He fit the bill when the job cropped up.

• Position: People - Britt Cobb, interim agricultural commissioner

At 10:30 a.m. June 6, the day Meg Scott Phipps resigned as North Carolina's agriculture commissioner, Britt Cobb was focused on his job marketing Tar Heel commodities around the globe. But his routine--and his career--changed forever when the phone rang. It was a staff member from the governor's office, asking Cobb to come chat about the Department of Agriculture's morale in the wake of Phipps' campaign-finance scandal.

When Cobb, the department's assistant director of marketing, sat down with members of the governor's staff half an hour later, they peppered him with questions about his 31-year career. "I thought the conversation was taking an interesting turn," he says, "especially when they asked me to keep my cell phone on in case the governor called."

When Gov. Mike Easley called an hour later, he asked Cobb to be interim commissioner. The governor, who had spent time with Cobb the previous November on a tobacco-related trip to Tokyo, directed him to make the department a more enjoyable place for employees, to restore confidence in it and to improve the profitability of agriculture. Cobb got right to work, rebidding the State Fair midway contract in a move that resulted in record profits for the state. Six months later, Easley asked him to complete Phipps' term, which runs through January 2005. Cobb hopes voters will...