Less Pane

The first few weeks of 2013 should have been a pat-on-the-back festival at Bradenton-based window contractor and installer Key Glass.

Annual revenues at the 20-year-old firm closed 2012 at $9.31 million, up 55.2% over 2011, when the firm had $6 million in sales. The payroll hovered at near 50 employees, up from the mid-30s a few years ago. The recession's impact on the business was seemingly fading away.

But in early January the new projects pipeline just about froze. “We were bidding work and we were getting our asses handed to us time and time again,” says co-founder Greg Burkhart. “I was a grumpy, ornery SOB.”