VP says incentives computed for state.

• Author: Brown, Kathy
• Position: PEOPLE

When Dell Inc. officially opened its computer-assembly plant in Winston-Salem in October, there was plenty of fanfare. The plant, which took nine months to build, was headline-worthy: It is the Round Rock, Texas-based computer maker's largest U.S. factory, and North Carolina officials anted up $242 million in incentives to land it.

As vice president of North Carolina operations, Travis Simpson runs Dell's show in Winston-Salem. But he's running from the spotlight. Company policy, he says: It's a no-no to answer personal questions. Instead, he redirects attention to the factory, which produces the company's Optiplex brand desktop model, geared toward businesses, at a rate of one every five seconds.

But here's what is known about Simpson--courtesy mostly of a company-blessed biography. Before moving to the Triad, he ran a customer-service program for Dell's business clients, who order about $6 billion of computers a year. He's an electrical engineer by training and got his bachelor's in 1981 from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

He spent the next eight years logging information on oil and natural-gas wells in Texas for Houston-based Schlumberger Ltd., which develops and makes drilling and other products for the oil industry. Next he moved to GE...