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North Central Pennsylvania's Regional Planning and Development Commission helped $48 million in products be exported in its six counties in the past year, Wilfred Muskens, deputy secretary for international business development for the Department of Community and Economic Development, said. It was the most successful district of the 10 development districts across Pennsylvania.
The businesses North Central worked with contributed over 10 percent of the total Pennsylvania exports of $360 million.
"Its (North Central) a much smaller region. It's amazing and it looks like this year it's going in the same direction," Muskens said. "North Central has been one of the strongest performers in the last two years."
Muskens, who is originally from the Netherlands, has been in his current position for a year. The business climate in the Netherlands isn't much different from Pennsylvania, he said. There is a bigger difference between the state and France. He spoke at the Red Fern in St. Marys Thursday at North Central's Bringing the World to You event.
Unlike businesses in Pennsylvania where owners are interested in getting immediately down to business about their product, in France as well as countries such as China, business people put more emphasis on getting to know the people they are doing business with before transactions take place.
Although those from different cultures put more emphasis on relationships they have a positive view of United States companies. "They know they (US companies) provide good quality products. It has one of the best education systems in the world," Muskens said. There is also a strong work ethic, specifically in rural regions and a tendency for workers to stay in a job for many years. Foreign companies that wish to start companies in Pennsylvania want it to be long-term and want their workers to be there long-term as well, he said.
Over 20,000 students a year travel to Pennsylvania to go to school. This is important because these students go back to their countries and can become ambassadors for Pennsylvania businesses, he said.
The newest program being developed is a Pennsylvania global alumni program of people who have studied in Pennsylvania and know its culture and use them as ambassadors, he said.
Pennsylvania's export program, including the Bringing the World to you portion, has been very successful. It's because of its success the state has increased funding for the export program from $6 million to $18 million in one year, he said. The program went from contributing $50 million in export sales in Pennsylvania four or five years ago to about $400 million, which it expects this year.
Pennsylvania needs to promote itself overseas because those in other countries have no idea where Pennsylvania is, let alone where small cities are located.
The export program provides market analysis and representatives that can help direct Pennsylvania companies to businesses that would likely be interested in the products they are selling.
Tony Lombardi and Carlyle Conn of Allegheny Bradford Corp, Lewis Run, which produces high purity, stainless steel processing equipment for the pharmaceutical industry, said ABC began using North Central's export service when they received information from the Export Director Chris Perneski. Although Conn said he was very familiar with North Central having served on one of its committees, the information on the export program arrived at a time when they were just beginning to talk about expanding.
Instead of trying to begin exporting on their own to one country, North Central helped them target the best areas to market its products and work on finding markets in several countries at one time. Today, their services are available in a number of countries.
"They are very professional and I don't know if we could have attempted to do it alone," Conn said.
North Central is very responsive when it comes to answering questions, it connects businesses with representatives overseas. When ABC wanted to hire a person to represent the company in Asia, the representative took care of advertising for the person and narrowing down the list of candidates to the most qualified. Representatives of ABC then went to the overseas office to interview the most qualified candidates.
"I don't think we would have moved as quickly if North Central hadn't been there," Conn said.
Eric Wolfe of Horizon Technology, Inc., a powder metal manufacturer, said the export program has helped them to identify the rules and regulations associated with getting products overseas, as well as understand the cultural differences in other countries. Horizon Technology has returned for the last three years to Bringing the World to You event because it helps them to identify contacts and understand the markets for powdered metal, he said.
It happened that this year's event, held the second Thursday in September, was Sept. 11. Seven years after an American tragedy. "When I realized it was Sept. 11, I took pause, like we all have since 2001, I was uncertain of how to proceed," Perneski said, explaining her thoughts when she saw the date the event would be held. She looked to her older sister who had been in the Pentagon on that day and lost colleagues, staff and friends when the plane crashed into it. This sister had always told Perneski to wear high heels because they sound great on the glass ceiling. Sept. 12, 2001, her sister put on her high heels and walked back to what had been her office. In a sign of resiliency and spirit, people from around the world gathered in rural Pennsylvania seven years later at Bringing the World to You to work together.
