Local tech firm's chief quits
By John Duchemin
Advertiser Staff Writer
Adtech chief executive officer Tareq Hoque resigned suddenly yesterday, turning one of Hawai'i's most successful — but recently slowing — technology companies over to marketing vice president Alan Sguigna.
Officials at Spirent Communications, parent company of Adtech, said yesterday that Hoque's departure was voluntary and not related to company performance.
Spirent officials said Hoque was leaving to pursue other opportunities. Hoque could not be reached for comment last night.
The announcement comes several weeks after Spirent reported a slowdown in second-quarter sales of its telecommunications testing division, of which Adtech is a part.
Sguigna, reached at home last night, said Hoque's departure "had nothing to do with performance issues."
"It's business as usual for us. What I see in the industry is that things tend to happen pretty quickly; people pick up and look for new opportunities quickly," Sguigna said, but declined to comment further.
Hoque, 35, came to Adtech after Spirent bought the locally founded company in 1997. Under him, Adtech expanded rapidly, reaching revenues above $150 million in 2000 and employing 360, making the company one of the state's largest technology employers.
Adtech has carved a niche as a world leader in communications network testing equipment. Its products have dominated the market and won several top industry awards, including this year's "Best of Show" award at the Networld+Interop conference in Atlanta.
But the company's growth has slowed this year as clients including Cisco, Nortel and Lucent struggle with losses and layoffs due to an industrywide slowdown. In May, Hoque said the company's revenue projections of $200 million this year were too optimistic, though he said revenues should still exceed last year's levels.
Adtech enacted a hiring freeze and in June ended negotiations to build a headquarters building on state land in Kaka'ako, opting to move about 130 employees into smaller offices at First Hawaiian Center in downtown Honolulu.
In a June 28 earnings preview, Spirent said the network testing market stayed slow through the second quarter of 2001. The company provided no numbers.
Spirent will release its earnings for the first half of 2001 on Sept. 5, according to Adtech spokeswoman Cathi Lane.
Hoque's resignation ends the Weldon family's ties to the top job at Adtech. A former Wall Street investment banker with a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hoque is married to Laura Weldon Hoque, daughter of Adtech founders Kathryn and Ned Weldon.
Sguigna came to Adtech in 1999 from Nortel, where he was director of business development for "voice-over-packet," a technology allowing voice transmission via the Internet.
Sguigna holds an MBA from the University of Dallas and engineering master's and bachelor's degrees from McMaster University in Ontario.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated when Spirent will release its earnings report.
