Salesman weaves banks into his Web.

• Position: People - Brad King, LoneSource.com Inc. - Brief Article

Brad King might run a dot-com based in Cary, but he doesn't consider himself a techie. "I'm proud to call myself a salesman," says the president and CEO of LoneSource.com Inc., which sells office equipment and supplies over the Internet, mostly to banks.

Like many dot-corn survivors, the 37-year-old King tries to distance himself from his fallen brethren. "We're building a real company here, not the theory of a company that promises to pay off sometime down the road." LoneSource turned a profit in the fiscal year ended in January, 18 months after King and three partners began operations. He expects the 25-employee company to generate $20 million in revenue in 2002.

Not bad for a college dropout who bounced around in sales jobs for 11 years. After two years at Campbell University in Buies Creek, King had transferred to N.C. State and was studying business when he got tired of schoolwork. He borrowed money from Raleigh-based Triangle Bank, now owned by Canada-based RBC Centura, to buy a Grocery Boy Jr. convenience store in his native Cary in 1989. "1 basically signed my life away, and they took a chance on me."

He sold it two years later and put together a sales company -- a group of reps that he contracted out to construction-supply wholesalers. He sold that in 1995 and went to work as a salesman for an office-supply company that Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Office Products bought in 1998.

King got the idea for LoneSource while working for U.S. Office. He figured a Web site would give customers a broader selection and free them from thumbing through the Yellow Pages. Two of his partners -- younger brother Stacey...