HOW THE COPPER STATE HELPED ONE COMPANY RECLAIM ITS INTERNATIONAL SALES 

Rowpar Pharmaceuticals of Scottsdale, Arizona, is back in the export business thanks to Arizona’s State Trade and Export Promotion program (AZ STEP). The company—maker of CloSYS toothpaste and oral products—once exported to Europe, but in 1997 sold its license to distributors.

“Now exports are again a significant part of our business,” says James L. Ratcliff, Rowpar chairman and CEO.

The Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA) runs AZ STEP, which assists Arizona small businesses to export and expand into new markets. AZ STEP has many success stories, with more than 235 Arizona companies having participated in the program to date.

The program is ranked No. 2 in the nation for enrollment.

Participating companies report export success to 79 countries and increases in exports of $44 million since the program’s inception. As for Rowpar, it has taken advantage of services such as translation for dual language packaging for the Canadian market and pre-arranged meetings with potential distributors in the Middle East.
AZ STEP facilitated Rowpar’s participation in an Arab American Business Association conference in New York. “We had a booth and garnered some good contacts,” Ratcliff recalls.

Through the Gold Key matching service program of the U.S. Commercial Service, Rowpar also arranged for meetings with potential clients at a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, conference. “ACA paid the conference fee,” Ratcliff says, “we paid our hotel and air fare.”

The conference introduced the company to contacts interested in distributing its products. “It is a great way to do preliminary scouting and initial partner identification.”

Indirectly, Rowpar also benefits from its Scottsdale location because of a cluster of businesses the city and the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) promote called the Scottsdale Cure Corridor.
“The objective is to build a large biomedical core for Arizona,” Ratcliff says about the cluster, which benefits small firms like his by populating the area with talent. “We contract with leading dentists or medical or labs for our scientific work.”

Azmira, a Tucson-based manufacturer of holistic pet food and supplements, has a different perspective on state and federal export promotion programs. The company exports a significant amount of its products, particularly to Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Canada. “We are working on Mexico,” says Rob Carr, the company’s COO. “We have a distributor and are in the early stages,” but the challenge in Mexico, he says, is obtaining permits and paperwork.

“In Japan, it’s different interpretations such as what is considered an herb,” Carr says, noting that herbs are an ingredient in Azmira’s pet food.

He says state agencies go to great lengths to connect companies with overseas partners; though countries that cannot import lamb-based products such as those made by Azmira—Australia, for instance—are excluded. “The agencies try to do due diligence and hopefully find a good fit,” Carr says, “but we have never gone to one of their trade shows or paid money for lists.” The reason: There’s usually not a good fit.

Azmira contracts its manufacturing to companies elsewhere in Arizona and the Midwest. “We consolidate products at our distribution center in Tucson and, for the most part, ship out of the Port of Long Beach,” Carr says.

NAFTA BENEFITS

Free trade agreements such as NAFTA are instrumental in attracting companies to Arizona and encouraging exports.
NAFTA has helped Medi-Temp increase its exports considerably.

“That’s one reason we moved to Peoria—to be close to Mexico,” says Medi-Temp president and CEO Randy Evans. “In the United States there’s a lot of competition, and copycats from China try to underbid. In Mexico there’s a 30 percent tariff on Chinese made products.”

Medi-Temp, which originally hailed from Vancouver, Canada, moved to Peoria, Arizona, because more than 90 percent of its customers are in the U.S. The company exports 20 percent of its hot and cold body therapy products, though Evans says the company hopes to grow exports to 50 percent.

With help from AZ STEP, Medi-Temp executives attended trade shows, such as one in Mexico. “The state paid for half and also translation services for our brochures and packaging,” Evans recalls.

“They also helped find us a distributor in Mexico.”
According to Evans, Mexico is a difficult place to locate a good distributor. “It takes longer than normal,” he says. Then there’s government registration and enormous red tape for some products such as drug testing cups and infectious disease testers.

“We had to go through the FDA equivalent in Mexico to get a registration number,” he says. “We worked with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. It was a big learning curve.”

Today the company exports to Mexico via Laredo, Texas, or Nogales, Arizona. “Our customers take possession of the shipments at the border,” Evans explains. “They do their own clearing and pay taxes.”

One customer in Mexico, Walmart, has its own clearinghouse at the border and a trucking firm that takes over the shipments. Medi-Temp still does business with Canada; not directly but through a distributor in Montreal. “We send everything to them and they distribute the goods to customers.”

This year the company began expanding its exports to Panama and is now looking into Colombia. The reason, Evans says, is the free trade agreements the United States has with those countries.

FTZ BENEFITS

Maxwell Technologies, Inc., headquartered in San Diego, California, manufactures energy-storage and power-delivery products in Peoria, Arizona. The company expanded its operations there in 2012, assisted by a $1.5 million incentive from the city based on job creation.

From Peoria the company exports electrodes used for ultra-capacitors. “We have a proprietary manufacturing process for our electrode, so it is only produced in the United States,” explains Earl Wiggins, vice president of Maxwell’s Ultracapacitor Operations.
The company ships its electrode to contract manufacturers in China, Taiwan and Germany and other manufacturers of ultra-capacitors.

Today, Maxwell’s total annual revenue comes predominately from exports. “We do 65 percent of our business in China, 25 percent in Europe and the rest in North America,” Wiggins reveals. The company has been exporting for more than six years.

Helping escalate the business are trade shows, primarily those for wind power and hybrid vehicles. “Our product is an energy storage device that is used in many applications that require high power,” he explains. “Since many of the countries that are leading the way in alternative energy are outside of the U.S., we take advantage of meeting with people in those countries.”

To manage transportation expenses, the company utilizes freight routes that minimize costs and third-party logistics providers that ensure smooth clearances through customs. A primary benefit from its location in Peoria is that city’s foreign trade zone (FTZ) allows Maxwell to reduce duties and helps facilitate its Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), a voluntary supply-chain security program led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Scott Whyte, Peoria Economic Development Services director, acknowledges that the FTZ is one of the most important projects the City of Peoria has done for companies like Maxwell Technologies. “It helps make them competitive in the export market,” he says.

FTZs are considered outside the U.S. Customs territory, so goods received into FTZs are generally not subject to duties, tariffs or quotas until, and if, they leave the zone.

Arizona is the only state in the nation with the ability to lower real and personal property tax rates up to 75 percent for companies that are FTZ-qualified. “Gaining an FTZ classification allows manufacturers to assess their real and personal property at a rate of 5 percent, rather than a standard manufacturer’s rate of 25 percent,” Whyte explains.

PORTLAND’S HELMET EXPORTER SHOWS THAT THE NEW OREGON TRAIL LEADS TO FOREIGN MARKETS 

Michael Morrow, founder and chief executive of Portland, Oregon-based Nutcase Helmets, is convinced that to grow his company beyond its 30 worldwide markets, his bicycle helmet brand needs to be picked up by bloggers, website writers and social media, particularly in Japan.

To help reach his goal, Nutcase participated in an April 2014 Portland Development Commission (PDC) trade mission to Japan, a nation where it already enjoys success.

“The Japanese have a love affair with design and Portland’s affinity for sports and the ecological way of living,” Morrow says. “Our goal for that trip was exposure and goodwill, and to add a halo to the Nutcase brand. We hope there’s a ripple effect to the alpha Japanese who are on the cutting edge of finding new, cool products from Portland.”

Founded in 2000, Nutcase designs and engineers its helmets in Portland but has them manufactured in China and shipped to Oregon via the Port of Tacoma, Washington. “We used to use the Port of Portland,” Morrow says, “but there are longshoremen issues. We do not know yet if this current port of choice is permanent for us or not.”

The company is enjoying international success, especially among the Germans and Danes who have a keen sense for design. It has gained global exposure thanks to assistance from economic development organizations like Business Oregon, which provided Nutcase a boost by designing its marketing plan. “They helped us develop a very thorough marketing plan, demographics of typical customers and what we needed to do to be in the top bicycle cities in the country,” recalls Susan Cassuto, Nutcase financial manager.

Other assistance from Oregon included State Trade and Export Promotion (STEP) grants that helped Nutcase attend Euro Bike and ISPO—major trade shows held annually in Germany.

“These shows are wildly expensive and they offer big opportunities,” Cassuto says. “Dealers and distributors always attend. It is where we make networking connections and find distributors.”

STEP also supported Nutcase by developing its international website. “Distributors will have their own websites, but we needed to establish a domain website that would work as a template for all distributors to use,” Cassuto explains. “This provides consistency for the brand.”

Business Oregon, which utilizes a collaborative approach called “TEAM Oregon” to work with local partners around the state, also facilitated Nutcase executives’ attendance at a workshop on the benefits of utilizing distribution warehousing in the Netherlands. They learned that Nutcase could import products directly from China to Europe without having to first bring the goods to Portland.

“The Dutch have good arrangements related to how to file value added tax (VAT) in Europe,” Cassuto says. “Their Port of Rotterdam is also well versed, and bonded warehouses are centrally located. We’ve been there now almost a year.”

Business Oregon’s Global Strategies team helps existing Oregon businesses grow by accessing overseas markets. “Personal assistance is available from professionals located here in Oregon, as well as from the state’s trade representatives in China, Japan, Korea and Europe,” reports Marc Zolton, Business Oregon spokesman.

These offices are staffed by bilingual professionals equipped with both private-sector experience in their markets and knowledge of Oregon products, companies and culture.

Like Nutcase, Giant Loop, LLC, a manufacturer of motorcycle saddlebags in Bend, Oregon, attributes its success accessing overseas markets to Business Oregon’s export assistance through both the Oregon Trade Promotion Program (OTPP) and coordination with federal agencies. Among the help it received were access to export insurance guarantees through the U.S. Export-Import Bank, introductions to U.S. Commercial Service and its overseas services, and financial grant assistance to defray costs for an international trade show in Milan, Italy, where the company finalized a distribution deal with Touratech AG in Germany.

Business Oregon provides Export Assistance grants ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 in matching funds to Oregon companies to help defray the costs of travel and exhibiting at international trade shows. Since 2012, Business Oregon has awarded more than 200 Export Assistance grants totaling $661,000 to 157 companies. Those companies have reported actual and projected sales revenue as a result of these trade show appearances at more than $50 million.

“Business Oregon is actively working on enhancing opportunities for Oregon companies by building on the national focus on promoting exports via the President’s National Export Initiative which aims to double U.S. exports within five years,” Zolton says.

Business Oregon also helped Giant Loop obtain a list of potential export partners in the U.K., access an affordable federal insurance program and, through its office in Japan, prepared an online directory listing for Giant Loop.

“We were really excited to find out these programs existed and that there’s this whole team of people whose job it is to help small business people like us,” says Harold Olaf Cecil, owner and co-founder of Giant Loop.

Business Oregon helps organize and execute business development and trade missions overseas in conjunction with state and local partners, including Governor John Kitzhaber. One company that took advantage is Oregon City’s Benchmade Knife Co., which originally hailed from California before setting up shop in Clackamas, Oregon, in 1990. In 1996, it moved into the 35,000-square-foot facility where it manufactures specialty cutlery. To expand its international foothold, the company received grants that offset costs for a trade show in South America and a trade mission with Kitzhaber to Asia in September 2011.

“In recent months, we have traveled to Asia, Brazil and the E.U.,” says Zolton.

Benchmade has made the most of the export assistance, not only experiencing triple-digit export growth, but also now employing 180 workers and serving customers in 40 countries around the world.

According to Rob Morrison, Benchmade’s now-former director of Marketing and Strategic Planning, the company’s exports have grown more than 180 percent over the past three years. Asia encompasses 35 percent of its exports, led by Japan and China, where its products are especially popular.

PORTLAND’S UNIQUE APPROACH

Complementing Business Oregon, PDC (Portland Development Commission) takes a slightly different approach to economic development and trade promotion. Created by the city of Portland as an urban renewal agency, PDC focuses on four strategies.

The first concentrates on Portland’s leading export industry, computer electronics, which is anchored primarily by Intel. “Our strategy is to focus on increasing the supply chain for Intel in our region with the understanding that the more they export, the more other firms will become part of the supply chain,” comments Chris Harder, PDC Economic Development director.

The second strategy focuses on companies across many industries that PDC deems are “under exporters.”

“These are mainly larger companies that have sold their products or services to one or two markets either by chance or via companies around the world that have sought them out,” Harder explains. By putting together a sophisticated approach that works with the firms to understand their products, PDC takes these firms on high-value business development trips focused less on trade shows and more on connecting them with actual buyers.

“The third strategy is a catch-all,” Harder continues. “It focuses on increasing the number of small and midsize businesses that are thinking about exporting and accessing existing export opportunities via resources in our community such as the Port of Portland.”

The fourth strategy focuses on branding and marketing. “We are known worldwide, particularly for ‘green’ development and clean tech,” Harder emphasizes. “We have found that when Portland leaders travel around the world, they are often asked how Portland does this and achieves high sustainability. They want to learn from us.”

By combining the under-exporter and global-exporter strategies, PDC officials believe they have heightened Portland’s branding and marketing effort as well as developed tools and resources that are unique to the region.

“I don’t think anyone else around the country is doing this,” Harder says. “This is where we have seen most of the success.”

WOOD STONE CORPORATION EXEMPLIFIES THE EVERGREEN STATE’S EXPORT SURGE

Keith Carpenter didn’t have intentions of starting a company that manufactured stone hearth wood- and gas-fired industrial ovens that would be exported worldwide. Prior to 1990, he only wanted to satisfy a customer’s request for a wood-fired oven. But after contacting an acquaintance who built ceramic incinerators and doing some homework, both found themselves in business.

Since 1990, their Bellingham, Washington-headquartered company, Wood Stone Corp., has sold over 10,000 pieces of equipment in more than 75 countries and was recently acquired by Henny Penny, a complimentary business.

Today, Wood Stone products have been expanded from stone hearth ovens and wood-fired rotisseries to include a mix of theater and specialty restaurant cooking equipment for clients such as California Pizza Kitchen, Wolfgang Puck, Whole Foods Market and Marriott Hotels & Resorts.

Like many Washington companies, Wood Stone ventured into exporting partially by accident and partially by design. Its first foray into international sales came from an appeal from California Pizza Kitchen, which was opening a restaurant in Singapore.

“We supplied them with ovens for several years, then realized we needed a more comprehensive marketing and service plan for going to market and initiating the challenges of distribution internationally,” says Merrill Bevan, Wood Stone vice president, International Sales & Team Building.

It hired a distributor in England, which was quickly becoming Wood Stone’s largest international market, and one year later engaged an export management company to handle distribution in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.

 ATTRIBUTES COUNT

Wood Stone also benefits from Washington’s natural attributes—its proximity to Canada and Asia and its natural deep-water ports. Its Bellingham location on the Canadian border also offers an entrée to cross-country rail service via Vancouver for shipments to Eastern Seaboard seaports.

Then there are Washington’s global brands that help put the state on the map as an export giant—Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco and Amazon. Not surprisingly, the state’s Department of Commerce reports that one in three Washington jobs are tied to international trade.

Most of all, Wood Stone has benefitted from funding for infrastructure improvements that has spurred even more exports. In 2007, the company expanded its facilities from 60,000 to 120,000 square feet. Those funds came from the Washington Department of Commerce’s Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) through Whatcom County’s Port of Bellingham.

CERB provides funding to local governments for public infrastructure that supports private business growth and expansion. It is an example of how the Washington Department of Commerce leverages local participation and public-private partnerships for strategic investment in economic development.

“This option for financing was especially helpful in that it gave us the ability to invest in a new building,” Bevan says. “It also gave us the ability to finance some of the metal fabrication equipment we needed in order to compete.”

Wood Stone is a tenant of the Port of Bellingham, which has 1,683 acres in its real estate portfolio and is a development associate for Whatcom County. “We also reach out to companies to promote resources such as the EX-IM Bank, U.S. Commercial Services and export finance assistance,” reports Dodd Snodgrass, Port of Bellingham’s FTZ administrator.

There are other examples of Washington programs assisting companies expanding their exporting efforts.

Like Wood Stone, Slingshot Sports LLC located in Bonneville, a rural town in the depths of the Columbia River Gorge, had become a seasoned exporter with a network of faithful distributors. But when this manufacturer of internationally known kiteboards expanded its product line, its executives found the company needed to fine-tune its export strategy.

Enter a Washington State Department of Commerce-sponsored program that gives companies in rural areas an opportunity to take advantage of export-skills training. The training is made possible by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s State Trade and Export Promotion (STEP) program.

By taking advantage of the program, Slingshot Sports executives learned how to leverage credit insurance and export financing to broaden its appeal to foreign buyers. They also received advice, during one-on-one consultation with a Commerce trade specialist, on how to save thousands of dollars when developing overseas relationships.

“Commerce showed us that instead of spending $50,000 on a trade show, we could spend $10,000 to $15,000 on a road show instead,” says Jeff Logosz, Slingshot Sports’ co-founder.

The company used an export voucher from Commerce, provided by STEP funding. The voucher offset the costs of setting up a central meeting location in Europe to meet with potential buyers from around the continent. The road show delivered a sales boost well above expectations.

EXPORT POWER

Washington businesses understand the power of tapping into overseas markets. In fact, according to the Washington Department of Commerce, more than 8,000 Washington companies grow their business by exporting.

“Creating a culture of exporting is vital to Washington’s economy,” comments Brian Bonlender, Washington Commerce Department director.

Smaller and new-to-export companies face tough challenges in getting their products and services to the international marketplace. “That’s where the state plays an important role,” Bonlender adds. “We provide research, training and expertise for target market development, business-to-business matchmaking, connections to legal and financial resources such as Ex-Im Bank, trade missions and other support that companies need in order to grow through exporting.”

Exporters find Washington State’s well-organized network of trade-related organizations helpful, such as the Washington Council of International Trade (WCIT), Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle (TDA), Washington State China Relations Council, World Trade Center Tacoma, International Trade Alliance-Spokane, and the number of ethnic chambers such as the Washington State China Chamber of Commerce, African Chamber of Commerce of the Pacific Northwest and the Greater Seattle Vietnam Association.

“TDA, our sister organization, works one-on-one with businesses to help them find customers and build global trade relationships,” says Eric Schinfeld, WCIT president. “They lead trade delegations around the world and host inbound delegates coming to Washington that want to make connections for trade or inward investment.”

In fact, Schinfeld calls Greater Seattle the most internationally tied region in the United States, given its key industries that range aerospace, IT, biotech and clean tech.

“Much of [Washington’s] economy is built on a vibrant foundation of world-class research, a diverse, highly skilled workforce and a network of business and trade services,” he says. “This is where the world comes to build our tomorrow.”

The Facts

Merchandise export value for Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA: 2011, $41.1 billion; 2012, $50.3 billion, up 22.3 percent.

Electric rates for Seattle and its metro area: 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour—one of the lowest rates of any metro area in the U.S.

Together, the Ports of Seattle/Tacoma are the second-largest container transshipment point in the U.S., shipping a combined $20.4 billion of U.S. products in 2011. Its multimodal freight transport system includes the Ports of Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett; Sea-Tac International Airport; BNSF and Union Pacific; and Interstates 5, 405, and 90.

Other key seaports: Port of Olympia and Port of Vancouver USA, largely break-bulk ports.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is the nation’s 16th largest passenger airport, serving more than 33 million passengers in 2012, a record for the airport.

WASHINGTON FTZs

 Everett:

FTZ No. 85

Tacoma:

FTZ No. 86 & No. 212

Seattle:

FTZ No. 5

Port of Olympia: FTZ No. 216

THE BAYOU STATE’S GLOBAL REACH IS BIG, EASY

The aroma of fresh coffee, a beignet and a little jazz may entice some to New Orleans, but when Folgers executives caught the scent of Louisiana’s aggressive package of incentives, the nation’s largest coffee company was assured it was making the right decision to invest $70 million to be near the Big Easy.

After all, making the Crescent City the company’s exclusive entrepôt increases New Orleans’ cachet as a distribution hub and coffee town.

Folgers had already been part of the New Orleans community for 50 years. But parent company J.M. Smucker was instigating a $220 million restructuring effort to cut costs and improve company-wide efficiency. This meant expanding production and capacity at three New Orleans facilities at the cost of closing plants in Sherman, Texas, and Kansas City, Missouri. The effort would shave $60 million from Folgers’ expenses.

A statement from Folgers called the Louisiana expansion “a major factor in the continued growth and success of our Folgers coffee business.” The plan was to invest $70 million in Folgers’ New Orleans manufacturing plants and a distribution center (DC), of which around $62 million was earmarked for new equipment and approximately $7 million for a remake of the DC’s interior to accommodate more products.

To sweeten the deal, Louisiana Economic Development (LED) offered Folgers incentives of nearly $6 million. The package included a $3 million performance-based grant for relocation costs, a $2.1 million refundable state tax credit for capital investment through the state’s Retention and Modernization Program, and a $500,000 public infrastructure grant to pay for drainage and surface improvements. LED also supported Folgers’ application for $65 million in Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds.

Seen as a boon Port of New Orleans business, port officials worked diligently to support Folgers’ investment. This meant ensuring ample space for additional coffee shipments coming to the port—even those arriving by rail since much of the coffee imported from Asia is discharged, for now, in California and railed to New Orleans.

New Orleans operates as one of the country’s leading coffee ports, equal to New York.

“We worked with ocean carriers to make sure they knew Folgers was going to need additional capacity,” recalls Robert M. Landry, the seaport’s chief commercial officer.

An added plus, the expanded Panama Canal, scheduled to open in 2015, will ensure that the larger post-Panamax ships from Asia finally will be able to transit the canal for Gulf and East Coast ports. “This brings opportunities for Folgers to bring coffee to New Orleans direct, rather than mini landbridge from the West Coast,” Landry says. Much of that coffee currently comes from Vietnam, now the world’s second-largest coffee producer. “The expansion will increase the frequency of container ships coming through the Panama Canal and also expand the number of services.”

A big plus, Folgers green coffee beans are stored and blended by Silocaf, which operates the world’s largest storage and blending facility, controlled by Folgers and situated next to the port’s Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal in New Orleans. It represents more than $1 billion in coffee sales per year.

“New Orleans is the nation’s premier coffee handling port, and we have a robust ecosystem of companies that participate in every aspect of the coffee supply chain—from processing, storage and distribution, to trading,” says Rodrick Miller, president and CEO, New Orleans Business Alliance.

The supply-chain savings that Folgers’ New Orleans location offers is a reason for other locally based coffee brands to locate there as well. These include CDM and Luzianne (owned by parent company Reily Foods) and PJ’s Coffee, a franchise coffee chain with locations across the United States. Zephyr Green Coffee also operates as a coffee trader and importer there. The company opened its doors in New Orleans in 2006, less than a year after Hurricane Katrina left its mark on the city.

“Considering New Orleans’ history of coffee trading, strong logistics infrastructure at the port and advantageous location on the Gulf Coast, coffee manufacturing and import/export activity are well positioned for continued growth,” Miller says.

Louisiana’s strategic Gulf location supports other industries as well. One is the processing of peppers into hot sauce for such brands as well-known and globally sold Tabasco.

Manufactured by McIlhenny Co. on Avery Island, the pepper sauce has been around some 140 years. “The family that created the pepper sauce married into the family that owned Avery Island,” explains Betts Theriot, McIlhenny senior manager for International Market. “It started here and will stay here.”

According to Theriot, McIlhenny’s growing operations have expanded to 10 countries in Central and South America. “That’s to protect us from crops damaged by weather, insect infestation or plant disease,” she explains. “But all seeds that are used to grow those plants overseas originate from plants on Avery Island.”

Despite the fact McIlhenny’s Tabasco product is shipped globally, its Louisiana operation employs less than 200 people. “And our brand is as large as Hershey or Coke,” Theriot exclaims.

Key to its success: all sales people in the United States work around the world, plus the firm employs direct sales personnel and regional managers in specific markets.

“Regional managers do the ground work,” Theriot explains. “They investigate the market in their established territory, look to see what other company brands are exporting into those countries and figure out who wants to import Tabasco.”

Much of the work, she says, is word of mouth. “But since we have a huge network of import partners, we are able to ask who sells what in a particular country and who the importer is. We can get a quick list of the different companies.”

As a result, McIlhenny now sells Tabasco in 160 countries and territories worldwide. It’s been selling in Japan since the 1950s, and now is expanding into emerging markets. “We just hired an importer in Jordan and another in Kazakhstan,” Theriot says. “We’re also researching importers in Georgia, Romania, Azerbaijani and Bolivia.”

To help, McIlhenny utilizes funding from the Southern United States Trade Association (SUSTA), headquartered in New Orleans. SUSTA provides branded marketing programs, generic industry promotions and chef training programs.

“They help us with brand awareness and trade shows,” Theriot says.

While McIlhenny has managed well without use of state assistance, LED has been active in providing help to other well known companies throughout the state.

Lockheed Martin announced in March that it will make a $3 million capital investment at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility to manufacture cryogenic tanks for liquefied natural gas (LNG). The tanks are part of the company’s increased emphasis on converting defense technology to commercial applications.

At 832 acres, the facility is one of the nation’s largest indoor manufacturing complexes. Lockheed previously used the site to manufacture external fuel tanks for NASA’s shuttle program. It also plans to use the facility for a slate of new technologies such as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) heat exchangers.

LED is offering a variety of incentives and programs to help Lockheed with the projects. These include Louisiana’s Competitive Projects Payroll Incentive, which entails a payroll rebate of up to 12 percent for eligible jobs in advanced manufacturing, the Industrial Ad Valorem Tax Exemption Program (ITEP), as well as LED’s FastStart program.

FastStart, a popular program administered free of charge by LED, provides customized employee recruitment, screening, training development and training delivery for eligible, new or expanding companies. Based on a company’s immediate and long-term workforce needs, the FastStart team crafts unique training programs to ensure high-quality, flexible workers are prepared from day one.

ITEP is an original state program which offers an attractive tax incentive for manufacturers within the state. The program abates, up to 10 years, local property taxes (Ad Valorem) on a manufacturer’s new investment and annual capitalized additions related to the manufacturing site.

Louisiana’s prize new project, however, is South African-based Sasol, which is proposing to build a gas-to-liquids and ethane cracker complex in Westlake. With a $21 billion price tag, this project is regarded as the largest investment by a foreign-based company in U.S. history.

Not only are thousands of new jobs anticipated as a result of the deal, the project could make Louisiana the No. 1 exporting state for years to come.

“Probably not since the Ship Channel was dug in the late 1920s or we began the petrochemical industry here in World War II has there been a bigger announcement in Southwest Louisiana,” says George Swift of the Southwest Louisiana Economic Development Alliance.

Underlying the historic announcement is another key ingredient that many say is catalyzing an industrial renaissance in the United States: the advent of low, stable natural gas prices.

Louisiana’s extensive pipeline infrastructure and favorable natural gas climate should give fuel to at least $50 billion in new manufacturing projects in the state within the next three to four years, meaning that more news is on the way for Louisiana purchases.