Newburyport, MA

In 1997, John Walsh started a mortgage company. It was a simple enough decision on its face—after years in the industry, he had the experience, the know-how, and a briefcase full of big ideas. Over the next decade, his company grew from a tiny 3 person shop to a national lender. And when the housing crisis leveled the mortgage industry in 2007, Total Mortgage was one of the few lenders to survive intact. We owe that to a single choice John had made years earlier, as other lenders were making a killing putting borrowers in homes they would never be able to pay for, signing off on the very deals that would lead to the recession.