Thomas Bepko Region, Milford, CT

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. We would only offer people the loans we knew they could afford.