CEO And President Interview: DRI Corporation (TBUS) - David L. Turney
July 13, 2010 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published Wireless Communications and Telecom Equipment Report offering a timely review of the Telecommunications sector. This Special Report contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. Please find an excerpt below.
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David L. Turney has been a director of DRI Corporation since May 1996 and has served as the company's Chairman of the board of directors, President and Chief Executive Officer since May 1998. In March 2010, he transferred his role of President to Oliver Wels and retained his duties as Chairman of the board and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Turney was Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Robinson Turney International, Inc., which merged into the company in April 1998. From March 1994 to December 1995, Mr. Turney was engaged in strategic planning and development consulting services for his former employer, Mark IV Industries, Inc.
TWST: Please give us a brief overview of DRI Corporation and your industry.
Mr. Turney: The company was founded in 1983 and the IPO was in 1994. The company is in the public transportation sector - rail cars and buses - passenger information systems on the vehicle and on the wayside, and vehicle tracking, locating and monitoring for fleet dispatch purposes and also for security purposes.
TWST: Looking at your areas of operation, what is the competitive arena like? What is the landscape for global surface transportation and transit security markets?
Mr. Turney: As any investor looking closely will realize, this company has an extraordinarily large geographic footprint for a small cap, particularly for a micro-cap company. We're in 50 countries and 59% of our revenue is from outside of the U.S. We have 500 customers, like I said, in over 50 countries. The worldwide public transportation marketplace is very robust. In good times and bad times, people need transportation. Of course, this market sector has a green aspect to the extent that when we use public transportation versus cars, we reduce the use of automobiles, we reduce greenhouse gases and of course I don't have to talk about the problems we are having with fuel prices and energy, including the Gulf oil spill. Maybe that wouldn't be happening if we didn't have so much global reliance on oil resources.
TWST: What are the keys that you compete on?
Mr. Turney: The competitive part, in terms of specific list of competitors, varies by geographic region. Hardly any competitor stretches across our complete geographic footprint with our full product line. Generally speaking, in each geographic region, like Central Europe, Australia, India - any large geographic region or country - you will find typically two or three competitors that have enough substance to be a factor in the market. It's a niche market, so by definition, you're not going to have a large array of competitors, like if it was, let's say, a consumer product market. The defining elements of our competitive landscape are service delivery, which of course we excel in because our customers - the vehicle builders that use our equipment on behalf of the transit authorities that are buying those buses or rail cars - increasingly expect that we operate globally and be where they are, and largely they are global. We're in a position to support our customers worldwide. So the ability for service delivery excellence is a driver of the market in a competitive context. Certainly technology is a major driver. We tend to be on the cutting edge and lead the technology, and we have done so consistently for the last several years.
TWST: Some of your products include the TwinVision, the Mobitec, Digital Recorders and the VacTell video system. How do they increase safety and security for today's mass transit commuter?
Mr. Turney: The Digital Recorders product line and the VacTell product line within that are the keys to our security systems. Let's face it, on a public transportation vehicle, rail or bus, it's not possible to have system to screen passengers as they board, like we have at airports. You're in a mode in this industry of mitigating the security risk and threat. So by vehicle tracking and locating, always knowing where the vehicle is and having video monitoring of what is going on inside that vehicle when there is an incident, you can mitigate the risk of a security incident being serious, intervene quickly if there is a problem and perhaps not allow it to fully mature to a full-blown event.
TWST: If you take a look at the developing landscapes of the markets that you serve and how they might change over the next few years, what trends do you see developing that may steer the focus of DRI Corporation?
Mr. Turney: The quest for better mobility. People are tired of sitting in traffic jams, and increasingly that's become a huge stress on the economy and on people. So people want to have less gridlock. The way you do that is to increase the use of public transportation vehicles. Greenhouse gas is a big driver of the market - use public transportation, you reduce greenhouse gases. The desire to upgrade and update is a big driver of the market because if I put a new sign system on an old bus vehicle, it's bright and readable, and can make the entire vehicle look newer. Emerging economies are a major driver of the market.
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