Startec Global Communications Corporation, based in Bethesda, Md., saw its revenues soar 237% last year. The company, an international long-distance carrier that offers services primarily to specific ethnic communities making frequent calls to less-developed countries, had a customer base of 33,700 in March, 1997. Now it has 83,900.

The company’s President and CEO, Ram Mukunda, earned all of his degrees at Maryland, including B.S. degrees in both electrical engineering and mathematics, as well as an M.S. degree in electrical engineering. He graduated from Maryland in 1981.

Mukunda founded Startec in 1989, by reselling international long-distance service to the Indian community in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. By offering services that cost customers 40% less than what major carriers charged, Startec received a great response. Subsequently, the company has expanded its services to serve Russian, Filipino, Middle Eastern, and South American communities on the East Coast. Startec obtains its customers through grass-roots marketing, advertising in ethnic newspapers and TV programs.

Startec plans to expand its services to six other metropolitan areas in the U.S. Recently, the company installed another international gateway switch in New York, has ordered one for Los Angeles, and is committed to purchasing additional capacity on undersea cable facilities.

Prof. Nick Sidiropoulos, of the University of Virginia, has been awarded the much sought after "Early Faculty CAREER Development Award" by the National Science Foundation, during his first year as a faculty member at UVA.

Sidiropoulos is a graduate of the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research. He earned both his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Maryland, under the direction of Professors John Baras and Dr. Carlos Berenstein.

After a short absence for military duty in Greece, Sidiropoulos returned to Maryland for two years as a postdoctoral Fellow and as an Assistant Research Scientist, before joining UVA in September of 1997. He did substantial research here, resulting in several pending patents. While here, Sidiropoulos worked with Baras, Berenstein and Dr. Chris Faloutsos.