Trade is growing, one trip at a time

With the help of the U.S. Commercial Office, a small Spokane company may perform a little alchemy in Ireland by turning zeolite into gold.

Steelhead Specialty Minerals has been selling the industrial mineral in Europe for about 10 years. Sales are modest, about $40,000 out of $1 million total annually, but President Wally McGregor saw an opportunity to add to that sum by joining a trade mission to the Emerald Isle last month. At the same time, he could show support for Spokane’s Sister City relationship with Limerick.

“It just seemed to me to represent an opportunity I would not otherwise have,” McGregor says.

Several other Spokane business and government officials also seized the opportunity, not just in Ireland but, on a separate trip this month, in Japan and South Korea as well. The trips to Europe and Asia were intended to reinforce bilateral Sister City ties, build interest for the Sister Cities International Conference in Spokane next July, and develop new trade relationships.

“It takes face-to-face,” says Roberta Brooke, executive director of the International Trade Alliance.

To show how important the trips were, Spokane Mayor Jim West joined the team that went to Ireland. City Director of Public Works Roger Flint substituted when surgery prevented West from making the Japan-Korea journey.

“For people who think they don’t need to go, that is mistaken,” Brooke says. “It is a long-term project, this international trade.”

That is especially true in Asia, where one-on-one meetings are a must precursor to business transactions. Brooke says the delegation met with important officials of Nishinomiya, Spokane’s Sister City in Japan, and Kobe, the prefecture (state) capital.

In Kobe, they discussed the potential for cargo traffic between that city’s airport and Spokane. Kobe officials are seeking permission to begin international flights.

“We dream of flights for Nishinomiya students” who participate in an English-language program at Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute, Brooke says.

Tom Reese, Spokane’s director of economic development, visited Kobe’s university district to determine what experience there might guide development of the budding district around the Riverpoint Campus.

The visit to Jecheon, the Korean Sister City, was the first by Spokane officials since the relationship was established five years ago. The delegation made the usual governmental and business introductions, but was also feted at an “American Idol” style competition that is part of the city’s fall festival.

At Semyung University of Oriental Medicine, officials discussed the possibility of a return visit to see Spokane’s medical facilities. Brooke says the study of acupuncture and herbal medicine at Semyung can take six years, not months, as is sometimes the case in the United States.

She says she expects to spend weeks winnowing business opportunities from the piles of information collected along the way. Ideally, she says, Limerick, Nishinomiya and Jecheon representatives would attend the conference in Spokane next year, with reciprocal visits by Spokane officials in 2006 to build on the relationships.

“Think of the bridges that could be built if the community could get behind that,” Brooks says.

McGregor has smaller ambitions.

To get the most out of his trip to Ireland, McGregor tapped into the Commercial Office’s appropriately named Gold Key Program, through which appointments can be booked with potential customers. Back barely a month, McGregor says he is already negotiating one deal, and has three other leads.

“They did a very effective job,” he says.

The eight or nine meetings arranged by the office involved clients not only new to McGregor, but his Denmark-based distributor as well. All opened new doors.

“I don’t think we’d have gotten anywhere with just a solicitation by mail,” McGregor says.

It’s hard to do alchemy in an envelope.