He's hunting for the big bucks.

• Position: R.B. Jenkins starts Hunting Classics Ltd. - People

He's hunting for the big bucks

Since his father stepped down in 1978, R.B. Jenkins has run Jenkins Metal Corp., a Gastonia machine-parts manufacturer his grandfather started 78 years ago. He wasn't hunting for a new business, but that's where he found one.

A couple of years ago, Jenkins, 48, was tracking deer and found himself on one side of a stream when he needed to be on the other. He didn't have any waders, but he had some garbage bags, which he slipped over his pants.

The makeshift solution prompted him to develop over-the-boot waders made of lightweight rubber. That was the beginning of Hunting Classics Ltd., a 2-year-old division of Jenkins Metal that sells hunting accessories through sporting-goods stores and catalogs such as L.L. Bean. It also puts out its own catalog. (That's Jenkins on page three of the latest edition, modeling "heavy-duty deluxe gators," waterproof rubber boots.)

Though he won't give revenues, Jenkins says sales have increased steadily for Hunting Classics coats, caps, gun cases and the like. He's sold 50,000 waders so far.

Jenkins got his love of hunting and fishing from his father, R. Baines Jenkins Sr., an enthusiastic sportsman who also had an inventive streak. He held patents for textile and hospital equipment.

In 1976, Jenkins developed a line of hunting knives...