A: How to sustain the performance we've had in the last two t three years, growing at 20 percent plus (via acquisitions in 2002 of Independence Bank in Kernersville and Sterling Bank in Greensboro which will close in July.) We will have 13 full service offices [at year's end].

We'll be keeping a lot of good people -- compliance officers, deposit operations, loan operations with credit files. We're building the infrastructure for a bigger company.

Q: What's the most innovative thing your company is doing?

A: Hiring and maintaining employees. Every employee at the bank gets an incentive based on eight to nine indicators. We're getting calls from bankers in the area who want to come work for us. Before, we had to go to them.

Q: What is the biggest issue facing the state?

A: [Finding] the most effective way to spend our dollars. A huge portion goes to education and I don't always see those dollars spent wisely.

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: Incentives are out of kilter. I never asked for an incentive when I put a new business in a community. With constant incentives it won't go away. Biotech makes sense.

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

A: In the last few years [rule] changes have allowed management to run the business like we should. ]On the funding side and capital side] we used to have to sell stock. We now can have deferred debt, subordinated debt and trust preferred securities.

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

A: It's an excellent stock. Our return on equity last year was over 16 percent and we've had a compound return on shareholders' capital over 23 percent each year for the last five years.

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