Often for corporate sites we want to change (or basically hide) the author pages since we don't use them for SEO and we don't necessarily want users to even view them. A lot of times there might be just one person writing the blog articles so it doesn't make sense to search by author. Redirecting using a 301 is pretty self-explanatory, but he's a little snippet we can use to re-write the author-slug (URL) to make it a bit less "bloggy".

add_action('init', 'seanaus120_author_base');
function seanaus120_author_base() {
    global $wp_rewrite;
    $author_slug = 'profile'; // change slug name
    $wp_rewrite->author_base = $author_slug;
}

Currently in use at:
Wild Posting
Gorilla Printing
Wine N Liquor
Wheatpaste Posters
Wheatpaste Posters
Poster Printing
Poster Printing NYC
OOH Marketing
Million Dollar Club
Gift Ideas
Telecommunications
Dark Fibre
Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial
Window Advertising
Window Graphics
Window Wraps
Window Stickers