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TWST: Who are the customers for your products?

Mr. Southworth: This year that we (Nasdaq:SPEC) just completed, telecom will be more than 60 percent of our sales, and the customers are all the blue chips, the Nortels, Lucents, Ciscos, Ciena, Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia, Alcatel, Siemens, and so on.

TWST: What’s the outlook for that business, given what seems to be a slowdown in spending in telecom?

Mr. Southworth: As of yet, we certainly haven’t seen that. Our orders continue to be very strong. We see developing markets in new technologies relating to high-speed optical switches, Sonet equipment, the higher speed terra bit routers, and the high-end Internet servers, as well as the wireless market with the new 3G equipment and the telematic, which is using global positioning systems. We just continue to see more and more opportunities there. We believe the market is going to continue to be strong.

TWST: Who is the competition in the marketplace?

Mr. Southworth: We’re in a very strong position there. Our competitors are mainly much smaller, privately-held corporations, or in some cases we have some very small divisions of large corporations, which do not have the focus in our marketplace. No one competitor has more than three of our 16 product lines. So we bring a wealth of value to our customers in our overall capabilities, in the strength that we have with our size and our market position that our competitors don’t. If I name the major competitors, because they’re small private companies, their names would not be recognizable to you.

TWST: As you look out over the next year or two, do you see any new competition on the horizon?

Mr. Southworth: That’s a tough question. I think in our established signal product businesses, we are so strong that I don’t see significant new competitors. But in our advanced systems, as these markets continue to grow, there certainly could be developing companies that would compete with us in those areas.

TWST: How do you feel about the value the market is currently putting on your company?

Mr. Southworth: The way I evaluate it, we’ve been growing for the last three years at 30% per year. I would expect that our p/e would be at least that. So in looking at today’s market price of our stock, I think it’s a real bargain for investors. I would expect it to be significantly higher.

TWST: Why the disconnect between your growth and the market value?

Mr. Southworth: This was particularly true prior to the completion of our secondary offering. Prior to our secondary offering in August, we had not been to the equity market since the early 1980’s. As a result, we had no research coverage or investment banking relationships. Being a small cap or even a micro-cap stock with no coverage, it was very difficult to get our story out. As a peripheral benefit from our secondary offering, in addition to enhancing our financial position, we now have research coverage. There are currently three firms issuing research reports on us. For the first time in many years, we have also engaged an investor relations firm to help us be more aggressive in communicating our story. So in large part, that disconnect that you referred to, really reflected the fundamental difficulty of a small cap stock with no research coverage. We think we have a very positive story, and we now have a greater opportunity to communicate it.