Engineer finds new kinds of paperwork.

• Position: Med Byrd

In 1991 N.C. State was looking for an alum to give up a private-sector career and start up a pilot paper mill at the university. Med Byrd, then a design engineer, volunteered. His task: finding alternative sources to wood pulp for the world's paper supply. Or, as Byrd puts it, "discovering how we can keep the world reading, writing, wiping and blowing into the 21st century."

With some studies predicting a worldwide shortage of wood pulp by 2010, Byrd's research is identifying other suitable fibers. Companies such as International Paper Co. contract Byrd, director of applied research and paper science, and his staff of four to test possible paper fibers at State's 30,000-square-foot mill.

No two days are alike for Byrd, 37, who might spend one pulping nonwood fibers such as corn stalks and wheat straw, the next repulping chicken-transport crates, which are not recyclable and usually get pitched in landfills. Another day he's exploring ways of producing high-quality paper from industrial hemp.

His tests on hemp have spurred some controversy. To activists such as actor Woody Harrelson, it's a miracle plant that could save the environment. To the federal government it's an evil weed, a strain of the plant cannabis sativa and a close relative of marijuana. "You've got the DEA on one side dead set against it - on the other side you have the rabidly pro-hemp activists saying hemp is the only way to go. When emotions get involved, you can throw science out the window," Byrd says.

While industrial hemp has only 5% of the psychoactive chemical THC that marijuana does - someone would have to smoke a few pounds to get high - Drug Enforcement...