Meritage Corp.'s Steve Hilton His Focus Helped Build His Real Estate Empire.(A)(Leaders & Success)

Byline: Christopher L. Tyner

Investor's Business Daily

In the latter half of the 1980s, Steve J. Hilton decided to adopt the same approach to running his business that hockey great Wayne Gretzky used on the ice.

"Gretzky had a famous saying: 'I try to skate to where the puck is going to be,not to where the puck is at the moment,' " Hilton said. "You've got to think and plan in business to (place yourself) where things are going to be and not where (things are) today."

As

co-chief executive and co-chairman of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based home builder Meritage Corp., Hilton tries to keep himself three steps ahead of the fast-moving single-family and luxury-home markets.

As a result, the 39-year-old CEO has pulled off a real estate hat trick: enormous increases in earnings, revenue and number of homes sold. From 1995 to 1999, Meritage averaged an astonishing 126% earnings increase each year. Average annual revenue for the period shot up 48% a year.