Pet projects let him shoot sick animals.

• Position: People - A discussion of Advanced Medical Productions Inc. president Bill Hayes - Biography

Almost nothing in Bill Hayes' early years augured a career as a documentary filmmaker. He grew up on a Mount Airy tobacco-and-chicken farm, hoping to be a professional baseball player. "But I couldn't hit a curve ball." His only exposure to documentaries was watching the science program Nova on public television. Back then, his goal was getting off the farm.

Hayes, 47, president of Chapel Hill-based Advanced Medical Productions Inc., escaped farm life, but he's still stuck with animals. His three-part series, Animal Operation, aired in the spring on the Animal Planet cable-television channel. It let viewers witness veterinary medicine being practiced, including open-heart surgery on a sheepdog and the sterilization of a chimp.

Animal Operation sprang from a series Hayes did called The Operation, which aired on The Learning Channel. In 2000, he produced a 13-hour series, called Hospital, at Duke University, for the Discovery Channel.

He got a bachelor's in economics from Duke in 1977, then moved to Atlanta. He would spend nearly a decade trying various jobs before settling down to make documentaries. He sold VCRs. He tended bar. He sold radio ads. He considered teaching...