By Bruce D. Snider, Cheryl Weber, Marla Misek Clark, and Meghan Drueding

What have you done to improve your business this year? If you focused simply on survival, it's certain you haven't done enough. The go-go years, when anyone could build anything and make money, are long gone. Now everyone who's serious about staying in the profession must ensure at least one area of their company is setting the pace for others to follow. This is the climate in which we chose this year's annual Pacesetter Award winners. So perhaps it's no surprise we have just eight winners instead of our usual double digits. We selected from entries in seven aspects of custom home building: management, marketing, customer service, design, innovation, production, and community service. No award was given in the production category. But our other winners have established benchmarks all would do well to use as a measure of accomplishment. They are committed to constant reassessment and improvement of their businesses at every level. For them, the status quo is a no-go. Read their stories and take your own measure. Are you doing even better? Enter your company next year.

2009 Custom Home Pacesetter Award Winners

Marketing

Ken Wrench and Ron Talbott
David A. Konkol

Innovation

John Leggett

Customer Service

Michael Ortega

Management

Ric Heidenescher
Gus Rubio

Community Service

Mark Morris

Design

Tyler Jones