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CIENA Appoints Gary B. Smith Chief Operating Officer

Ciena Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN) today announced that Gary B. Smith, Ciena’s senior vice president, Worldwide Sales, has been appointed to the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer, reporting to Ciena President and Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Nettles.

In addition to his continuing responsibility for Ciena’s Worldwide Sales efforts, in his new role, Smith will oversee the operating aspects of Ciena’s Core Switching and Transport Systems divisions, including manufacturing and product development for those divisions. He also assumes responsibility for Ciena services and customer support efforts.

As Ciena’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Nettles will maintain direct-report responsibility for the company’s strategic marketing, corporate and market development efforts, as well as for its finance, human resources and legal organizations. Ciena’s Access Switching Division (ASD), led by Mike Champa, will continue to report directly to Nettles.

"Ciena’s success to date is a result our ability to rapidly turn technology development into manufacturable products that the customer needs," said Patrick Nettles, Ciena’s president and chief executive officer. "By assigning Gary operating responsibility for product development and manufacturing within our Core Switching and Transport Systems divisions, we’ve formalized the critical link between sales, product development and manufacturing – it all starts and ends with the customer."

Gary B. Smith has more than 20 years of global experience in senior general management within the telecommunications industry and a successful track record of managing growth in operational disciplines such as customer service, manufacturing and engineering. Smith joined Ciena in November 1997 as Vice President, International Sales and assumed the role of Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales in September 1998.

"Since its inception, Ciena has been able to maintain and cultivate the symbiotic relationship between the customer and our product development efforts. As Ciena’s product and customer base grows and diversifies it’s imperative to continuously execute on ever shortening product development and manufacturing cycles," said Smith. "It’s my objective in this new role to facilitate rapid time-to-market for new products while maintaining the high quality of products and services that Ciena’s customers have come to expect."

"We believe Ciena’s market position has been bolstered this year by decisive moves to broaden our product and market footprint to improve our competitive advantage," concluded Nettles. "With Gary’s focus turned toward our customers and Ciena’s current operations, I expect to be able to devote more time to fostering Ciena’s longer term development – exploring new market opportunities and new ways to build future value for Ciena’s shareholders."