The right stuff.

• Author: Eldridge, Lisa
• Position: 10 entrepreneurs expected to profit in the 90s

THE RIGHT STUFF

Atlanta, Philadelphia. Ridgewood, N.J.

Harvard. Princeton. Yale.

Wait a minute. Could these be the hometowns and the alma maters of some of the young people North Carolina corporate leaders have marked as the up-and-comers in their corporations - people who, over the next decade, could end up on the cover of BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA?

That's right.

We asked CEOs of major corporations to send us the names of young people - age 40 or under - who are likely to make a major contribution to business in the state. Of the 10 we're featuring, just half are North Carolinians by birth. Five have undergraduate degrees from North Carolina colleges - three from Chapel Hill, one from N.C. State and one from Davidson. Of the seven with graduate degrees, only two are from North Carolina - one from Chapel Hill, one from Wake Forest. Three earned graduate degrees from the University of Virginia.

"What you found reflects the integration of North Carolina into the nation's economy," says Wake Forest history Professor Paul D. Escott.

Three of our up-and-comers - Adam Abram, Tom Darden and Jim Dulin - are entrepreneurs. UNC business Professor Dick Levin says this too reflects the changing face of business in the state. Levin, who has been at Chapel Hill for 30 year and teaches in the graduate school and executive program, has seen the makeup of his classes change as well: "Years ago, there was nobody who had started up a business. It was textiles, furniture and banking. Now, the proportion of textiles and furniture people is modest to small." There are still plenty of bankers, he says, "but not the proportion it was 10 years ago."

J. Adam

Abram, 34

President, Adaron Group Inc., Durham Hometown: Atlanta (also lived in Boston and New York; moved to Durham in 1978) Education: B.A. in history, Harvard, 1978 Recent achievement: Starting development of the American Campus in Durham, a rehab of American Tobacco cigarette factories into museum, office and retail space. It's expected to be worth $250 million when complete. "We're very proud of the partnership we've formed with Duke University." Hobbies: Reading, swimming

Adam Abram's youth didn't prepare him for the hand-to-mouth existence he found in Durham as a free-lance writer. Son of U.N. ambassador Morris Abram, he had grown up in a household where it wasn't unusual for Adlai Stevenson to come over for dinner.

So when he got the chance to manage a failing Atlanta apartment building of which his family owned a share, he accepted with alacrity and soon abandoned writing. "I found I enjoyed it, and it was taking more and more of my time," Abram says.

Real estate liked him, too. He and broker Ron Strom (who has since left and formed another company) started the Adaron Group in 1983. They built the first speculative offices in Research Triangle Park, and Abram brags that despite a soft market - a far cry from the early '80s heyday - he has at least 90 percent occupancy in all his Triangle projects. The company now has more than a million square feet of space in the Triangle, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Wilmington.

John L.

Bakane, 38

Vice president and chief financial officer, Cone Mills Corp., Greensboro Hometown: Birmingham, Ala. (moved to Greensboro after graduation from UVA) Education: B.S. in...