American Home Mortgage has been cobbled together over the years through a series of strategic business acquisitions to become a top-30 mortgage lender and one of the fastest-growing firms in the industry. In fact, AHM was one of the few prime mortgage lenders that produced more new loans in the first half of 2004 than it did in the first six months of last year. While overall mortgage volume was contracting 29 percent, AHM managed to…