to the fiber-optic market, but was really hit hard by the industry's 2001 meltdown. The telecom crash almost sank the company. After a spate of overbuilding by telecommunications companies and underutilization, demand for new cable vanished. This was a complete turnaround from just two years prior, when Corning was inundated with orders. During 2001, sales fell 65 percent to $543 million, as such customers as BT, WorldCom, and Qwest cut back or canceled their previous orders. In August 2001, the company announced that it was laying off 450 workers in its Corning Cable Systems division and announced that 450 more had accepted voluntary severance packages. But the cuts were only just beginning. A few weeks later, Corning announced that it would reduce division employment by 1,000 by the end of the year. In October 2001, the company was forced to admit that it had even more bad news: Due to continued low demand, it would shut down its cable plants and restructure all of its production units, a move that resulted in a whopping 12,000 layoffs by the end of the year. The firm also shuffled the leadership in its cable division. All told, Corning lost $5.5 billion for the year. In April 2002, James Houghton returned to the company as CEO (Corning has been guided by his family since 1851), shutting down 13 plants, axing 20,000 jobs, and turning the focus away from the fiber business and reducing the company's debt by $1.4 billion. VAULT CAREER LIBRARY 2005 Vault Inc. Vault Guide to the Top Telecom Employers Corning Incorporated A quick turnaround? Thanks in part to weakness at its main domestic rival, Lucent, Corning's prospects began to look up at the beginning of 2002. In January, it announced that four of its cable plants, including the company's largest plant in Hickory, N.C., would begin producing again and that laid-off employees would be put back to work. And in May, it inked a $100 million deal with Alcoa subsidiary AFL, which manufactures and markets optical ground wire. While the company has taken steps to make 