Doers profiles.

• Position: North Carolina entrepreneurs

Rather than dream about running their own businesses, this year's North Carolina Entrepreneur of the Year winners took another tack: Just do it.

Richard Holcomb got an early start. In the first grade, to be exact. "I bought candy for 2 cents apiece at the store and resold each piece for a nickel at school the next day," he recalls.

"The venture was my first lesson in government interference in free enterprise. My business was abruptly closed by the school principal as soon as she determined I was the source of the illegal chewing gum on campus."

That crackdown didn't spoil Holcomb's taste for running his own business. In 1986, at the age of 24, he started the Raleigh computer-consulting company that became Q+E Software. It gambled on using the Microsoft Windows environment for its products, and now nearly every major software vendor is licensed to use its software and technology.

"We continue to grow at a rate in excess of 100% per year and expect to continue this level of growth for some time," he says. "We are actively acquiring other companies and products in our market. We intend to become a major supplier of database-access technology and products for client-server computing, which is predicted to be a multibillion-dollar market by 1997. We foresee plenty of business opportunities."

It's a vision he shares with the other winners of this year's North Carolina Entrepreneur of the Year honors. The program is sponsored by Ernst & Young, Merrill Lynch, Inc. magazine and BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA. The state winners go on to national Entrepreneur of the Year competition.

Judges were B. Mayo Boddie Sr., chairman and CEO, Boddie-Noell Enterprises Inc., Rocky Mount; Frank A. Daniels Jr., president, The News and Observer Publishing Co., Raleigh; Thomas W. D'Alonzo, group vice president, Glaxo Inc., Research Triangle Park; Dana J. Johnson, dean, Wake Forest University's School of Business and Accountancy, Winston-Salem; Robert Hudson, chief financial officer, Pace Communications, Greensboro; William G. Moore, vice president, CFO and managing director, Image Technology Inc., Greensboro; Dee Ray, president, Raycom Inc., Charlotte; Grant Strawcutter, vice chairman, Soft Play Inc., Charlotte; and Isaiah Tidwell, regional vice president, Wachovia Bank & Trust Co., Charlotte.

The Research Triangle Park-based Council for Entrepreneurial Development, founded in 1983 to foster development of growth companies, received the Supporter of Entrepreneurship award.

...