When Meredith DeMartino entered the University of Albany in New York in the early 1990s as a marketing and finance major, she imagined that one day she would end up working on Wall Street.

Instead, she began a career in human resources at Micro Interactive Inc., a multimedia startup firm in New York City, soon after graduating in 1995.

“I was employee No. 15,” she said. “And they just started to grow, and I started to get involved with helping them with the growth from the talent acquisition, or recruiting, aspect. And then as we got larger, there was a need to really take on that HR role. I loved it so much, I ended up leaving that organization so I could go to a larger organization where I could truly learn the corporate HR function.”

What Ms. DeMartino likes best about being in human resources is the fact that it also allows her to put what she calls her “numbers side” to use, especially when she is working on benefits programs.

An opportunity to become compensation and benefits manager at Carlsbad, Calif.-based Dot Hill Systems Corp. brought her to the West Coast in 2001, and she went back to school at night, earning her master's degree in business administration at California State University San Marcos in 2003.

She became attracted to Event Network Inc. in San Diego when efforts to meet up for a business dinner with President Larry Gilbert, one of the company's founders, didn't pan out.

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“He suggested we meet for breakfast instead because he said he made a point of having dinner with his family every night at 5:30,” she said.

Ms. DeMartino continues to espouse Event Network's family-friendly culture through the design and implementation of the company's benefits programs, including its on-site garden plots, its “family kitchens” and its regular support of community volunteer work.

Family members also are encouraged to participate in Event Network's many wellness challenges and in annual enrollment meetings, which are held via conference call because most of the niche retailer's 1,250 employees work remotely in stores away from the company's San Diego headquarters.

Further perpetuating the familial tone of the firm is the way cubicles and offices are labeled. Instead of traditional employee name plates, colorful plaques list biographical information that provides a glimpse into each resident's unique personality. Ms. DeMartino's plaque, for example, shows that she hails from Dix Hills, N.Y., and she has a 20-pound black-and-white cat named Roxy.

She and her husband, Chris, a graphic designer who operates his own business out of their home in nearby Carlsbad, also have two young sons: Ryan, 6, and Brady, 3.