Big50 Class of 2009: Thriving in a Downturn

Most remodeling companies would like to pretend 2008 never happened. January layoffs and salary freezes turned out to be the good news. By October, when we began the search for this year’s Big50, cancelled projects were wiping out backlog overnight. We fretted about whether we would find 50 companies who qualified for the award. As it turned out, we had nothing to worry about: The Class of 2009 did not merely survive the downturn, they found ways to thrive. Here’s a look the numbers.*

*Tables express averages unless otherwise noted. The number of companies contributing data to each revenue group is as follows: 12 ($500K–$2M); 13 ($2M–$3M); 10 ($3M–$5M); 12 ($5M–$10M); 3 (>$10M). Only one company had revenue of less than $1 million.