Office spin: Paul David Morrison buys an existing company and turns it around.

At age seven, Paul David Morrison told his mother that he would someday have his own company. It was keen foresight. By the age of 21, he was running an auto detailing franchise while working a full-time job. He kept the weekend business for a year and a half before giving it Up for a new position that required more responsibilities.

Now, foresight has led the 31-year-old to another acquisition-an office supply store. Unlike most entrepreneurs who start out by building a company from scratch, Morrison bought an existing business.

Having worked for years in the electronics industry, he purchased Hurricane Office Supply two years ago for less than $100,000. Hurricane, in Cedar Park, Texas, is a full-service office supply company that sells everything from pens and pencils to file cabinets and copiers.

Morrison got the idea to invest in a business while working at Motorola as a senior packaging engineering technician. Initially, he and his wife Nancy, 29, scoured the local newspaper for business opportunities. "Our price range was up to $ 150,000. There were a lot of small restaurants, bars, small clothing stores and liquor stores for sale, but we weren't interested in those," he recalls.

An ad for an office supply store piqued his interest. "Because there were so many different product lines and avenues to market the product, we felt there was really no limit as to what we could do with the business."

Morrison called up the business broker whose name was in the ad and negotiations began. But the deal fell through following several weeks of discussions, after Morrison and the owner couldn't come to acceptable terms for purchase.

But Morrison didn't give up. Armed with an SBA loan of $65,000 and $20,000 in personal savings, he went after another office supply company. Its 41-year-old owner had recently suffered a heart attack and wanted to sell the company. This time the deal went through.

When Morrison acquired Hurricane, it had posted sales of $404,000. A year later, sales reached nearly $600,000; by the end of '96, Morrison expects them to exceed $1.2 million.

Morrison's first task was to revive the business. "When I bought the company, it was very passive and complacent," he recalls. "The outside salesman was not very aggressive. Basically, the business that they attained, they let it come to them. They really didn't go after it."

Realizing the importance of sales, Morrison immediately beefed up the sales staff. When he took over, there was one inside salesperson, one delivery truck driver, a sales manager and the owner. Today there are nine employees, and five are responsible for sales. His next step was to promote his company by advertising in the local newspaper while sending out fax bulletins to companies in the Austin area. In September 1995, he moved Hurricane from its 800-sq.-ft. space into a 2,600-sq.-ft. retail showroom.

Today, 65% of Hurricane's products are sold to major companies--35% to the city of Austin, the state of Texas, the University of Texas at Austin and Sam Houston University; the remaining sales are retail.

Morrison wants to see his company triple its sales revenue over the next two years. He's also in the process of marketing the company and its products on the Internet. Morrison says working with the Internet could help Hurricane Office Supply generate up to $6 million a year in business.

Hurricane Office Supply, 600 South Bell Blvd., Suite 9, Cedar Park, TX 78613; 800-723-3345