We recently completed our annual "spring training" event in Glendale, and I was pleased to note that well over half of the 30 attendees – mostly regional sales managers and application engineers – were from outside the U.S. Quite a change from even just a few years ago, when the focus of this activity was clearly biased towards our domestic market.

The event organizers were kind enough to invite me to present the keynote at the final group dinner, but otherwise I was effectively written out of the script in favor of back-to-back product and solution seminars delivered by Glenair's growing rank of product, technology and marketing gurus. Again, quite the change from years back, when I was a regular presenter in the daily sessions. Don't get me wrong, I'm as pleased as can be that I am no longer considered an indispensable contributor to product training at Glenair. Because it means the growing sales and marketing team is humming right along—like the finely tuned engine they have become – without much use for intensive oversight or micro-management from me.

Darwin observed that "more than physical strength...it is the ability to adapt which characterizes the successful species." At Glenair, we have long recognized that bringing additional talent into the organization is critical if we are to fulfill our business program of steady, measured growth. In that regard, the recent blossoming of our already outstanding work force with new talent in North America and Europe has truly been an awesome sight to behold. And by the way, we have not limited this growth to just the sales and marketing side of the company by any means. Most of you are aware of the recent additions to our engineering team in Glendale, including our new Director of Engineering Greg Brown and the growing team of draftsmen and design engineers he has recruited to beef-up our technical support capabilities. On the production side, we are aggressively adding new staff in Mansfield, Glendale and Chicago to handle our growing Micro-D enterprise.