Mr. Searock: Dynasil was established in 1960 for one purpose only, and that was to manufacture synthetic fused silica. Synthetic fused silica is the purest form of glass known to man. At that time the market was primarily the defense industry. The only competitor then was Corning Glass, and essentially they remain our only competitor today in the domestic synthetic fused silica manufacturing business. I should note at the outset that Corning sets the industry standard, and it would be a stretch for us to consider ourselves a real competitor of Corning. Their manufacturing capability and R&D efforts far exceed ours. However, Dynasil did just fine as it worked its way through the normal start-up processes and established itself not only as a manufacturer but also as a service-oriented company dedicated to serving all segments of the customer base. Dynasil reorganized in 1964 as a publicly traded company with very small subscription by friends, acquaintances, relatives, folks like that ' maybe 100 or so subscribers. It stayed that way for next 20 years or so, as a registered but non-reporting company. I was drafted about four years ago while serving on the Board of Directors. Prior to that I had served in private industry for four years as the Senior VP of Aero Development Corporation and for 37 years in the United States Air Force, retiring from the Vice Commander of the Air Force Material Command position as a Lt. General. When I came aboard, the company was again working its way out of some difficulties stemming from a failed business relationship with Russian companies that were also making synthetic fused silica. The objective at the time ' this was in the 1991-1992 time frame, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall ' was to market the Russian product here in this country, thinking that it would be cheaper to buy their product than to make our own. The quality of the Russian product and the deliveries were very poor, and it put Dynasil in a very tenuous situation from which it almost did not recover. Just prior to my arrival, another management team was recruited to get the company back on its feet, and it started to turn around in the mid-1990s. Since that time, we've slowly but surely been able to build the company up to where it's a solid company again and doing well in the market that it's in. So Dynasil is a manufacturer of synthetic fused silica, but the one thing that differentiates it from Corning Glass is that we, besides manufacturing the glass, also process the glass. For all intents and purposes, we have two companies. In one we make the glass, and then we sell it to ourselves, where we cut it, grind it, and to some extent polish it for our customers. All of our customer orders are custom orders. We do not make glass for inventory or for catalog sales.
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