The decade since the death of founder H. Joseph Gerber has at times been awkward, embarrassing, and painful - not to mention profitless - for the half-billion-dollar South Windsor company, which makes automated equipment used in producing apparel, graphic displays and eyeglass lenses.

A pair of major acquisitions in the late 1990s burdened Gerber with about $200 million in debt, limiting both geographic expansion and investment in new products. Of those new products that made it to market, some flopped, others were late. Federal investigations of the company's accounting and executive insider trading led to fines, indictments, official reprimand, and bad publicity.

And Gerber still faces big challenges in its markets, including competition from other inkjet suppliers, shrinking demand for thermal digital printers, consolidation of customers in the eyeglass lens market, and trade quotas restraining growth in China.

But a year after executing a three-year restructuring plan, there are signs - recent profits, a rising stock price, falling debt, and a stream of new products - that suggest Gerber may have turned the corner.

In fiscal 2006, which ended last April 30, the company reported a $2.6 million profit, after losing money in three of the previous five years, including last year, when it reported a loss of $5.6 million. (In 2002, the company lost $119 million, due mainly to an accounting change.) After hitting a low of $1.66 per share four years ago, the stock price this month reached above $15. And investors have noticed - in the last year, at least three stock analysts have begun tracking Gerber.

Meanwhile, the company has considerably reduced overall debt, to about $37 million from its peak after the 1998 acquisitions of Spandex PLC and Coburn Optical Industries Inc., which became part of the subsidiary now called Gerber Coburn.

Most important, perhaps, each of Gerber's three major divisions has been turning out new equipment, sales of which drive ongoing, higher-margin sales of related consumable products, such as inks and vinyl rolls for printers.

"It's the razor-blade model," said Chuck Murphy, an equity research analyst with Sidoti and Co. in New York. "The more Solaras they're selling, the more inks and laminates they can sell afterward. You need the flagship product to sell the follow-ons."

In fiscal 2006, Gerber introduced six major products, including the latest version of the ultraviolet inkjet printer. Others are on the way, including several designed for China, a top target market.

A year after its fiscal 2002 loss of nearly $120 million, it earned a profit of $9.6 million. But the return to profitability was short-lived. Profits fell to $5.5 million in 2004, and the company again lost money ($5.6 million) in 2005.

Between 2002 and 2005, Gerber cut costs by selling assets, laying off more than 800 workers, and consolidating customer service and supply chain operations. It also developed an entirely new product development process, which it calls simply "new product development."

This is cache, read story here