A whiff of what it takes to get stinking rich.

• Position: People - Company profile

Whiff of what it takes to get stinking rich

Robert Morrow is sniffing out the not-so-sweet smell of success, and he knows where to find it.

He is targeting funeral homes, veterinary clinics, motels, hospital labs - any place that tends to smell bad. He's got a device he says will eliminate almost any foul odor. It's an air purifier that his father, William, developed more than 20 years ago.

Morrow, 34, recently was named president of Aqua-Mist Inc., the Winston-Salem company his father founded in 1965. Aqua-Mist makes humidifiers, ventilators and other devices for air-conditioning and heating systems. Morrow says he expects the company to post $400,000 in revenues in 1989. (Aqua-Mist employs up to 13 workers during the building season.)

The air-purifying device, called Clinic-Aire, makes up a small but steady share of the family-owned business. The Morrows hadn't marketed it much - until now.

The time is right, Morrow says. "People have become more aware of smoking odors, body odors, food odors" and more concerned about their health, he says. He hired an ad agency to promote the device to trade journals, and he says he has received close to 1,000 inquiries so far.

The anatomy lab at Wake Forest University's Bowman Gray School of Medicine installed four of the air cleaners in 1988 to ease the runny noses and watery eyes first-year medical students were getting when they cut into cadavers. "Sometimes...