VisionIT

Rank: No. 1
City: Detroit, Mich.
Web site
2008 revenue: $103 million
Chief executive: David Segura
Workers: 850
2008 growth rate: -3.7%
Estimated 2009 growth rate: 30%

This year's winner, VisionIT, saw revenues fall slightly in 2008, but the company’s five-year growth rate was an astonishing 1,591% through 2007. The company was founded in 1997 at the urging of another inner city entrepreneur, Lydia Gutierrez, who runs Casa Hacienda Foods, also in Detroit. Segura was doing some independent consulting for Gutierrez while working simultaneously as a code writer for Ford Motor (F). “She said, 'I know you can build something much more,'” Segura says. And so he has. Today, VisionIT provides outsourced IT services for some of the world's largest companies, government agencies,and large city school districts. Segura has personnel in 30 states, India, and the Middle East.