He deals with plight of the living dread.

• Position: People

When they hear "assisted living," most people picture crones and geezers idling away their final days in hushed, dark rooms. But how about three old gals in prom dresses sharing a bottle of bubbly as they pose on the steps of the Davidson County Courthouse? Their picture and 11 others grace the pages of the Carolina Kids calendar, a fund-raiser by residents of Carolina House of Lexington Assisted Living Center.

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That's the spirit Chris Hollister hoped to foster when he formed Chapel Hill-based Southern Assisted Living Inc. in 1996. Carolina House is one of the company's 44 leased or owned assisted-living communities in the Carolinas and Virginia. He envisioned making assisted living affordable while keeping the company regionally focused. He also wanted residents to remain involved in their communities. Projects such as the calendar have raised $330,000 for charities over the last four years.

Southern Assisted doesn't run nursing homes. Residents live in studio or one-bedroom apartments and come and go as they please. Meals are in common dining rooms. Residents pay, on average, $2,500 a month. Included are utilities, house-keeping and some transportation.

A Texan, Hollister earned a bachelor's in economics at Texas A&M in 1983 and an MBA from Duke in 1985. After a brief stint as a real-estate banker for Dallas-based MCorp, he answered a newspaper ad for a job developing retirement communities with Greystone Communities in nearby Irving. In 1989, he moved to Boston as VP of...