Let's say you're a well-established, highly successful musician, or even an up-and-coming musician. Possibly, you're an outstanding player in the National Football League or National Basketball Association or a very successful hedge fund manager or just a leading businessperson and you want to have your very own music studio. Who do you call? With great consistency, Troy Germano. If not, he's most certainly on the short list of studio design professionals to consider.

Germano has spent more than 30 years in the music industry. His career traces back to The Hit Factory, a renowned recording studio in New York City that was known for its famous clientele, including music legends such as John Lennon, The Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson. As the son of one of the owners of the studio, Edward Germano, Troy Germano got his start in the recording business at a young age, eventually becoming the studio's executive vice president in 1984 and CEO in 2000. By 2002, he was overseeing an operation that consisted of 16 recording/mixing rooms, six mastering suites and six writing rooms in New York and Florida.

This background has enabled him to develop solid and profitable relationships with top record producers, recording engineers, artists, bands, record labels, publishers, equipment manufacturers and music managers.

He now runs Germano Studios New York (www.germanostudios.com) and Studio Design Group (www.studiodesigngroup.com), and is the only prominent studio designer who also owns and operates a studio. While Germano Studios is a thriving business, in many respects it's a showroom for cutting-edge recording capabilities. The facility is used by many of the biggest international artists and bands in the music industry, including Adele, the Black Eyed Peas, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Maroon 5, Mariah Carey, Tiƫsto and John Legend.

There's a financial ceiling to running a studio in New York, even when you're a state-of-the-art operation with a star-studded clientele. However, as Germano has discovered, you can break through that ceiling by serving the growing number of affluent clients who want their own studios. In addition, there are quite a few corporations that desire their own studios. Two of Germano's past corporate clients include Red Bull North America, which in 2005 hired him to build the company's Studio Design Group in Santa Monica, Calif., and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, which hired Germano to build its first recording studio in 2003.

While there are plenty of people claiming to have the ability to build high-end studios, few are in Germanos league. All of his design clients want the same result sonically that he can deliver to the finest musicians currently recording. He's able to make this happen by putting together and leading an expert team of technical specialists and leveraging his relationships with the finest equipment manufacturers.

Germano gets some of his studio design clients through referrals from musicians, engineers and the managers of musicians that use his studios. Another source of studio design business is his studio design clients. Because of demand, Germano can be selective about who he takes on as a client. This allows him to work on projects that are creative and at the high end of the industry.

Germano's business is evolving beyond building music recording studios to developing and constructing multi-purpose performance spaces, private cinemas and even small performance areas for live shows and/or DJs on yachts. He's currently working with a client on a space that will be used as a reception hall for cocktail parties, small live concerts and video art display gatherings and as a private cinema screening room.

All in all, when the very wealthy want to make music, when they want their very own superstar-quality studio, Germano is regularly someone they're talking to.