Chinaberry’s winning combination: soft on the outside, savvy on the inside

By Reported Donna Loyle

Ruethling quickly ditched the job he had lined up in San Diego and threw himself into helping his wife run Chinaberry. (The couple divorced in 1994, but they still work together.) “I had never run a company before, so I had to get myself up to speed,” he says. “I read many books on direct marketing and mail-order management—and I did everything by the book, as it were.”