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Nabeel Gareeb loves acceleration. That's why he drives a modified 1995 Dodge Viper with 625 horsepower that can rocket from 0 to 60 mph in 3 seconds.
"You can reach any speed as long as you have acceleration," said Gareeb, president and chief executive of MEMC Electronic Materials. He holds the same philosophy for the St. Peters-based silicon wafer manufacturing company he leads. By increasing productivity, growing revenue and renewing profitability, Gareeb is helping MEMC gain traction.
"From a company standpoint I think we've made tremendous strides," he said. "There is still a long way to go. Our velocity is OK and our acceleration is good. We need to keep going in the right direction. We are generating 20 points of operating profit. For a company that was on the brink of bankruptcy a couple of years ago, that's amazing. We're really cranking."
When Gareeb took the helm at MEMC in April 2002, the company was bleeding red ink, It had just been acquired by a group of private investors led by Texas Pacific Group, which absorbed most of the nearly $1 billion in debt on the company's books and asked Gareeb to turn the business around.
Gareeb, 39, walked away from a job in southern California that paid more than $800,000 a year and offered stock options with a face value of about $2.2 million. He took a salary cut with the knowledge that stock options here promised major potential if he could return MEMC to profitability and build its value for its new stockholders
It appears he made a wise choice.
MEMC shares...