Sync Research’s New President Comes From AT

Sync Research Inc., a computer networking company whose once-soaring stock price has skidded recently, said Monday that former AT&T; executive Roger Dorf has been hired as president and chief operating officer.

Dorf was formerly president of AT&T;’s Network Systems Group for the Caribbean and Central America. He steps into two newly created positions at Sync Research and is expected to help the company navigate what executives and some investors say will be a course of rapid growth.

Dorf’s “operational strengths will help us to successfully manage that growth,” said John Rademaker, Sync’s founder and chief executive.

Previously, Dorf held a number of management positions at International Business Machines Corp., where he worked from 1965 to 1986.

Rademaker said Dorf’s experience at IBM should help Sync compete. Sync makes devices that help extend the life of aging IBM mainframe computer networks, enabling them to transmit data much the way newer, cheaper networks do.

Based on the promise of that technology, Sync staged one of the hottest initial stock offerings last year, as its stock price soared from $20 to $44 on its first day of trading in November.

But the company, which posted four years of losses before its stock offering, was regarded as a risky investment by some analysts. Sync’s stock price closed at $18 per share on Monday, just a few cents above its lowest price since going public.