SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY : Wespercorp Counting on New Line of Storage Products for Turnaround

The management of Irvine-based Wespercorp, a computer-parts manufacturer that has fallen on hard times recently, is betting the company’s turnaround on a new line of storage products.

Last week, Wespercorp introduced its Microvault line of high-capacity hard-disk drives for engineering workstations made by Digital Equipment Corp. The devices, which sell for $3,000 to $4,500, can be easily moved from one computer workstation to another, the company says.

“This product will bring us back into the peripheral business,” said James Campbell, chief marketing officer and one of several investors who took over the company several months ago. “We’re expecting a major shift in revenue as a result of this and other coming product introductions.”

Campbell joined Wespercorp in February along with Peter C. Yeung, chief executive, and Bruce A. Sargeant, executive vice president, as part of a financial reorganization of the firm. George Dashiell, Wespercorp’s longtime president, resigned shortly after.

Backed by the company’s major creditor, Union Bank, the new management invested $500,000 in Wespercorp and settled a longstanding lawsuit with Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co.

Wespercorp’s new product will compete in a crowded market that includes Orange County companies such as Micro Technology in Anaheim, MDB Systems in Orange, Emulex Corp. in Costa Mesa and Distributed Logic in Anaheim.

Campbell said the company will hire seven new employees to increase employment to 25 people by the end of the summer. It also plans to expand its product line to include optical instruments for the biomedical, chemical, environmental and industrial markets.

For the second quarter ended Dec. 31, the company reported a loss of $57,000, contrasted with earnings of $23,000 for the same period a year earlier. Revenue was $274,000, down from $423,000 a year earlier.

Before the financial restructuring, Campbell said the company was suffering from a shrinking market for its aging line of computer components and a lack of working capital.

Wespercorp was also hit by several lawsuits in the 1980s that accused the company’s management of filing fraudulent financial reports. In 1986, Fireman’s Fund Insurance sued Wespercorp for allegedly breaching a contract in which Wespercorp was to provide billing systems to another firm. The suits have been settled.

Revenues for the current year ending June 30 are expected to be less than $2 million, a far cry from the $25 million in revenue the company had in 1982.

But Campbell estimates that the company could generate several million dollars in sales from its new product line.