Room to Grow

You don't hire Jamie Pirrello unless you have big plans.

Pirrello is the Fort Myers finance chief who helped engineer the sale of First Home Builders of Florida to Hovnanian Enterprise at the peak of the market in August 2005. At the time, First Home was the largest homebuilder in Lee County, and Hovnanian agreed to pay $350 million for the company, though it ended up paying less than that because it didn't meet certain targets during the subsequent downturn.

Looking back, Pirrello doesn't gloat about the deal. “Who could've ever understood the downturn?” he says.