Getting back to his roots.

• Position: Wilcox Natural Products owner Kenneth Wilcox

In 1959, when Kenneth Wilcox joined his father and brother at the company his grandfather founded in 1900, it was little and local. Boone-based Wilcox Natural Products is now a multimillion-dollar operation with 60 employees and offices in North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky and Missouri.

And all from gathering roots and berries (and other things that grow in the woods), including witch-hazel leaves (used in perfumes), bloodroot (a key ingredient in Viadent toothpaste) and wild ginseng (prized in the Orient as an aphrodisiac and restorative).

For six decades, General Grant Wilcox -- his given name, not a military title -- let big-city brokers handle his goods. But after Kenneth came aboard, fresh out of Appalachian State, he and his father, Charles, and younger brother, Gary, decided they could do better if they sold directly to markets in Europe and the Far East.

After a couple of years of collecting names of perfumers, pharmaceutical companies and other users of botanical products, Gary and Kenneth -- the latter armed with a little high-school French -- boarded a plane for their first trip to Europe. They landed in England and called on companies there and in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. "We were on a...