It's one way to wrap up your net profits.

• Position: People - Ronnie Wrenn of Starboard Inc. - Brief Article

There's something fishy about Ronnie Wrenn's resume, and it's not just that he sells salted cod. An English major at Wofford College in the '70s, Wrenn was tending bar when a customer asked what he was going to do after graduation.

When Wrenn, now 48, didn't have an answer, the customer, the owner of a South Carolina-based steakhouse chain, suggested he consider brokering fish to restaurants. Though his main experience with seafood was a week on a shrimp boat and a few dates with fishermen's daughters, Wrenn was intrigued.

His first move was turning his new interest into an English-class research paper. Then, after graduating in 1976 with a bachelor's in English, he started peddling fish. His father helped him get a loan to buy his first truck and some fish. Six years later, Wrenn started Charlotte-based Starboard Inc., which imports frozen and salted fish from Alaska and Argentina. In its first year, Starboard grossed $1.2 million.

But Wrenn, Starboard's owner and CEO, didn't want to be a commodities broker. In the late 1980s, he got interested in extending the shelf life of packaged fish. After a fish dies, Wrenn says, bacteria grow rapidly, causing decay. Freezing it as soon as it is caught arrests bacteria growth. So he started requiring suppliers to maintain logs...