She arrived with her small daughter, Gloria, to collect the first of many awards, the Guardian children's fiction prize, blanched by chemotherapy and frantically fending off well-wishers for fear that they would pass on an infection.
But much like large hardware startups that fend off well-funded challengers, Wagner has recognized that there's more to building the preeminent custom ski company than simply making skis.
Khan fended off the dictator as well as the generals and political hacks who were appointed to the board.
These attacks were fended off.
Fended off Lucy's amorous overtures.
Trump also fended off two well-spoken conservative senators -- Marco Rubio of Florida, who'd surged in the days before the primary, and Ted Cruz of Texas, who won the Iowa caucuses last week.
In an effort to preserve her job and placate her husband, as well as fending off the threat of his getting a third wife, she proposed to her husband that they make their youngest daughter look like a son.
At National Express he had to stabilise the company after it was stripped of the east coast rail franchise by the government, as well as fending off hostile takeover approaches and controlling an outbreak of civil war on the board.
The Frito-Lay consolidation comes as the company is intensifying efforts to widen its lead in snack sales in markets like the United States as well as fend off feisty competitors like the Procter & Gamble Company.
Like any other fledgling technology company, it has to attract financial backing by wowing investors and working out a viable business plan-as well as fending off emerging competition by building up a strong technology portfolio (see sidebar: "Quantum Competition").
Mr. Wagoner had tried to address both those issues in recent years, as well as fending off numerous challenges to his leadership, from the billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian in 2006, and from angry members of Congress last year.
