business any day. Just ask Nichole Yarbrough, owner of Shepherd, Texas-based Shepherd Auto Sales, whom we talked to for the Crisis Averted feature. In one day, everything she worked to create was taken from her when a thief stole her purse, which contained credit cards, checks, $5,000 in cash and more than 40 car titles. It was a rough two months putting the pieces back together, but she survived and has since learned the important lesson of protecting her business from theft by backing up data (and not keeping car titles in her purse, of course!).

Turn a few pages past Yarbough’s story and you’ll meet Michael Nevins, who is fighting a much different kind of threat—a challenging small business climate in Michigan, where his business, Full Spectrum Solutions, is located. Nevins uses his involvement in NFIB as a shield to combat onerous regulations. In this article, he explains why his commitment to NFIB is so important.

Also check out the MyBusiness Manual: the Essential Guide to Safeguarding Your Business, where you’ll find tips on assessing your insurance needs, how to prepare for an OSHA inspection and protecting your business against hackers and scammers.

For this and more, check out the “Current Issue” section of www.mybusinessmag.com.

Hammock's "association community builder" approach to sharing the event can be viewed at the NFIB Summit website. We used numerous online social and conversational tools, including Flickr, YouTube and Twitter.

Summer is here. Maybe you're ready for a vacation. We are. Click on the photo of a Hammock person below and learn about a trip they love remembering. Hint: It's easier to use at the full-size version of the map here.