Forbes just announced the 200 Best Small Companies.

1. Hansen Natural

  • Once a staid maker of fruit juices and sodas, the company unleashed a
    beast in 2002 with Monster Energy, a caffeine-loaded drink aimed at
    teens and thirtysomething males.

2. Cognizant Technology Solutions

  • Its business is e-business: helping companies migrate from paper trails to electronic statements via the Web.

3. Travelzoo

  • Who would believe you could make a thriving Internet business by directing travelers to booking agents?

4. Remington Oil & Gas

  • Today it operates 40-plus oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico, which were minimally impaired by Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Rita damaged two rigs.

5. Usana Health Sciences

  • Microbiologist Myron Wentz sold out of a viral-diagnostic company he founded and started Usana, a vitamin and supplement multilevel marketer.


6. Forward Industries

  • Call them hip protectors. Forward
    makes carrying cases for Razr, the new ultrapopular, ultrathin cell
    phone from Motorola, which accounted for nearly half of the company’s
    third-quarter sales.

7. Laserscope

  • Laserscope’s
    trademarked Gemini laser can vaporize moles and skin blemishes, as well
    as assist in hair removal, varicose vein treatments and face-lifts. In
    more urgent medical cases, its GreenLight laser can be used to shrink
    inflamed glands and enlarged prostates and to zap kidney masses.

8. Ceradyne

  • With the depressingly high number of roadside explosions and car bombs in Iraq
    and Afghanistan, this diversified ceramics maker pulled in 53% of its
    January-to-June sales from military customers–much of that in body-armor sales.

9. American Healthways

  • The company provides services for 21 chronic conditions, offering remote
    monitoring for heart patients and for phone calls by nurses to people suffering
    from conditions, such as asthma and depression. It also reminds diabetics to
    check for swollen feet.

10. Middleby

  • Good customer relations and contracts from deep-pocketed customers, like
    McDonald’s, KFC and Papa John’s, helped pull the commercial-kitchen-equipment
    maker out of the fire after negative earnings in 1998.

Click here to find out more about the 200 Best Small Companies at Forbes