NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 04: (L-R) Ambassador Eug ne-Richard Gasana, Lillian Vernon and Paolo Martino attend Kageno Harambee "Believe" Gala at Guastavino's on November 4, 2013 in New York City.

She also invested in several new distribution centers throughout New York and built a high-tech communications system to handle the increasingly large volume of orders. By the late 1980s, Lillian ...