In new job, he delivers more than just a speech.

• Author: Maley, Frank
• Position: PEOPLE - Nido Qubein

Nido Qubein has been holding forth for 10 minutes, occasionally interrupted by an "mm-hmm." He's talking about his first few months as president of High Point University. How the trustees recruited him. How he got former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to speak at graduation. How he raised $20 million in pledges in his first 29 days. How some students started a Web page called Nido Rocks. On and on. Finally, he's told how long he has been expounding. "Oh, I could go for three hours. You get me started here, and I won't quit."

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He's not kidding. Speaking is how Qubein, 57, has made his living nearly all his adult life. He's paid $15,000 for an hour and $20,000 for a day, plus expenses, to give pep talks to corporations and other groups. Seldom is heard a discouraging word from High Point's Professor Positive--he's teaching a seminar on "life skills" next fall--and anyone with a remote interest in donating money or otherwise helping him boost his alma mater can expect an earful of glad tidings.

His life wasn't always this happy. A Jordanian Christian, he was raised by his mother, a seamstress, after his father died when Qubein was 6. In 1966, at 17, he left to study at Mount Olive Junior College, now a four-year school. He arrived with little knowledge of English and $50 in his pocket.

After finishing, he enrolled at High Point. In college, he worked as a youth leader at a Lutheran church, then a Methodist one. But he had trouble finding reading materials. So after getting a bachelor's in human relations at High Point in 1970 and a master's in business from UNC Greensboro in 1971, he started an interdenominational newsletter, Adventures With Youth, that he sold to churches, camps and schools. Customers asked him...