Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 20, 1994 TAG: 9403180296
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Lon Wagner STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But the executive was given two-digit price quotes for the Southern California homes he liked: $1.2 million, $1.5 million. He gave up on moving to Southern California and headed back to London to rethink his move to the United States.
On the way to his transfer at Washington Dulles International Airport, the vice president sat next to a couple from Salem. He told them of the outrageous housing prices in California, and they told him to check out the Roanoke Valley - real estate is cheap there, they said.
"Instead of flying back to England, I took a commuter to Roanoke," recalls Bob Denton, president of Blue Ridge International. "I asked everybody I saw - gas station attendants, store clerks - `Do you like living in Roanoke?' and 100 percent told me they loved it."
He contacted a real estate agent and looked at homes.
"When they told me the price," Denton says, "I thought they were talking about the down payment."
Today, Denton, 45, runs an export management company out of a small building on U.S. 221 in Roanoke County. Blue Ridge International employs half a dozen people here and about 75 more in Romania, half of whom are engineers.
Denton says Blue Ridge has posted about $50 million in retail sales in Romania since 1989. The company's Orien soft drink, started in 1988, is popular in China and the Far East, where the drink cans sport a Roanoke label.
The company's main product is computers, but Blue Ridge has its hand in a radio station, a record label, a bank and "various other opportunities as they come up."
Denton's company exemplifies global trade in Western Virginia. By luck and pluck, with a support structure that has only recently developed, this region claims a significant stake in the $10 billion in goods exported from the state each year.
Neither the state nor federal government keeps regional trade figures - partly because the origin of goods is difficult to determine - but the Virginia Department of Economic Development says Western Virginia is one of the state's stronger exporting regions.
"We export a lot of services from Virginia," said Cynthia Arrington, who runs the Blue Ridge office of the Department of Economic Development. "But this area has a good base of manufacturing - that's the reason this region has become a gold mine of exporting activity."
Staff at the department's Division of International Trade say they are impressed with the variety and volume of goods exported by Western Virginia companies.
"I don't think any of our regions are doing what they could or should," says Judy McCain, export development manager with the division. But, she added, "I think Roanoke is actually doing very well. It's one of the more active regions in the state.
"In the valley, the companies are willing to work with each other - it doesn't mean they give away trade secrets or anything, but they are willing to share knowledge."
The failures of Western Virginia's larger businesses in their attempts to compete globally have been well documented. The 1990 shutdown of the AT&T Fairlawn plant, which resulted in the loss of 1,000 jobs, was generally blamed on low wages overseas.
While jobs lost to imports grab the headlines, jobs gained from exporting get little attention - especially the international trade successes of smaller companies.
Most community leaders know that exporting is crucial to Westvaco's Bleached Board Division in Covington, where one-quarter of the plant's production is sent overseas. And they know GE Drive Systems in Salem has been able to add people to its 2,100-person work force during the past five years primarily because of exports. Overseas sales, in fact, account for 60 percent of GE Drive Systems' sales.
But the success and potential for expansion of companies such as Blue Ridge International have gone virtually unnoticed. And scores of other small companies based in Western Virginia go head to head daily with major international companies in competing for market share.
There's Roanoke County's Noble-Met Ltd., which makes tiny marker bands used in angioplasty operations.
And Timber Truss Housing Systems in Salem, which has sold its frame houses in Spain, Israel, Germany and Greece, and has possibilities in 15 other countries.
And Pulaski's Magnox Inc., a manufacturer of magnetic iron oxide used on videotapes, cassettes and computer tapes. Magnox sends an amazing 85 percent of its product overseas.
These companies made their inroads into the global economy with just a little help from state officials. But during the past year, with Western Virginia's exporting activity gaining attention, a support structure has been established. The Department of Economic Development set up its Blue Ridge office to coach businesses that need help. And the Blue Ridge Small Business Administration and the Fifth Planning District Commission jointly established the Business Enhancement and Export Program, complete with an electronic bulletin board to help find markets.
Gary Atkinson, who represents the Centre for Industry and Technology, is the new president of the International Trade Association of Western Virginia. Though the trade association's bimonthly luncheons involve more networking than hands-on work, the association's 500-person mailing list indicates a heady level of interest.
This activity suggests that a coordinated regional effort to assist small companies in exporting could prove fruitful after a few years' work.
Roanoke's economic development department is exploring the possibilities of being designated a free-trade zone. Acting Economic Development Director Phil Sparks sees that designation as a potential spur to international traders in the region. Getting the designation takes several years, but it would let companies in the region receive imported materials without paying import taxes, assemble the products here, then export them.
The city has given Norfolk Southern Corp. a list of companies that export in an attempt to encourage the company to build an intermodal facility similar to Front Royal's inland port, Sparks said.
Even without those amenities, the region's weaknesses that normally stanch growth - lack of developable land or a major airport - aren't a hindrance to exporting.
Hans Schetelig, who directs Virginia's trade office in Brussels, says the rule of thumb is: For every $1 million in goods or services exported, 14 jobs are created in this country.
Those involved in international trade are quick to point out that the image of exporting - a massive freighter traversing the ocean - is outdated. Noble-Met's exports leave the country in overnight-mail packages.
So the lack of a port is no disadvantage.
"When you're talking about world trade," Schetelig says, "what difference does 300 miles make?"
by CNB