Sources of wealth

The sources of wealth for likely 2008 gubernatorial candidates:

BILL GRAHAM is a partner in the Salisbury law firm of Wallace and Graham, which is best known for bringing suits on behalf of asbestos victims. He recently sold a bullet manufacturing company. He is a founding member of the board of Community Bank of Rowan.

RICHARD MOORE, a lawyer, is wealthy through inheritance, investments and marriage. His wife, Noel, is one of several grandchildren of the founder of the H.E. Butt Grocery Co. of San Antonio, a privately held grocery store chain with 60,000 employees and $12.4 billion in revenue in 2005, according to Forbes Magazine.

BEVERLY PERDUE, a gerontologist, is the daughter of a businessman who was a partner in the ownership of several Virginia coal mines. She inherited Florida land holdings. She is also an investor in a residential subdivision in New Bern. She is married to Robert Eaves, a Chapel Hill investor who owns or has owned various businesses, including The Right Stuff Food Stores, which at one time owned more than 100 Starvin Marvin convenience stores. She is co-owner with her husband of a biotech start-up company.

FRED SMITH is a Clayton lawyer who was managing partner of a law firm with 30 lawyers. Smith branched out to become a major homebuilder of such subdivisions as Hedingham, Riverwood and Lion's Gate. He is also CEO of CC Mangum, a Raleigh-based road and bridge building company, and is chairman of the board of North State Bank. He has 600 to 700 employees working for him, depending on the season.