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TWST: Would you give us a brief historical sketch of the company and a
picture of the things you're doing at the present time?
Mr. Gaulke: Exponent is a professional services firm, and our principal
focus is engineering and scientific consulting. We have about 500
consulting and technical staff in our employment today. We are best
known for analyzing accidents and failures. We were founded nearly 40
years ago, in 1967, as Failure Analysis Associates. We went public in
1990 as The Failure Group, with the stock symbol FAIL. We then changed
our name in 1998 to Exponent, with the new stock symbol EXPO. We made
the name change because in the late 1990s, we began to move into health
and environmental as additional services for our clients. From a
branding standpoint, health and environmental don't go very well
together with 'Failure.' So that's why we chose a new name. TWST: What is the range of your practice areas?
Mr. Gaulke: Actually, we have 16 practice areas today, and a very broad
set of disciplines ' some 70 different disciplines if you go by degrees
of our staff. So the 16 practice areas (not to go through them all)
range from our historical founding in mechanics, materials, and
structures, and then adding in over the last few decades, automotive,
biomechanics, and data and risk, where we have some of the largest
private databases on accidents and failures. We have folks in human
factors, and in electrical and semiconductors, civil, construction, and
industrial structures. We began to then move, as I indicated a few
minutes ago, into the environmental area in the 1990s. We have an
environmental sciences practice and an eco-sciences practice. We then
moved into the health arena as well, into what we call our health
sciences practice, and food and chemicals practice. And lastly, we have
about 10% of our business in the technology development area,
principally for the Defense Department, the Army, and the Navy. When
you look at our revenues overall, about 65% of what we do is driven by
litigation disputes. Product liability is the principal area that we get
involved in assisting our clients. Our typical client is a manufacturer
of products and there are generally exposures around those products
resulting from claims that the products did not perform properly. As a
result, there may have been property damage or loss of life, that give
rise to large exposures. So that's roughly 65% of our business. About
25% of our business is in the area of regulatory and more proactive work
assisting clients looking forward. And then, as I indicated, about 10%
is in the government sector.
Tickers included in this excerpt: EXPO
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The
Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does
not make stock recommendations.
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