Jim Hunter His Business Is Helping Other Businesses

For his 50th birthday, Jim Hunter donned his leathers, straddled his Goldwing and sped off on a three-week trip across the U.S. and Canada.

He never left the office.

Packed into his motorcycle luggage bags were a laptop computer and modem. Sitting by a campfire while reading and writing e-mail is “the cat’s meow,” Hunter said.

“I could do business anywhere, and did.”

Of course, corresponding with co-workers back in the tiny offices of Management Resource Group was not his only rationale for 6,000 miles of roadwork.

Hunter also took along bags designed by one of the company’s clients. He was enthusiastic about their performance.

With a reliable sewing contractor, and some marketing assistance, the client could have a business on his hands, Hunter said.

He said he organized MRG to provide a variety of business services to small companies and individuals. In the case of a cover for small television antennas, for example, MRG was handed an idea.

From that, Hunter said, he and others worked up a design, found a manufacturer, and created a distribution channel.

“We’re expecting pretty good things out of those,” he said.

Hunter said MRG will continue to handle distribution for the covers, which are marketed under the SatGuard name.

Another client, Dayton-based Bumpercrop Inc., had been selling gourmet condiments and confections for 12 years. Hunter said the company has received national exposure on the QVC network, but lacked the capital and marketing expertise to take sales to a new level.

“They needed more depth,” Hunter said.

MRG took on those responsibilities, at the same time taking an equity stake in Bumpercrop. Last week, Hunter said, a New York broker who specializes in selling specialty foods in Europe expressed interest in Bumpercrop’s products.

Hunter, a member of the Idaho Trade Institute, said he sees foreign sales potential for several of MRG’s 40 clients.

As president of Hartford Communications Supply in the early 1990s, Hunter helped boost international sales from less than 1 percent of the total to more than 13 percent.

MRG works closely with a second firm, Export Services Inc., to find foreign buyers, he said.

John Thielbahr, who joined MRG last year, also has extensive experience in overseas marketing.

Hunter and Thielbahr met in 1991, at the Idaho Small Business Development Center. Thielbahr later succeeded Hunter as director.

Many MRG clients are businesses the two encountered when they worked with the center, said Thielbahr, a Stanford University graduate whose financial skills complement the manufacturing and human relations expertise of the free-spirited Hunter.

Hunter, after all, arrived in the Spokane area in 1973 on a fishing trip, and was so captivated he left his camper and jeep at Liberty Lake and took the train back to Everett to get the rest of his gear.

He returned in a large U-Haul.

He worked first at Key Tronic Corp., which was growing exponentially at the time, as manufacturing engineering manager. In 1977, he left to run his first business, a dry cleaning operation in the Spokane Valley.

“It was successful in spite of me,” said Hunter, who concentrated on hustling new business and left the cleaning to his staff.

He sold that business, plowing the proceeds back into a food and beverage venture that turned out less well.

Hunter got back into the keyboard business with Advanced Input Devices, then worked for a Canadian company in Surrey, British Columbia, and Bellingham.

But he wanted to return to the Inland Northwest, specifically the Pend Oreille Valley area he had become familiar with while at AID’s Priest River, Idaho, plant.

With modern telecommunications, he said, there’s no need for many businesses to locate in a metropolitan area.

Hunter said MRG will offer as many services as possible in-house, and network with other providers to fill in the gaps.

“I think we’re going to see some really good job opportunities develop here as a result of our activities,” he said.

Hunter said the best compliment MRG has received came from a financial institution that told a client the company was a little bit different.

“That’s where you want to be,” he said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo