He bases business on dollars scents.

• Position: People - Owen Williams and American K9 Interdiction Inc.

The bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 made Owen Williams angry. "Those terrorists took a $2 device and blew up a billion-dollar warship," he says. In 2001, he formed Moyock-based American K9 Interdiction Inc. to provide special dog teams for government and commercial clients. The aim: Prevent tragedy by using dogs to sniff out bombs.

AK9I handlers and the dogs--typically German shepherds, Labrador retrievers or Belgian Malinois--complete a 16-week program. The dogs are taught to find explosives and then deployed to parks, sports venues, federal buildings--any potential bomb target.

AK9I's first contract was $30,000 in March 2002 for the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., followed by one to guard Mount Rushmore over the July Fourth holiday. in March, AK9I teams started at the NASA Research Center in Langley, Va., where the dogs search vehicles and screen deliveries.

The big payoff came in June, when AK9I began a five-year, $9.7 million contract managing the kennels of the military working-dog center at San Antonio's Lackland Air Force Base. AK9I feeds, grooms and cares for 700 dogs there. The sheriff of Chesapeake, Va., picked AK91 to provide bomb-sniffing dogs at the court complex where Lee Boyd Malvo will be tried for murder in October. He is one of the two snipers accused of...