can I have a Document folder 'forwarded' to a default document?

I am working out my sites structure, and would like to know if it is possible to have a folder forwarded to another document.
so that say I have:

-about
--company profile
--Mission statement
--staff

that I could have ’about’ go directly to ’company profile’ rather than displaying its own page.
I guess I am still a little unsure what the true differences between docs and folders are as well as if this feature exists.

thanks

There is no difference at all between documents and folders; all a folder is is a document that has "children". Each document, in the database, is assigned a "parent". Documents in the top level, the "root", have a parent of 0. If another document is given, say for example, document #34 as a parent, then the "is_parent" setting for document #34 is set to true (1 in the database) and *poof* it has become a folder.

There is a snippet "firstChildRedirect" that does exactly what you want. Just put that snippet as the content of your "folder" document, and anyone clicking on that menu option will get redirected to its first child.

thank-you for both the solution to my question and confirming my understanding of folders and documents.