Beltsville-based company counts on its U.S. location to win federal

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Apr 2, 2004 by Kathleen Johnston Jarboe

These shareholders have been waiting for a long time, says the new R&D lead Yossie Riemer while sitting in a conference room in Beltsville. The scientist has a broad background in manufacturing, and perhaps more importantly a long list of contacts.

I feel fortunate that I can be the one to make it happen after all these years.

Still Gantt is the first to admit he's not sure how the sugar market will fare.

We haven't really gotten off the ground yet, he said, adding that sizeable revenue from the sugar products might not show up until 2005 or 2006. I don't know how successful it is going to be. I believe it will be.

But Riemer's hiring, like Gantt's, followed the recognition by scientist and Chairman Gilbert V. Levin that Spherix most of all needed more business acumen to bring its premier product to market.

In the last few years the company began posting losses as the marketing launch of its fly-killing product Flycracker failed and legal costs surrounding tagatose mounted. The losses happened just as it seemed that Levin, who founded the company in 1967, might see a sizeable return on his 36 years of work.

I grew to really love the company and wanted to see it succeed, Gantt said about the time when Levin surprised him by offering the job last June over lunch. Gantt by then had sat on Spherix's board for years and was running his own consulting business.

Gantt weighed the decision with his wife for a week before responding.

I was the right person at the right time. I looked at what his options were if I said no, and I didn't think they were very good. I saw it as a challenge.