What a great job: these black professionals are pursuing unique careers in which the best perk is a passion for their work.

DOCTOR, LAWYER, TEACHER. Banker, builder, businessman. Of all the infinite possibilities there are for making a living, only a handful are encouraged in our homes and schools. To many young people, these more ordinary employment options seem as unlikely, or uninspiring, as youngsters' dreams of NBA or Hollywood stardom seem to adults.

What we don't aim for enough in young people, or ourselves, is the pursuit of a passion. It's a cliche, but fashioning a career out of something you're deeply and genuinely drawn to is a fairly foolproof way to a fulfilling work life. Those individuals who make their choices solely motivated by need, greed and status may have no trouble paying the electric bill, but do they really enjoy their work? Too often, no.

Well, meet four people who are thrilled with their careers. Each discovered a true love early in life--a craft, a skill, a talent or company, The Children's Television Workshop. Lying in a backbreaking position, the 6-foot, 180-pound Clash steadily eyes the monitor that shows him what the audience will see. As Tomlin talks to Natasha, the "baby" responds, conveying a surprising depth of personality through a series of high-pitched coos, gurgles and deft movements a la Clash. Between takes, Natasha stays in character, steadily charming Tomlin and about two dozen crew and admiring onlookers. It's slightly unnerving that, even as you watch Clash work, he still seems to make his muppet seem so ... real.

Clash's own voice is warm and resonant. His manner is easygoing, his style relaxed. The 20-year veteran puppeteer has no agent and puts on no airs. With credits such as Baby Sinclair from the early '90s sitcom Dinosaurs, Splinter from the movies Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I and II and Elmo from Sesame Street to his name, Clash has a lot to be proud of and nothing to prove. Perhaps that's why when he was up for a Daytime Emmy Award in 1990, the Baltimore resident didn't go to Los Angeles for the show. Competing with then-hot Pee Wee Herman, LeVar Burton and Mr. Rogers for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series, Clash had already framed the nomination notice and determined that "that was enough." He was stunned to learn later that, thanks to a furry little red guy named Elmo, he'd won.

In a rather matter-of-fact tone, Clash relates that he built his first puppet when he was 1 0 years old. In his mind, the puppets were merely the logical result of combining a natural artistic ability inherited from his father with his mother's sewing materials. The skill began to take on a life of its own in junior high school, when he used puppets for a history assignment on Russia. He made a troupe of "Russian" puppets and had a classmate interview the characters about their country in front of the class. Clash got an A. Later, he put on a command performance for the entire school. The performance landed him in the newspaper, the attention dominoed and by the tenth grade he was performing on a local kids' show called Caboose and making about $200 a week. Clash never wondered if he could earn a living doing what he did best.

While many of his high school friends went on to college, Clash became a regular on the CBS children's television show Captain Kangaroo. His weekly salary for the 13-week season: about $3,0001; plus $1,200 for each puppet he built for the show--not bad for a 20-year-old. After his first season, he was picked up by a syndicated show, The Great Space Coaster, and Sesame Street soon followed. But after just one season, Clash, finding it too much to juggle the three shows, dropped Sesame Street. Luckily, in 1985, just as the other shows' runs were ending, one of Clash's idols, the late Jim Henson, asked him to rejoin the popular preschool program. Clash jumped at the chance to work full-time with Henson and others whose talents he admired. "I got to work with the best, and I never take that for granted. When they were here, I sat my butt as close as I could to them so that I could learn and learn and learn." Not long after, Elmo grabbed the spotlight.

When Clash took on Elmo, he was just one of the muppet crowd. Two other muppeteers had been unable to bring the little guy out of obscurity. But with a falsetto voice Clash had used while growing up, Elmo took off.

Today, Elmo, like Kermit and Big Bird, is part of the muppet royal family, and Clash is one of the company's core group of muppeteers. (Only two of the 12 muppeteers are African-American.) The gig-which includes producing, directing, scouting out new puppeteers, and performing on recordings, in videos, feature films, television specials and parades--affords Clash a hectic, but cushy lifestyle. Still, the muppeteer insists, it's not the money that motivates him.

What does? The father of two-year-old Shannon answers simply. "the children."

MARSHALL TOOMEY, ANIMATION ARTIST, WALT DISNEY CO.

If you're one of the 50 million-plus people who've seen Walt Disney's latest animated mega-hit, The Lion King, perhaps you recognized the voice of the wise, mystical baboon, Rafiki, to be that of African-American actor Robert Guillaume. But you probably didn't know that the character was also drawn by a black man.

That man is Marshall Toomey, who, at 41, is one of Disney's rising stars behind the scenes. Although he has been with the company just five years, his journey there began long ago. Toomey started drawing at age two. By the third grade, the Kansas City, Mo., native says, he had the drive to draw every day. It was that urge that caused him to leave Kansas' Baker University just one year shy of his degree, to pursue an art career.

Today, that urge is still driving Toomey's career, much to the benefit of the Walt Disney Co., where he has been an animator since 1990. To understand Toomey's role, you have to understand the animation hierarchy at Disney. At the top is the supervising designer. Under him or her are several supervising lead animators. The supervising leads design the style that each scene will have, which usually takes 18 to 24 months to develop. If there are a total of 200 drawings in one scene, for example, the supervising lead assigned to that scene will draw about 20. A key assistant will then take those and draw an additional 20 or so to lock in the looks of the characters and their surroundings. The remaining drawings are done by assistant animators. Major characters, such as the Genie in Aladdin, will have a team of 10 to 15 artists drawing them, under the direction of a supervising lead. Lesser characters require a team of five to seven artists.

There are about 500 artists in Disney's feature animation group, of which a mere 5% are African-American. Toomey, who came to Disney after 10 years of working in commercials, cartoons and video productions, is one of the highest-ranking black artists at the company, and one of the most notable, period. He started as a breakdown artist, an entry-level position for animators, making about $600 a week on the film Rescuers Down Under. After six months, Toomey was promoted to assistant animator on what would become one of the first hits among Disney's modern classics, Beauty and the Beast. His work on the Beast character earned Toomey a step up to key assistant on Aladdin.

Toomey moved up again on The Lion King to supervising lead key for Simba's imposing mentor, Rafiki. The baboon was not intended to be a major character. However, his role grew because the supervising designer for the film liked how Toomey and his team of five developed the character. Disney was so pleased with Toomey's work on Lion King that he was chosen over the 400 or so other artists who worked on the film to illustrate the companion book. Not only was Toomey flattered, he made $15,000 doing it. Flattery aside, Toomey remains quite humble about his talent. "You can't come [to Disney] with an ego because there's not one artist here who's not exceptional," he says. Toomey should know. As the only African-American on Disney's 50-person review board, he understands precisely how tough a place it is to break into. Each year, hundreds of hopefuls enter the process Toomey still recalls as "terrifying."

A steady stream of animation portfolios and resumes pours in each day. Only the best are forwarded to the review board. Those who get the thumbs-up from the board must then take a test, which the board later evaluates. The process can take years, and most don't make it. Says Toomey: "There are not that many people who do what we do, but Disney hires the best of the best."

It was partly for that reason that Toomey joined Disney, despite a more lucrative offer from the legendary cartoon company of Hanna-Barbera. He also did it for his parents, in particular, his father, who used to watch him draw as a child and told him that if he kept it up he would draw for Walt Disney one day. Unfortunately, Toomey's parents died before Beauty and the Beast was released. Before their deaths, they were extremely proud that their son worked for Disney, whose legendary work they admired.

Toomey, who recently negotiated a new five-year contract with Disney that will vault him into the six-figures-a-year stratum, is also quite proud. "I was born to do this," he says. "Everything I draw is seen all over the world. That's an emotional thrill that I can't even describe." But his aspirations extend beyond the artistic, even though he acknowledges that the higher you go, "the less you draw and the more you manage." Toomey, who plans to complete his college education, says, "I aspire to the uppermost levels here at Disney. For my parents and for all the black kids out there like me, I want to show that it can be done."

PATRICK CLARK, EXECUTIVE CHEF, HAY-ADAMS HOTEL 

Most of the world's top chefs are known for a certain dish, a style of cooking or presenting food, or a restaurant they put on the map. Patrick Clark has distinguished himself in all of these areas, but he has received more attention for a decision that had nothing to do with food and everything to do with his career.

Two years ago, Hillary Clinton, then still settling into the White House, offered Clark the job of White House chef. Clark turned it down.

"I felt the White House would be too restrictive for me," Clark explains simply, adding that he had a three-year commitment to fulfill with the Hay-Adams Hotel, where he had just started as executive chef. Luckily for Clark and the Clintons, they are neighbors. The Hay-Adams sits directly across the street from the nation's most famous residence. So, Clark has been able to help out when needed. His input was requested in planning the state dinner for South African President Nelson Mandela last October, and the Clintons frequently cart guests over to the hotel, making the Hay-Adams a venue of choice for Washington's power dining.

Clark's road to the White House, or thereabouts, began in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he started experimenting with recipes at age 10. He came by his culinary curiosity naturally. His father was a chef with Restaurant Associates, which once ran Manhattan's posh Four Seasons. Despite his dad's efforts to dissuade him from the industry ("too hard on family life", he'd say), Clark wanted nothing more. He received an associate's degree in hotel and restaurant technology from New York City Technical College in 1975. He then perfected his craft in France, training under Michel Guerard, known as the father of nouvelle cuisine.

Just two years after returning to New York, Clark, then 26, was asked to be the executive chef of a new restaurant, the Odeon. Clark didn't think the bistro, located in Tribeca before that neighborhood was the funky mecca it is today, held much promise. Accustomed to the elegant, upscale environs of Regine's, where he was an assistant chef, Clark didn't believe people would come to eat in Manhattan's warehouse district at a place with carpetless floors and mismatched chairs. At his wife Lynette's encouragement, he took the job anyway. Her advice paid off big.

The Odeon took off almost immediately. In its first six weeks, Clark served a respectable 60 dinners a night. Then the New York Times gave it a two-star review. The next night, Clark served 245 meals to an eclectic crowd that for seven years never stopped coming.

Clark's Odeon run established him as a star. During his tenure there, he also opened a sister-success, Cafe Luxembourg, cementing his reputation as more than a chef-of-the-moment. But in 1987, he opened his own place, also in New York: Metro. That, Clark says wist-fully, was "a dream come true. I always wanted my own place, with all the risk, all the headaches and all the control." Although the restaurant opened to critical acclaim, the timing couldn't have been worse. The stock market had just crashed. Unable to turn a profit in such tight times, Metro closed in 1990, and a disheartened Clark packed his family off to Beverly Hills. There he spent two years reviving a then-troubled Bice. Despite the irony of having a French-t]rained chef--african-American, no less--oversee the menu at an Italian restaurant, it worked.

Just as his Bice contract was winding down, the Hay-Adams came calling. Managing Director Wolf Lehmkuhl wanted the small, 65-year-old hotel to adopt a higher, fresher profile. Luring Clark was an integral part of his plan to achieve that goal. Clark was not an easy sell, despite the fact that he and his wife were eager to move their five children back East. "I had always heard horror stories about hotels," Clark explains, ticking off a few. "They're big, they have room service, multiple restaurants, the food's not good and you can't make it good . . ." Lehmkuhl's assurances, a few trips to the capital, and an attractive package that includes a salary of over $100,000 a year convinced him otherwise.

Although Clark still dreams of opening his own restaurant, something he plans to do in the not-too-distant future, he is clearly pleased with choosing the Hay-Adams for now. He has successfully merged the hotel's three disjointed restaurants into one success and refined the menu. And two years into his contract, he's already been asked to extend it. His neighbor, Bill Clinton, should be so lucky.

STEPHANIE WHITE-TILLMAN, SENIOR LAB TECHNICIAN, THE CLOROX CO.

That face. That smile. That unforgettable phrase: "I have to live with roaches. You don't." Sound familiar?

To anyone who has seen a television commercial for Combat ant and roach traps, it should. The woman in the white lab coat is Stephanie White-Tillman, a 37-year-old mother of six who spends her 9-to-5 workday feeding, breeding, studying and analyzing some of the most reviled creatures on earth. Her goal: to formulate poisons that will entice and then kill them.

What that involves is hanging out daily in Clorox's ICU (Insect Care Unit) with hundreds of thousands of these crawly critters, observing their behavior patterns and testing their palates for poison-appeal. Tillman's subjects are not only the common varieties that most of us have seen scampering about; some species of roaches can be three inches long. And ants, Tillman notes, are finicky eaters, making her job with them quite a challenge.

That Tillman is a scientist is not surprising. When she entered San Francisco State University in 1975, she chose to major in cell and molecular biology and minor in chemistry. Her plan, at the time, was to go into medical research, but personal circumstances sidelined that plan and her education.

For more than a decade, Tillman, who had married in 1980, worked to help pay the bills and support her growing family. She was a bookkeeper, a bank teller, a nurse's aide and an eligibility technician for the Alameda County Welfare Department. All the while, she was pursuing her degree and her love of science.

In 1990, with the required amount of chemistry education and lab experience to her credit, Tillman was hired by Clorox as a lab technician in their detergents division. Not long after, the company decided to exit that business and take a stab at the insecticides market instead. Clorox had acquired the Combat brand from American Cyanamid in 1990. After testing and interviewing Tillman, Clorox managers decided to switch her into insecticides research and development. Recalls Tillman: "They said it would be a good match for me. I thought they were crazy."

While some people are attracted to bugs, Tillman says that was never her thing. "I couldn't stand insects," she says. "To see more than a few is really unnerving, let alone hundreds of thousands." But seeing them, Tillman discovered during her first week on the job, was the least of it. She also has to handle them. Of the 11 people in her department, Tillman notes she is one of the few who "still wears gloves at all times."

But overall, she has adapted well enough to be promoted in March 1993 to senior technician. And well enough to help make Combat the leading roach-bait tray on the market, earning Clorox $540 million in sales last year, a 3.7% increase over 1993.

Tillman also spends a good deal of time carting live insects to California elementary schools to help hook kids on science education. The children "love it," says Tillman. "For some of them, inspecting and collecting bugs is a hobby. They can't believe I get paid for it."

As for Tillman's own education, she expects to finally get her bachelor's degree later this year. "For me, education is extremely important," she says. "I must satisfy my need to finish what I started."