With 110 years of experience in the New York region, Turner Construction knows how to weather a recession. The firm learned a tough lesson in diversification during the late 1980s and 1990s, when commercial contractors suffered from the overbuilding in that sector. Since then, the New York-based company has created core competencies in a broad range of sectors, limiting its participation in commercial and residential work while expanding its relationships with institutional and government clients.

“That paid off [during] the economic problems of 2008,” says Charles F. Murphy, senior vice president for Turner's offices in New York. “We were able to get more of the market share, because those [available] projects were core competencies of ours.”