Carol Meyrowitz

While Central Massachusetts business leaders have seen substantial diversification among small business owners in the past three decades, the same cannot be said for those among the area’s highest-paid.

You can define success in myriad ways: holding your ground; uncompromising ambition; the relentless pursuit of excellence; steady as she goes; staying a step ahead. The one thing shared in common by the most-heralded and well-run companies Worcester Business Journal has chronicled over 35 years is a bit of all these things.