In a world where a few taps on your smartphone can book a flight to Florida or a hotel in France, travel agent Elaine Osgood is used to hearing predictions of her industrys imminent demise.

But this is a woman with a large white globe next to her desk and a pair of red boxing gloves hanging from her office doorknob.

Her Milford-based travel management firm has not only weathered the rise of the Internet, its gross revenues grew $60 million in the past two years.

She has owned the agency for the past 26 years, first as a Uniglobe franchise and since 1997 as Atlas Travel International.

This is hardly the first time that Osgood has beaten the odds, boosted the bottom line and brought in acknowledgements such as being ranked No. 18 on this years national list of flourishing businesses owned by women.

The Women Presidents Organization, a nonprofit organization with 97 chapters internationally, and American Express Open, the small business division of American Express, also named her business to their Top 50 lists in 2010 and 2011.

When she was a franchise owner, we grew to be the largest Uniglobe in the United States.

What shes most proud of, however, is her companys stellar reputation. I safeguard that, she said.

Another source of pride is not having a single layoff in her 26 years as an employer.

Not even after 9/11, when the world of leisure travel came to a grinding halt.

Read the original post:

Spitz: Milford travel agency finds room to soar