He does the dirty work.

• Position: Tony Disher of Soil Solutions Inc.

In 1991, Tony Disher found a business in which he could really clean up.

His Winston-Salem-based Soil Solutions Inc., which steam-cleans contaminated sites, turned a 10% profit on revenues of $250,000 during its first full year of operation. But it's a dirty job. And though someone has to do it, Disher, 39, likes to keep a low profile. "A lot of these companies don't want their names associated with great big piles of dirt," he says.

Still, cleaning dirty dirt -- contaminated with gas, oil or diesel fuel -- is a big business that's getting bigger. December 1993 is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's deadline for all underground petroleum tanks (1,100 gallons or larger) to get a leak check. In North Carolina alone, 17,707 tanks (mostly owned by gas stations and oil companies, but also airports and taxi and trucking companies) are scheduled for checkups this year. Half those tanks will fail, predicts Waddell Watters, a hydrogeologist for the N.C. Division of Environmental Management.

"Everyone involved in soil remediation is going to be real busy for a while," Watters says.

Born in Winston-Salem, Disher wanted to be a Moravian minister, but after two years at Furman University, he transferred to the University of South Carolina and graduated with an M.B.A. in 1977.

After college, he spent 14 years working for the family business, Commercial Industries Inc., owned by his father, Mike, and two uncles. "I was a flunky," he says. "I did whatever it took." The company has five...