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[The Volunteer Center of the Redwoods and its sister program, the Health Insurance Counseling Advocacy Program, are both settled into their new home at the Del Norte Senior Center in Crescent City. in response to public input and support, the move from the Wellness Center to the Del Norte Senior Center took place in late June and we were open for business the first week of July. Our Bonnie Sullivan Finley writes about a typical day at the senior center and how nice it is to be part of such an active and integral organization in the community. -- Todd Metcalf]
Excitement is in the air, chatter abounds and the lunch line extends out the door. Taco salad, a favorite menu item, is being served today at the Del Norte Senior Center.
All meals are prepared in the center’s kitchen. an average of 79 meals per day are served at the center, which includes a full salad bar complemented with a nutritionally balanced hot meal. Lunchtime provides the opportunity for seniors to connect with their peers, sharing stories, laughter and wonderful meals.
For those seniors who are homebound and unable to get to the senior center, the Meals on Wheels program fulfills their needs. Delivering about 67 meals per day in Crescent City, Klamath and Smith River, this program also serves as a wellness check ensuring that these homebound seniors are OK.
Thirty volunteers share their time and expertise at the center participating in a variety of tasks. Volunteer opportunities include nutrition site advocate, Meals on Wheels Friday delivery, gift shop cashier, kitchen helper, reservation desk greeter/ cashier, and meal servers.
The senior center is always a hubbub of activities. the Boon Dock Band entertains the seniors with music during lunch on Wednesdays. Exercise programs, line dancing, folk dancing and gentle yoga help the seniors stay physically fit and active. Pinochle groups, computer classes, crocheting/knitting, gardening and Japanese flower classes provide the opportunity to engage in hobbies and games. Weekly blood pressure checks and diabetes support groups aid in maintaining seniors’ health.
In addition to senior center-sponsored activities, outside groups also meet at the center. Monthly gatherings include the Widowed Persons group, the Blood Mobile, Senior Legal Services and the Community assistance Network’s senior food distribution.
The Del Norte Senior Center is an upbeat place to connect with other seniors and participate in a variety of activities. Check it out!
And here are a few volunteer opportunities of interest:
* Humboldt Mediation Services is planning a direct mail fundraising campaign and is seeking volunteers to help at its envelope stuffing party on Sept. 14 at 6 p.m. in Eureka.
* HICAP (Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program) is looking for volunteer counselors to assist individuals with Medicare questions and issues in its new office in Crescent City.
* North Country fair and Harvest Festival in Arcata needs volunteers to help with a variety of tasks at the fair on Sept. 17 and 18.
For information on these and many more volunteer opportunities, contact the Volunteer Center of the Redwoods and RSVP at 1765 Northcrest Drive, Crescent City, 95531 (464-7876), or 434 Seventh St., Eureka, 95501 (442-3711), by email at or online at a1aa.org.
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Bonnie Sullivan Finley is the volunteer services specialist and Todd Metcalf is the director of programs at the Area 1 Agency on Aging. the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Volunteer Center of the Redwoods & RSVP or the Area 1 Agency on Aging. Donations make our programs stronger. to contribute, checks may be made payable to A1AA and sent to either of our locations at the addresses noted above.
This article is provided to FT.com readers by mergermarket—a news service focused on providing actionable, origination intelligence to M&A professionals. mergermarket.com——————————————————————————————————–
The emergence of America’s mid-market, private companies as future export power houses has become a key factor in determining whether the US economy can regenerate its industrial base. A lot is at stake as it becomes increasingly clear that the only way the country can address the large fiscal, current account and trade imbalances that led it into the recent financial crisis is through revitalizing its manufacturing base. and a significant part of this can only come through the penetration of growing overseas markets by mid-market companies.
Few would dispute the fact that America’s leading multinational companies have set the gold standard when it comes to expanding the market share of their goods and services across the globe. But the story is quite different as regards the vast number of mid-sized companies which make up the foundation of the US economy. According to a recent survey by Deloitte and the Economist Intelligence Unit which measured sentiment of mid-market CEOs and executives from across the US, only one-third of these companies had opted to expand beyond their own domestic market. up until the recent financial crisis and its aftermath, few such companies felt the need to look beyond their own backyard to attain the growth that they required. fewer still had the appetite to overcome the many perceived obstacles that global expansion entails.
But all this looks set to change. this transformation can be observed in some of the country’s economically hardest-hit regions where many mid-sized manufacturing companies are undergoing fundamental strategic changes.
Family-owned NATCO looks to exports for first time ever
One intriguing example can be found in West Warwick, Rhode Island where Natco Home Furnishings, a family-owned, manufacturer and supplier of home furnishing products with approximately 1000 employees has begun looking at exporting its products outside of its North American core market for the first time in its 95 year history. Natco’s chairman, Bob Galkin, who took over from his Father, Arthur Galkin, a Russian immigrant who built up the company from scratch, said he expected the process to be more complicated than selling domestically. however, he clearly anticipated that the potential opportunities were worth the extra effort.
“Exporting takes a lot of management, has a lot of rules,” observed Galkin, who was interviewed by this news service while attending the 26th Annual World Trade Day recently held at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island. however, the chairman said it had become increasingly clear to NATCO that its long-standing domestic growth model would change.
“We see more products coming through that would have good potential for export,” Galkin said, adding that NATCO had rarely if ever even considered this as a serious option in the past. “Opening a door in Mexico is our current priority.”
Ellicott using acquisitions to expand into new markets
Another mid-sized manufacturing company that has found itself to be increasingly focused on exports is Ellicott Dredge Enterprises. The Baltimore, Maryland-based dredges manufacturer, which already sells its products in some 80 countries, is looking to make further international inroads, either in the form of new geographic markets or new products within a market it already has a presence. this expansion could take the form of horizontal acquisitions or traditional organic expansion.
Ellicott’s CEO Peter Bowe, who was interviewed by this news service at the company’s Baltimore-based headquarters, expressed an interest in expanding into the mining equipment sector and said that Brazil, by virtue of its size and growth potential in this area, was a country that it could look to enter. He expressed concern about how the country’s import substitution policies could make it difficult to organically gain market share there, making an acquisition of a local company a possible course of action.
As with many other American CEOs, the well-travelled and knowledgeable Bowe expressed reservations about getting Ellicott involved, whether in terms of investments or general expansion, in markets where property rights and intellectual property are not adequately protected. He singled out Russia and China, two of the largest BRIC countries where companies from all over the world have made significant investments to position themselves to benefit from their anticipated future growth, as markets that the company would not look to invest in.
Ellicott, which delivers some 100 dredges to its customers per year and which had reported revenues in 2009 of USD 83m, was acquired that same year by financial holding company Markel. The latter has often been described as a smaller version of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway because of its similar investment and acquisition strategy. as a result of Markel’s acquisition, Ellicott received an equity injection to carry out its long-term growth plans, a major part of which comprises accessing new markets for its products overseas. Bowe said the company, which has plants in Baltimore, Maryland and New Richmond, Wisconsin, was planning to hire more staff to increase capacity in the face of growing order demand. He said that an expansion of Ellicott’s Wisconsin-based plant was likely in the event that the company’s growth necessitated it, because he greatly respected the manufacturing expertise that existed in that part of the country.
Defence export opportunities
In certain sectors the obstacles to exporting success faced by many other US companies dwarf the self-imposed limitations set by Ellicott’s Bowe. The defence and related technologies sectors, for example, are areas where US companies of all sizes possess significant competitive advantages over their foreign competitors. however executives at such companies are unable to take advantage of their technological edge to expand into many of the world’s largest and fastest-growing markets because of the numerous and often overwhelming export restrictions put in place by US government agencies.
A number of senior Chinese government officials have claimed, often facetiously, that the controversial US-China trade deficit would disappear overnight if only the US government moderated its policies in these industries..
Courtney Gregoire, a director of the US Commerce Department’s National Export Initiative, acknowledged when asked by this news service that the export restrictions could in some cases be unnecessarily holding back US export opportunities. Speaking during the Q&A session that followed her Keynote speech at Bryant University’s Annual World Trade Day, Ms. Gregoire said that there were a number of initiatives being undertaken that were aimed at creating a “taller fence around a smaller field” as regards the export of defence-related products and services. The export opportunities that could be reaped by US companies could be massive.
Changing nature of global footprint
Like Ellicott, NATCO, has a sizeable global footprint, operating three factories in China, offices in Turkey and Pakistan in addition to its presence in Canada. however, the company, which is run on a day-to-day basis by its President, Michael Litner, Galkin’s son-in-law, set up these operations with the same aim as most other US companies which have set up operations in low-cost countries over the past few decades: to produce goods more cheaply that would then be sold in the North American market.
The joint venture agreement conditionally agreed upon earlier this month between NATCO and Amtex The Textile Experts, a Pakistan-based textiles company, provides a perfect example of how the US company’s international operations have been focused on its traditional domestic market strategy. According to a statement released by Amtex, the aim of the JV is to market and sell USD 500m worth of bedding, window curtains, tabletop, slipcover and decorative pillows to existing and new customer of the two companies in the US, Canada, Mexico and Europe within a span of five years.
As a supplier to a number of the largest US retailers, it would be logical to assume that this international supply strategy helped NATCO to maintain its position vis-à-vis its competitors.
The bulk of NATCO’s products come from its rubber and textile business, a division which grew out of its original waste services business, the latter being the source of the raw materials used to make its expanding range of home products. and there has been evidence which indicates that these products, which are produced and sold by NATCO subsidiaries including Corona Curtain, Robertson Home Fashions, Central Oriental, Soft Impressions, and Flemish Master Weavers, have expanded at the expense of some of their competitors. it was recently reported in the trade publication, Home Textiles Today, that NATCO was launching a bedding division, headed up by two former employees of Dan River. The latter is a Virginia-based fabric maker which emerged from bankruptcy in 2005.
Gaining access to new markets has often, and will continue to involve establishing production facilities in those markets, whether via greenfield expansion, the formation of partnerships, or outright M&A. John Roderick, the President of Rhode Island-based Mearthane Products Corporation, a privately-owned polyurethane components manufacturer, said that his company was looking for a partner which could fabricate its products in China. and while he shared the concerns about IP theft in that country that were earlier voiced by the CEO of Ellicott, Roderick was not willing to let them prevent his company from expanding into the world’s second largest economy.
“You have to find a company that already has a foothold in the market you are looking to expand into as well as an economic interest that is aligned with your own,” Roderick said, referring to companies like Pitney Bowes and Diebold which it supplies. by working with partners like these, Roderick believes the company has safeguarded its IP while successfully expanding into markets which include China, Columbia and the Netherlands.
NATCO’s Galkin would not disclose the precise nature of his company’s Mexican export expansion plans. however he did confirm that a business development team from his company had recently gone to that country to follow up on a business project that had been developed by students at Bryant University through its John H. Chafee Center for International Business. The Chaffee Center is a strategic consultancy which, via its position as part of Bryant University, provides its students with the unique opportunity of creating business plans for the 200 or more companies it assists each year with their international consulting needs.
Riding the US mid-market corporate export wave
What is known about NATCO’s Mexican initiative is that involves expanding the market for its products outside of the US. in doing so, the company appears to be well positioned to ride the wave of global expansion that has been steadily rising beneath America’s mid-market. According to the previously-mentioned Deloitte/EIU mid-market sentiment survey, 52% of the company executives said that they already earn at least some revenues overseas, up from 46% before the financial crisis. in three years’ time respondents expect that number to climb to 65%, with over 10% saying that overseas revenues will exceed those earned domestically.
Terry Feeley, the Director of New Ventures at the Rhode Island-based management consultancy, Rite Solutions, said he believes that a willingness on the part of US companies to collaborate with those in other countries will be the most important factor in determining whether they can succeed in gaining access to foreign markets. He said that many US companies are ignorant when it comes to the operational structure of foreign companies, and consequently fail to appreciate the importance of being consensual in their dealings with them.
“There is no opportunity to be ruthless, no winner-loser scenario,” Feeley said with reference to the attitude that he sees prevailing at US mid-market companies . “Many American companies bump into this issue.”
Even so, a number of factors are coming into play which has put the wind firmly behind the US in its quest to reemerge as the world’s industrial powerhouse. last month Boston Consulting Group (BSG) published a study which predicted that within five years, the US will experience a manufacturing renaissance as the wage gap with China shrinks and certain US states become some of the cheapest locations for manufacturing in the developed world. Harold. Sirkin, a BCG senior partner, warned US executives who were planning to establish a new factory in China to make exports for sale in the US to take a hard look at the total costs. The increasing likelihood that such companies will get a good wage deal and substantial incentives in the US could render the cost advantage of China inconsequential, he said. this calculation does not take into account the added expense, time, and complexity of the logistics that are involved. The BCG study revealed that a number of companies, especially US-based ones, are already rethinking their production locations and supply chains for goods destined to be sold in the US.
But the advantages will not be shared across all sectors, the report warned. it singled out products that would seemingly fall under NATCO’s home furnishings division as likely to continue to be made overseas, namely “goods that are labor-intensive and produced in high volumes, such as textiles, apparel, and TVs”. Products requiring less labor and which are produced in modest volumes, such as household appliances and construction equipment, are most likely to shift to US production,” according to the report.
However, given that one of NATCO’s key competitive advantages derives from the fact that it sources raw materials from its waste services business, and given that the US has far more waste material than any other country, it seems unlikely that NATCO will face the kind of competitive pressures that a commoditized, high volume textile manufacturer would encounter.
Innovation will be a critical factor in determining whether any US company, large or small, succeeds as an exporter. Ritec, a Rhode Island-based ultrasonic research instrumentation company which derives some 80% of its sales outside of the US, sees the desire on the part of companies in emerging markets to close the innovation gap that exists between themselves and companies in more advanced markets as an ideal means of increasing its exports.
“Emerging countries are playing catch-up and this offers you an opportunity to get involved in their innovation,” said Ritec’s CEO, Michael Ragosta. “If you have something that BRIC-based companies can use to play catch-up, they will want it.”
Solutions to the complications of exporting
One of the biggest perceived obstacles to exporting on the part of mid-market companies is the perception that it involves a large amount of complicated administrative procedures. The comment made by NATCO’s Dalkin that it entailed “a lot of rules” typifies the mindset of many privately-owned, American companies, which contrasts markedly with that of the large, multinational US companies which have entire departments dedicated towards dealing with these issues.
However, assistance is available, not only with government agencies ranging from the Commerce Department, the commercial services offered through the US embassies and consulates worldwide, the National Export Import Bank to the Small Business Administration. Resources and assistance can also be found in the private sector, and not necessarily involving a hefty consultancy fee. Rogers inc., a Westport, Massechussetes-based freight forwarder combines the provision of a customs brokerage service as part of its product offering. Laura Mullin, the CEO and founder of Rogers, says that her company makes it their business to learn all about the business and the required licenses of its clients.
“We think it is a normal to be able to do it all so that a business doesn’t need to retain an external consultant,” Mullin said. “You have to offer something better and in our case that includes anything from arranging for all all the documentation, arranging appointments with the relevant agencies and simplifying all the export legalese.”
NATCO’s use of the ‘outside the box’ business development resources offered by the Chaffee Center is entirely is consistent with its longstanding, independent corporate strategy. The company, which in addition to its waste-home products operations, also has an assisted living business and operates a hydro-electric power generation facility, clearly does not heed the textbook American corporate strategy of focusing exclusively on a core area of business.
Commenting on NATCO’s diversification strategy, Galkin said, “We are always looking at different areas in our effort to find the future.”
The fact that NATCO, which has expanded into the states of Massachusetts, Georgia and Arizona via acquisition over the past 40 years, does not rely on external parties for funding partially explains the unique course it has taken. The company does not have any relationships with investment banks, with many of its acquisition ideas having been originated by its sales staff. Galkin pointed out that as salespeople know what is going on in their industries so well, they are a natural source for identifying good investment opportunities. He also said that NATCO’s law firm, Providence-based Poore & Rosenbaum, as well as its accountants have also come up with acquisition ideas.
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