Making a list, Checking it twice.

• Author: SCHWAB, ROBERT
• Position: Compiling corporate performance lists, analysis - Brief Article - Column

I SAID TO MY PUBLISHER LAST month that I had expected the worst piece of my job at ColoradoBiz would be compiling the lists that our magazine has earned a reputation for producing.

Compiling lists of Top 100 companies, or best performers, or fastest-growing companies always raises questions for the list maker.

Who is reporting the figures? Do the operations of a company under the protection of a bankruptcy court count? How do you compare revenues reported by real estate trusts with revenues reported by cable TV operators and revenues reported by product manufacturers?

Well, in the case of public companies, you take the reports the companies make to securities regulators, read the numbers as best you can, and hope your list tells your readers something about the nature of the economy they do business in.

But that's not the end of the chore.

Compiling lists also means hours of tedious perusal of company financials, which most writers and journalists never have considered a favorite pastime. Watching ColoradoBiz Managing Editor Mike Woelflein tine-tune this issue's public-company list was painful, even at a distance.

But studying the list was educational for me.

Having covered small business as a journalist, I already knew that the state's small-company community was as diverse as our population has become. Poring over Colorado's list of larger public companies, I was surprised to find a matching breadth of players. The state's largest companies drill for oil, make computer parts, make sandwiches, sell beer...