Veeco CEO focuses on a brighter future

As the financial crisis took hold in the fall of 2008, Veeco Instruments Inc. saw new orders plummet by 50 percent.

Fast forward to 2010: "If we do what the analysts expect, we'll grow 88 percent this year," says Veeco chief executive John Peeler. "Once our customers realized that the world wasn't going to end, they started buying again."

Peeler was a top executive at other companies before joining Plainview-based Veeco more than two years ago. Veeco makes machines used by manufacturers in several markets: light-emitting diodes, solar cells and data storage. Its metrology segment makes machines used for scientific measurements.

Peeler, 55, is married and has three daughters.

What are your plans to grow the business?
"Metrology will grow by introducing new products. Data storage will grow based on new products to support customers making hard-disk drives. The really high-growth area of the company is the LED and solar area. LEDs are going through a huge growth trend right now. . . . They will ultimately replace incandescent lights and fluorescent lights in many applications."

What's your strategy for taking on the competition?
"To make better products that give our customers a cost advantage in manufacturing their products. That means really building a product that, for instance, can make more good LEDs per day at a lower cost than our competition's equipment."

What do you look for when hiring?
"Motivated, talented people that want to build a great company and great products. We're inventing new machines, so we need people that want to do things that haven't been done before."

How do you try to get honest feedback from employees?
In addition to meeting with employees when he visits sites, he says, "Every quarter after we announce our results, generally I do an all-employee phone call. I answer questions on that. You can get a good sense of what people are thinking about by the kind of questions they ask."

Do you have any time-management secrets?
"I try to keep myself very organized and delegate as much as I can to other people and stay out of the small stuff."

He adds that he strives to balance his efforts among three areas: "operational aspects of running the business on a day-to-day basis; the employee and leadership side of it -- hiring and leading the team that's going to deliver the performance.

"Then the strategic side, where you figure out how to take the business forward and win versus your competition. The operational day-to-day stuff tends to take over. When that takes all of your time, you're not spending the time building the team or working on your long-term strategy to win. And then you don't outperform.

Name. John Peeler
Ttile.  Chief executive
Company. Veeco Instruments Inc., public (traded as VECO on Nasdaq)
Business.  Makes equipment used by solar, light-emitting diode and data-storage manufacturers; makes metrology equipment.
Location. Plainview and nine other U.S. locations
Revenue.  $380 million in fiscal 2009
Employees. 1,050, including 200 on Long Island