He makes his green from salad days.

• Position: Bob Levitan's company, YearLook Enterprises, creates video school yearbooks

Used to be, once you got that diploma, your days as a geeky, awkward student quickly -- and often mercifully -- faded into fuzzy memories, the only reminder a few photos in a yellowing yearbook. No more.

These days, Bob Levitan captures adolescent angst on tape for posterity. His Durham-based company, YearLook Enterprises, creates video yearbooks, turning school-days nostalgia into sales of a million dollars a year.

"As a student at Duke in 1981-82, I was working on a video archive project of filming a year at Duke at the same time the VCR craze hit," says Levitan, 30, a New York City native. "The idea of a video yearbook seemed natural. As a sideline project, I sold 40 or 50 copies of the '81-82 school year, 100 copies the next year and 200 copies in '83-84. Then the idea just took off."

He graduated in 1984 with a double major in economics and political science and started YearLook in '85 with a financial boost from a Hollywood heavyweight. Durham native Thom Mount, an independent producer and former Universal Pictures president, provided some start-up money (Levitan won't say how much) and owns part of YearLook.

In six years, the company has produced and sold more than 75,000 videos for students at universities such as Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill...