# 36 Lifetime Pools Inc.
Palo Alto, CA, Raymond Whitford, President

One-year goals: improve the bottom line by concentrating more on the details and not making costly mistakes.

Five-year goals: Expand the company's territory for residential sales. "We are concentrating more on [doing] business across the San Francisco Bay Area, and also developing our infrastructure to get ready for the expansion," Whitford says.

Best business decision in 2003: "We employed additional field people, such as supervisors, to monitor the projects and minimize mistakes," Whitford says. In the past, Lifetime has spread itself too thinly and had not been proactive, he says. Now it can follow its jobs more closely.