Abbot deals when the spirit moves him.

• Position: People - Belmont Abbey

At Belmont Abbey--North Carolina's only Catholic monastery--21 Benedictine monks live, eat and pray together daily. Overseeing their spiritual welfare is an abbot who became a monk because he yearned for a life of prayer and community instead of a career wheeling and dealing. "I wasn't attracted to the business world--which is ironic now," Placid Solari says.

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As head of the order and chancellor and interim president of Belmont Abbey College, Solari, 51, is charged with finding income to secure the future of both. That has led this priest and professor to adopt a new role: property developer.

Belmont Abbey was formed in 1876 when a Catholic priest from Charlotte bought 650 acres to start a religious order and a college. He incorporated the monastery as the Southern Benedictine Society of North Carolina. Today it operates the college--where most of the monks teach--and owns the tract on which the college and the abbey sit.

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Until the '60s, a dairy farm helped support their operations. In the '70s, the abbey leased some of its land to develop a strip mall. Upon being elected abbot in 1999, Solari realized the need for more development. "Belmont Abbey College is financially stable. But schools without government support or a large endowment will not be around in the long run. We decided to be good stewards of what resources we have and to use the property to support the college."

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