"Hold on," he says, taking another call.

He returns without missing a beat. "Sorry. Williams is another telecomthat put $247 million in gear out there. I've purchased over 200midrange Compaq servers in the last two weeks, and I'll get $12million more in Cisco gear in the next two weeks.

"Hold on," he says.

Lynch, 46, is CEO of Asset Recovery Center (ARC), one of the largestcompanies on the secondary market. ARC will take in about $50 millionthis year, up from $1 million two years ago. Lynch believes that thetop line will grow to $100 million next year. At any given time,there's about $80 million worth of used gear in its Eatontown, N.J.,warehouse.

That is in part due to Lynch. His brassy Jersey accent seems to puteverything he says into italics. Someone else might say, "That salewas worth about $1 million." Lynch says, "I picked up a million andchange on that deal." Lynch's strength (as he'll agree) is his abilityto foresee the secondary market's ebbs and flows - which products willbe in demand and which will just take up space in his warehouse. He'sbeen doing this for 25 years since the days when "10MB hard drivesweighed 120 pounds." He got his start when, as he was eating anItalian combo sub on a loading dock, he saw some Digital equipmentnearby, waiting to be scrapped. The next day he put on a tie, boughtthe lot and turned it around for $98,000, four times his annual salaryat a company called Associated Food, where he ran the cash-and-carrydivision.