the future. Quoted in the Toronto Star in May 2003, he confidently declared, "We believe we have uniquely positioned Cisco as the inevitable recovery occurs." And though many investors are now understandably wary of Chambers' sunny outlook, his restructuring efforts seem to finally be bearing fruit. The company has cut expenses by 17 percent, which has translated into $1.7 billion in savings. Thus despite falling revenues, the newly lean Cisco is once again profitable. With its gross margins at a record level of 69 percent, the company's financial performance in 2003 was bettered only by the numbers posted in the last quarters of the bubble-era economy. VAULT CAREER LIBRARY 2005 Vault Inc. Vault Guide to the Top Telecom Employers Cisco Systems, Inc. And the outlook's only gotten sunnier in 2004. In August, Cisco announced 4Q2004 record-high net income of $1.4 billion and earnings per share of $.20. This was a significant leap from 4Q2003 net income of $982 million and earnings per share of $.14. That same month, an ebullient Chambers celebrated the turn-around by upping his $1 salary to the $350,000 he'd been receiving before the bubble burst. The month continued on a high note with Cisco distributing $162 million in merit-based common stock options to employees, including $1.5 million to Chambers. One for the record books Cisco has experienced its strongest growth in the U.S. and the Asia-Pacific region, although Russia has been another highlight with sales growth of 40 percent year- over-year. The company is most excited by the unveiling of CRS-1, a router for the core of large service-provider networks. The Guinness Book of World Records recently certified the CRS-1 as the highest capacity router ever developed, and Chambers believes it "is the biggest jump in innovation since the router was first introduced 20 years ago." One of Chambers' ultimate goals is to get a piece of the vast market for telecom equipment and services (worth $750 billion a year in the U.S. alone) and also expand into corporate voice-and