Bedrocks of business; From accounting to VCs: ranking Colorado's professional-service providers.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: TOP PROFESSIONAL SERVICES 2007 - Statistical table - Company rankings

Professional services are a loosely defined group that, as the wording suggests, are in the business of serving other businesses. Traditionally this group has included the fields of law, accounting, architecture, engineering, general contracting and advertising/public relations.

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ColoradoBiz introduced this group of rankings in 2002 and over the years has added to it, and at times subtracted from it, to better reflect the key service-providers that businesses depend on. Besides the aforementioned categories, this year's rankings include executive-search firms, health-care carriers, venture-capital firms, and investment managers and financial advisors.

Figures used to compile the rankings are self-reported, with the exception of health-insurance data, which was provided by the Colorado Division of Insurance.

Some firms with significant business in Colorado, such as executive-search firms Korn Ferry International and Heidrick & Struggles International, are not included in the rankings because they chose not to disclose figures or they are national (or international) firms that don't separate Colorado numbers from their company-wide totals.

_TOP COLORADO-BASED ACCOUNTING FIRMS Ranked by number of employees No. of Company Employees City Phone Ehrardt Keefe 335 Denver (303) 740-9400 Steiner & Hottman Hein & Associates LLP 247 Denver (303) 298-9600 Dalby, Wendland & Co. 95 Grand Junction (970) 243-1921 P.C. Gordon, Hughes & Banks 92 Golden (303) 986-2454 LLP GHP Horwath P.C. 89 Denver (303) 831-5000 Company Website Ehrardt Keefe www.eksh.com Steiner & Hottman Hein & Associates LLP www.heincpa.com Dalby, Wendland & Co. www.dalbywendland.com P.C. Gordon, Hughes & Banks www.ghbcpa.com LLP GHP Horwath P.C. www.ghphorwath.com _TOP COLORADO-BASED AD/PRG FIRMS Ranked by number of employees No. of Company Employees City Phone McClain Finlon Advertising 200 Denver (303) 436-9400 Leopard* 115 Broomfield (303) 527-2900 Network Affiliates 110 Lakewood (303) 232-2707 Sterling-Rice Group 105 Boulder (303) 381-6400 Karsh & Hagan Communications 74 Denver (303) 296-8400 Company Website McClain Finlon Advertising www.mcclainfinlon.com Leopard* www.leopard.com Network Affiliates www.netaff.com Sterling-Rice Group www.srg.com Karsh & Hagan Communications www.karsh.com *Acquired by New York-based OgilvyOne North America in June 2006 and operates in Broomfield as an independent unit of Ogilvy. _TOP COLORADO-BASED ARCHITECTURAL FIRMS Ranked by...