A: Continuing the quality of our loan portfolio. Right now, it's very good and we don't want to see that slip. The preparation is wait for the good deals and not reach for credit and therefore growth.

Q: What's the most innovative thing you've seen or heard another company doing?

A: The trend is, and we're looking at it carefully, is having remote deposits being done by customers, where they can take a check and put it through a little machine and it reads the lines and coding and comes into an operations center and it gets sent off for clearing and nobody touches it.

Q: How about your own company?

A: We're electronicifying, however you want to spell that, as fast as we can. The most significant thing coming down the pike is the fewest touches of a piece of paper. We'll never a checkless society, but we can certainly clear those little rascals a little faster if we don't have to rely on the idea of ‘If I give a piece of paper to you and you have to give it to Joe and Joe has to give it to Sarah.' We can just flip it around our machines and computers. It's called efficiency. It drives efficiency ratio, which is one of the things publicly traded corporations are measured by.

Q: Who or what is your biggest competition? Why?

A: Credit unions, start-up banks and we've got the big guys and everything in between. Finance companies, brokerage firms -- we compete against all of them.

Q: What is the biggest issue facing the state?

A: Maintaining our edge. We have a good work force and a trainable work force and people with proper attitudes. That gives us a leg up on other states. We've got to keep that edge with proper training. I think our people like to work.

Q: North Carolina sees biotechnology and service companies as a key to its future. Is that the right path? Should we be giving incentives to attract them here?

A: The answer is yes to both. I'm not a huge incentive person, but I think the appropriate incentives for the appropriate types of businesses are very well in order.

Q: What's the biggest change in business today compared to when you started?

A: Wireless technology. I'm a phone and fax kind of guy. Nowadays, you can flip everything around in e-mail, you can get your Blackberry, sit in cars and e-mail folks in a wireless world. It's not a checkless society -- fewer and fewer checks needing to be cleared electronically has been the biggest changes.

Q: Why should an investor invest in your stock today?

A: We're up 25 percent since year-end, so let's continue the roll. We have sustainable profitability. We're in wonderful markets. We're out at the coast and we think the demographics of the babyboomers heading for retirement or second careers are headed right in our direction.

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.