She's happiest when you just mail it in.

• Author: Maley, Frank
• Position: PEOPLE - Heather Lowry from CheckPoint Mailers

Heather Lowry was on the move, as usual, trying to catch a plane from Charlotte to Seattle. But security guards confiscated a pocketknife from a woman in line ahead of her. It had belonged to her grandfather, the woman said, and she didn't want to lose it. "Why can't I mail this back to myself?"

There's got to be an easy way to do that, Lowry thought. A few weeks later, she had dinner with a friend, Sherry Anderson. Airport security had seized scissors given to Anderson by her grandmother. Before long, Lowry and Anderson had pooled $10,000 in savings, started CheckPoint Mailers Inc. and hired a lawyer who hooked them up with a Greenville family that invested $100,000 more. Charlotte/Douglas International Airport became the company's first customer in 2003, followed quickly by airports serving Raleigh, Dallas and Greensboro.

For as little as $8, CheckPoint Mailers will ship carry-on contraband dropped in its bomb-resistant boxes at any of 28 U.S. airports to wherever you want. Heavy items and overseas shipping cost more. The biggest bill for one item so far: $87 to send a Club anti-car-theft device from Charlotte to Rome. The weirdest item: bear repellent. Lighters make up about a third of the business. Shipping time averages about 10 days.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Maybe it's fitting that Lowry, CheckPoint Mailers' nomadic 41-year-old president, helped start a company that moves things. The Westminster, Calif., native studied nursing at a community college in Bellevue, Wash., but quit to tend her mother, who had been in a car wreck. After her mom died in 1985, she booked flights for US Airways in San Diego and Reno, Nev. She left in 1989 for a...