Construction executives try career as their own boss.(Focus: Construction, Design & Engineering)

Asked why he left a job at a well-known Milwaukee architectural firm to start his own firm when he and his wife were expecting a baby, Kurt Young Binter simply replied - "Impatience."

"I had the need to grow professionally," said Binter, 34. "I wanted to learn other parts of the business."

As the owner and only employee of Kurt Young Binter Architect, he not only designs space in new buildings and in old ones he's rehabilitating, he also does some of the actual physical labor.

At Hammel Green & Abrahamson Inc., the Milwaukee architectural firm where he worked for a year, and at a Chicago architectural firm where he worked before that, Binter was concerned that he would become "too ingrained" in those firms when he wanted to expand his horizons.

"A big part of it is that when you are in a large firm, you have to answer to a lot of people," he said.

Binter wanted to answer to no one but himself and his client and wanted to be involved in other aspects of his projects.

By quitting his job and starting his own firm, "this throws you right …