Florida Trend | Florida's Business Authority

Builders' Advocate

AUGUSTO J. "GUS" GIL, 41
President / Gil Development, Miami

The business: Develops residential and commercial real estate.

Sales: Expected to exceed $40 million in 2006.

Staff: Nine, including four family members: Gus, his father, mother and brother.

Industry muscle: President of the Latin Builders Association, a construction trade group. "They want to call us politically influential and powerful. Let them. I'd rather that than they call us weak."

LBA's focus: "Four years ago we started focusing on Tallahassee. We've gone from a local perspective to local and state."

Market shift: "We've lost the investor market -- the guys taking equity out of their homes to buy units; taxi drivers advising people how to invest. That's over. When you see developers giving back -- appliance packages and this and that -- you know it's shifted."

Routine: Up at 6 a.m. and off to the gym.

Relaxation: "My thing is boating." Cruising with the family on his 47-foot Intrepid yacht.