Taking Work to Another Level

*This article has been corrected

UNC students frequent the businesses on Franklin Street that boast bright signs and welcoming store fronts.

They drink coffee, eat pizza and shop without looking up, oblivious of businesses that are hidden from the street below.

Above the well-known stores and restaurants of Franklin is another world -- a world of seamstresses, engineers and student entrepreneurs.

Up the stairs and down the quiet, indiscreet hall that also houses Spring Break Travel, there is a room where two women carefully stitch and repair everything from jeans to delicate formal gowns.

The room, located at 133 1/2 E. Franklin St., houses a shop called The Stitch in Time, started 25 years ago by a woman from Colombia. The store has since had four owners.

The current owner, Mildred Thompson, has owned the store for 13 years.

"I swore I would never do alterations," Thompson said.

That promise to herself did not hold true, but in addition to alterations the shop makes custom-made clothes and formal dresses.

Thompson said the store does not advertise but has plenty of work because of the praise it receives by word of mouth.

Recently, Thompson received a request to make a formal chiffon gown in two days. She says this was her challenge of the week.

"I always make the clothes look the way I would want my clothes to look," she said.

Above the enticing smells and colors of Sephora is a company that is molding the innovations of the University into marketable products.

3rd Tech is a technology transfer company that is licensed to take inventions from researchers at the University.

It then has its staff of engineers make the invention into a product, set up a company and seek independent funding.

"I think the University is very pleased with what we're doing," said Doug Schiff, vice president of 3rd Tech."It is very difficult for the technology developed in the University to get out into the world."

The company has been in existence for three years and has three companies running under it. Each company promotes a different product.

One of these products, called the NanoManipulator, is a device hooked up to an atomic-force microscope. It has a sharp pointer, like that of a phonograph, that runs along the surface and creates an image enabling a person to "feel" things as small as individual molecules.

Another product, the HiBall tracker, is a scanner that uses small cameras and infrared lasers to locate things and produce images that are triangular models textured with color. NASA uses this product to virtually practice loading and reloading space shuttles.

"The products we help to market are being used by other scientists," Schiff said. "They are good for science, the University and for commercial enterprise."

Above the clinking wine glasses and low lights of Valentino's exists an office where a UNC senior works into the wee hours of the morning running his own company.

Aaron Houghton is the chief executive officer of Preation Inc., a Web software company that he started the summer after his sophomore year in high school.

"My dad showed me in the eighth grade how to make a Web page," Houghton said. "I was thinking, this would be cool -- companies would pay for this."

The company, which has been at its present location for 1 1/2 years, has transformed over the years and expanded from 75 to 153 clients when Houghton arrived at UNC as a freshman in 1999.

But balancing schoolwork and a company has become more difficult. Houghton, a computer science major, has only been able to take 12 credit hours the past few semesters so that he has time for work.

"It's gotten harder and harder -- now business is my life," Houghton said."But I've never considered dropping school -- I enjoy the University atmosphere."

And Houghton said he will not soon leave his niche above Valentino's.

"This will probably be my career at least 10 years from now," he said. "I'm not just out for the bottom line -- I love what I do."

The Features Editor can be reached at features@unc.edu.

In the Sept. 30 article "Taking Work to Another Level," Aaron Houghton's company was incorrectly identified as Preacton Inc. The correct name is Preation Inc. The Daily Tar Heel regrets the error.