Top Private Companies - PBN.com - Providence Business News

The real story?
R.I. is doing much better than expected

This year’s Top Private & Fastest-Growing Companies special section has a treat inside – for the first time, we have used our Top List database to survey private, for-profit companies in our database and ask them how they are doing these days. And the answer is, surprisingly well. READ MORE

More special section stories

Standing at crossroads, R.I. sees hope for future

In almost every town or village in Rhode Island you can see the mill buildings, the canals, the dams and other infrastructure that once made the state a showplace of the Industrial Revolution.

A decade on, leaders still getting bigger

A lot can happen in 10 years. In 1998, Providence Business News profiled the fastest-growing companies and the Top 100 privately held businesses. Bill Clinton was president, gas cost $1.03 a gallon and stock markets were riding the dot-com bubble into the stratosphere.

2003 growth leaders still climbing ladder

Companies that show rapid growth often flame out, but the Top 10 fastest-growing companies in Rhode Island in 2003 show no signs today of falling off their growth trajectories, even if the paths they have taken have diverged from the original ones.

Despite the gloom, R.I. companies forge ahead

No one would fault Rhode Island businesses for feeling downright depressed in 2008. After all, exorbitant oil prices are putting the squeeze on companies big and small; foreclosures keep piling up in the wake of the mortgage banking meltdown, which in turn is dousing consumer confidence.

Consistent customer focus scores success

Every year when the Providence Business News releases its annual list of Top Private Companies, BankNewport is comfortably ensconced in roughly the same secure spot. For the past 15 years, when the numbers are crunched, the bank comes up in the high-20s or mid-30s. It’s an impressive record, especially at a time when banks and other financial-service sectors have been bombarded with deregulation, burst bubbles, mergers and the subprime meltdown. So how does the bank do it?

Connecting to customers still drives success

Growth companies in the late 1990s were as often about riding the dot.com wave as anything else, leveraging technology to make hard assets and intense customer interaction obsolete. But two decidedly old-economy enterprises were among Providence Business News’ Fastest-Growing Companies Top List in 1998.

Top private companies, by the numbers

The Internet and real estate bubbles have turned the last decade into a roller-coaster ride, but snapshots taken a decade apart show steady progress in many areas.