On a Fast Track

Eight California-based companies--three in Southern California--are on Fortune magazine’s new list of the nation’s 25 fastest-growing companies. They are ranked by percentage of compounded annual sales growth over three to five years. Sales are for the last four quarters available, through June 30, in millions of dollars:

Growth Sales Rank Company, location (percent) (millions) 1 Wellfleet Comm.; Billerica, Mass. 243 $148.7 2 BE Aerospace; Wellington, Fla. 207 198.0 3 President Riverboat; Davenport, Iowa 201 124.9 4 Grancare; Culver City 181 342.8 5 Cisco Systems; Menlo Park 159 554.5 6 Columbia Hospital; Ft. Worth, Tex. 149 966.5 7 U.S. Long Distance; San Antonio, Tex. 148 107.1 8 Outback Steakhouse; Tampa, Fla. 147 149.2 9 Qual-Med; Pueblo, Colo. 138 499.2 10 Phycor; Nashville, Tenn. 131 143.8 11 Picturetel; Danvers, Mass. 126 157.1 12 Checkers Drive-In; Clearwater, Fla. 122 105.7 13 Mesa Airlines; Farmington, N.M. 120 340.1 14 Callaway Golf; Carlsbad 120 157.2 15 Network Computing; Mountain View 118 131.8 16 Parametric Tech.; Waltham, Mass. 114 121.6 17 Regal Comm.; Ft. Washington, Pa. 111 114.5 18 Republic Waste Indus.; Atlanta 108 109.0 19 Office Depot; Delray Beach, Fla. 105 1,881.8 20 Read-Rite; Milpitas 105 517.0 21 T-Square Medical; Alpharetta, Ga. 101 268.5 22 Exabyte; Boulder, Colo. 100 287.5 23 Amgen; Thousand Oaks 99 1,183.1 24 Synoptics Comm.; Santa Clara 94 473.2 25 Cirrus Logic; Fremont 94 354.8

Note: Calculations for the compounded annual growth rates were based on the number of years companies have been in business; a minimum of three years to a maximum of five years was used.

Source: Fortune magazine