6. STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2018

Disclosure of Compensation Related Costs, Share-based Payments [Abstract]

STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION

NOTE 6 – STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION

Stock Incentive Plans

We have one long-term equity incentive plan which we refer to as the 2006 Equity Incentive Plan, which we first amended and restated as of April 20, 2015 and again on March 9, 2017 (“the Restated Plan”). The Restated Plan was approved by our stockholders at our annual stockholders meeting on June 8, 2017. We have reserved for issuance under the 2017 Restated Plan 14,000,000 shares of common stock. We can issue options, stock awards, stock appreciation rights, stock units and cash awards under the 2017 Restated Plan.

Options

Certain options granted under the Restated Plan to employees are intended to qualify as incentive stock options under existing tax regulations. Stock options generally vest over three to five years and expire five to ten years from the date of grant.

As of September 30, 2018, we had outstanding options to acquire 548,282 shares of our common stock, of which options to acquire 95,211 shares were exercisable. The following summarizes all of our option transactions for the nine months ended September 30, 2018:

Outstanding Options Under the 2006 Plan	Shares			Weighted Average Exercise price Per Common Share		Weighted Average Remaining Contractual Life (in years)		Aggregate Intrinsic Value
Balance, December 31, 2017		420,149		$	6.82
Granted		133,133			10.05
Exercised		(5,000	)		2.04
Balance, September 30, 2018		548,282			7.10		7.52	$	4,360,813
Exercisable at September 30, 2018		95,211			4.51		4.24		1,003,378

Aggregate intrinsic value in the table above represents the total pretax intrinsic value (the difference between our closing stock price on September 30, 2018 and the exercise price, multiplied by the number of in-the-money options as applicable) that would have been received by the holder had all holders exercised their options on September 30, 2018. Options exercised amounted to 5,000 shares during the nine months ended September 30, 2018. As of September 30, 2018, total unrecognized stock-based compensation expense related to non-vested employee awards was $1.1 million which is expected to be recognized over a weighted average period of approximately 2.5 years.

Restricted Stock Awards (“RSA’s”)

The Restated Plan permits the award of restricted stock awards (“RSA’s”). As of September 30, 2018, we have issued a total of 5,457,620 RSA’s of which 286,754 were unvested at September 30, 2018. The following summarizes all unvested RSA’s activities during the nine months ended September 30, 2018:

	RSA's			Weighted-Average Remaining Contractual Term (Years)		Weighted-Average Fair Value
RSA's unvested at December 31, 2017		447,351				$	6.17
Changes during the period
Granted		512,160				$	10.30
Vested		(671,607	)			$	7.92
Forfeited or Cancelled		(1,150	)			$	6.00
RSA's unvested at September 30, 2018		286,754			0.64	$	9.81

We determine the fair value of all RSA’s based on the closing price of our common stock on award date.

Other stock bonus awards

The Restated Plan also permits the award of stock bonuses not subject to any future service period. These awards are valued and expensed based on the closing price of our common stock on the date of award. During the nine months ended September 30, 2018 awards totaling 45,000 shares were granted.

Plan summary

In sum, of the 14,000,000 shares of common stock reserved for issuance under the Restated Plan, at September 30, 2018, we had issued 13,885,452 total shares between options, RSA’s and other stock awards. With options cancelled and RSA’s forfeited amounting to 3,140,009 and 60,203 shares, respectively, there remain 3,314,760 shares available under the Restated Plan for future issuance.