Date: March 28, 2013
Contact: Tom Houlihan
Governors State University
Phone: (708) 534-8952
Email: thoulihan@govst.edu
For Immediate Release
SBA Regional Administrator Tours Clients of Illinois International Trade Center at GSU
University Park, Illinois, March 28, 2013 – Marianne Markowitz, Regional Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, last Friday completed a two-day tour of Chicago area small business exporters.
The four companies on the tour are all clients of the Illinois International Trade Center at Governors State University. The companies — Chicago Export Packing Company, of Chicago; Automated Design Corporation, of Romeoville; PARC Corporation, of Romeoville; and Pactrans Air & Sea, of Bensenville – have benefited from SBA’s export assistance programs that enabled them to grow and create jobs.
“These companies are an inspiration to everything we support. We are also pleased to see federal, state and local partners providing resources to these thriving Chicagoland small business exporters,” Markowitz said. “These companies are utilizing finance and counseling incentives under the Obama Administration’s Small Business Jobs Act to fuel employment growth in communities across Illinois.”
“We are very proud of the success of our clients’ export businesses,” said Hongxia (Mary) Ma, director of Illinois International Trade Center at GSU. “They have created positive economic impact in our business community. At the Illinois International Trade Center, we are committed to share our specialty, the experience and resources to serve more local small businesses and promote U.S. products and services to export into the global marketplace.”
Markowitz was joined on the tour by federal, state and local officials including district directors from the U.S. Congressional Offices of Bobby Rush, Danny Davis and Tammy Duckworth; Romeoville Mayor John Noak; Daniel Goff, Deputy Director of the Office of Trade and Investment for Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity; Mark Petrilli, State Director Illinois Small Business Development Center; and Hongxia (Mary) Ma, Director of Illinois SBDC International Trade Center at Governors State University,
All four companies participated in a Chinese Trade Mission last summer which led to incredible growth opportunities for each of them. “Automated Design has been utilizing the SBA services from Day one, 27 years ago,” said Lisa Bitsky, the company’s president. “Using the SBA allows us to compete with larger companies, and promote American made products export to overseas. We also acquired the financial assistance to participant the international trade shows through the SBA’s STEP program.”
SBA provides counseling, training and financing to support small business export opportunities. SBA offers loan programs such as Export Express, Export Working Capital and International Trade loans to help business exporters gain the access to the capital they need and encourage lenders to provide support for small businesses to see market potential abroad.
Chicago Export Packing Company has been a family-owned business providing complete transport packaging solutions to global companies since 1969. Through SBA Export Technical Assistance, Chicago Export has recently added two new office positions and two new foreman positions. 2012 was its best year yet in terms of gross sales that exceeded $4.3 million.
Automated Design Corporation began designing and building quality custom automation in 1985 for the automotive industry. With SBA Export Finance and Technical assistance, ADC has become the world leader in sports research and development testing equipment for major sports manufacturers in golf, tennis, baseball, softball, soccer, and basketball.
PARC Corporation is a plastics recycling business that has earned a solid reputation for outstanding service in the industry. PARC Corporation markets millions of pounds of recovered plastic material each year around the world. PARC helps to move thousands of truck loads between overseas containers and domestic trailer shipments annually. PARC has acquired the 2012 SBA Small Business Exporter of the Year Award.
Pactrans Air & Sea is a female-owned international logistics service provider offering a range of services including warehousing and distribution, local trucking, and trade shows. As a result of participating in last summer’s Chinese Trade Mission, Pactrans expects to earn nearly $2 million dollars in revenue. Additionally, they expect the sales to create or retain 20 positions.
For more information about the Illinois International Trade Center at Governors State University, call (708) 534-4929, or e-mail hma@govst.edu. Governors State University is located at 1 University Parkway, University Park, Illinois.
During the two weeks trip, that including participation in the Transportation and Logistics Trade Show in Shanghai, tours of Chinese logistics businesses and match making, attending the workshop of “Doing Business in China and China Logistics Industry” , and hosting “Meeting with US Logistics partners” roundtable and reception in Beijing and Shanghai. The trade group has acquired tremendous achievement through the trade mission. The IL business participants had met more than 1000 company representatives in the trade shows covering 40 different countries, acquired 600 sales leads, and obtained 200 agents leads, signed new contracts and strategic cooperation agreement. They reported the sales during the event reached up to $ 2.3 million and estimated sales value in the next 12 months up to $125 million, involved in this trade mission.
IL businesses group consisted of eight companies, covering the transportation equipment manufacture, airport, freight forwarding and export packing service companies. Most of the participants are the first time to China. They were very excited in exploring China’s rapidly expanding economy, especially the big potential market in the logistics industry, and experienced the diverse business cultures as well.
“By participating in the STEP program, it was a real “eye-opener” of the great potential opportunity with China. Better recognition, understanding, and awareness of the potential trade success Mi-Jack could enjoy with establishing new contacts in China. Over all, good organization and effort to assure trip was meaningful and productive,” said by Daniel Reis from Mi-Jack Products.
It is with great pleasure to congratulate our own 
When the ITC staff visited the Transco office in November 2011, the Client mentioned they had a proposal in the final stage of a multi-million dollar contract with a Chinese company. They needed advocacy assistance from DCEO. In order to take advantage of international resources, the ITC introduced the client to the DCEO Office of Trade and Investment (OTI). With help from the OTI and the foreign offices, this special case was brought to the attention of Mr. Gary Locke, the U.S. Ambassador to China, to advocate for the bidding.
