Hot Zones

 

Ned Homfeld has started four businesses in Detroit, another city not known as a garden spot. The newest was Spirit Airlines, which began in 1981 as a charter service to Atlantic City and evolved into a full-fledged airline serving vacation spots like Myrtle Beach and Fort Lauderdale. The Detroit airport is dominated by Northwest Airlines. It wasn't until this past fall that Spirit got its own gates. Yet Homfeld says that being in Northwest's "fortress hub" was actually an advantage for him. "Northwest is a relatively high priced carrier, and as a small carrier, we could compete with them effectively on a cost basis," he says. "There is so much traffic in Detroit that we could get a piece of it without ruffling too many feathers."

Even so, Homfeld has just opened offices in Fort Lauderdale and is opening a new reservation center there as well. He hopes the south Florida climate will help when it comes to attracting executive recruits. Plus, since Spirit has designs on the Latin American market, the company needs Spanish-speaking reservation clerks. But Detroit will remain as the company's hub, and its existing maintenance facilities and reservation center will stay there -- along with a sizable portion of its customer base.

And there's nothing like living among your customers to help keep you in touch with their changing desires. Being located in what is practically Climb Central has helped Black Diamond get smarter. When employees take new products onto the slopes or up the rocks, other climbers and skiers are there to provide instant feedback. "It's like having hundreds of business meetings," says product designer Andrew McLean.

The lessons sometimes come hard. In the past eight years, six Black Diamond people have lost their lives in avalanches. That would never have happened in Ventura, Metcalf says. To combat such tragedies, Black Diamond developed a specialty product called the AvaLung, which prevents avalanche victims from suffocating.

"The one thing most people say now about Black Diamond is, 'You guys are an absolutely integral part of the sport,' " Metcalf says. "That's because we're here."

Emily Barker is a senior staff writer at Inc.

HOT ZONES: THE RANKINGS

50 Best Big Metro Areas
1. Phoenix, AZ
2. Salt Lake City-Provo, UT
3. Atlanta, GA
4. Raleigh-Durham, NC
5. Indianapolis, IN
6. Washington, DC-MD-VA
7. Memphis, TN-AR-MS
8. Orlando, FL
9. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
10. Nashville, TN
11. Denver-Boulder, CO
12. Louisville, KY-IN
13. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI
14. Charlotte, NC-SC
15. Grand Rapids-Muskegon, MI
16. Birmingham-Tuscaloosa, AL
17. San Diego, CA
18. Houston-Galveston, TX
19. Columbus, OH
20. San Antonio, TX
21. Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN
22. Richmond, VA
23. Kansas City, MO-KS
24. Portland, OR-Vancouver, WA
25. Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL
26. Milwaukee-Racine-Sheboygan, WI
27. Baltimore, MD
28. Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL
29. Norfolk-Portsmouth-Virginia Beach, VA
30. St. Louis, MO-IL
31. San Francisco­Oakland­San Jose, CA
32. Los Angeles, CA
33. Chicago, IL-IN
34. Detroit, MI
35. Dayton-Springfield, OH
36. Boston, MA
37. New Orleans, LA
38. Greensboro-Winston-Salem, NC
39. Cleveland-Akron, OH
40. Seattle, WA
41. Sacramento, CA
42. Oklahoma City, OK
43. Philadelphia, PA-NJ
44. Pittsburgh, PA
45. Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT
46. Buffalo, NY
47. New York, NY-NJ
48. Rochester, NY
49. Hartford, CT
50. Albany-Schenectady-Troy-Glens Falls, NY
Source: Cognetics Inc.

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