He finds success blazing career paths for others.

• Position: Bob Smith, National Career Centers-USA Inc.

He finds success blazing career paths for others

His extravagant parties have earned him the title of Fayetteville's Malcolm Forbes. Every September, 500 or so of Bob Smith's dearest friends and business associates gather at his estate to munch canapes and celebrate the crowning of a new Miss America.

But forget beauty queens. The hot tickets in town -- and around the country -- are Smith's job fairs.

In November, thousands of people lined four New York City blocks, waiting to enter a job fair organized by National Career Centers-USA Inc., the Fayetteville company Smith, 48, started in 1967.

That fair, the company's largest ever, drew about 10,000 job seekers. Last year, National Career Centers held about 120 fairs -- each with recruiters from 15 to 50 companies -- in more than 30 cities. "1990 was a banner year," Smith declares, although as of mid-January he hadn't calculated how many people found jobs. (In 1989, he says, 10,000 did.)

Applicants don't pay to attend, but companies -- such as IBM and Procter & Gamble -- do. (Smith won't say how much.)

Job fairs usually target specific groups: minorities and women, secretaries, technical workers, salespeople. Smith's company places ads and calls organizations such as the NAACP to attract job hunters.

Smith, who was born in Belvidere, near Elizabeth City, graduated from the University of Georgia in 1960 and eventually took a job with...