Robert Klein
Safeguard Properties
Services Category Winner
Few companies stand to benefit from an epidemic of foreclosures, but Safeguard Properties is one. Based in Ohio, the firm inspects and maintains homes around the country for lenders and mortgage servicers after borrowers default, and it has gone from doing 500,000 inspections per month before the crisis to 1.2 million now. CEO Robert Klein says Safeguard is on pace to bring in $500 million in revenue in 2009. Klein, 57, says the company has prospered by relentlessly focusing on understanding and resolving clients' problems, not simply offering a service. "You need to become an expert in your clients' field," he says. He also credits the hard work of his 700-strong staff. "The definition of an entrepreneur is someone who is smart enough to hire people who are smarter than he is," he says.
