Large specialty contractors experienced greater gains than small to mid-size firms as the region's construction industry negotiated its road to recovery last year.

With few exceptions, the region's top 20 specialty contractors either matched or surpassed the revenue they posted in 2012, according to ENR Midwest's annual Top Specialty Contractors survey. Firms that followed the frontrunners encountered a slippier slope, the possible result of a growing technological gap between large and small firms, particularly in the areas of prefabrication and modeling, says Anirban Basu, chief economist with Washington, D.C.-based Associated Builders and Contractors.