Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels to Speak to Seattle-Area Small Businesses About Competing in the Global Marketplace
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will talk to Washington State small companies about growing their businesses and creating U.S. jobs through exports at a half-day seminar, Nov. 17, organized by six federal agencies at the Washington State & Convention Center in Seattle.
Mayor Nickels is very focused on the future of Seattle and knows that exports are a critical part of the city's economic vitality going forward, said Fred P. Hochberg, chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), one of the six sponsoring agencies of the seminar. We are delighted to have him reach out to local small businesses at this meeting and encourage them to tap federal government support that will further expand exports and jobs.
Nickels will deliver opening remarks at Exports Live! Real Deals - Real Profits, an eight-city seminar series. The seminars share strategies and resources used by local small and medium-sized businesses that already have discovered how to increase profitability through exporting.
Successful small businesses that have benefited from government export services will present their stories, followed by a Q & A session. Presenting regional companies include O'Brien's Response Management, Inc., Global Remote Sensing, Seattle Safety, and E3 Energy Partners.
Representatives of the government organizations providing these export services also are on the program and are available later in the day to offer one-on-one consultations. Leading the meeting will be the heads of Ex-Im Bank, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The Seattle seminar follows events in New York, Boston, Miami, Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles, and precedes a similar session in Detroit (Dec. 11). About 1,000 small businesses, lenders, brokers and trade specialists have attended the first five seminars.
Nickels became mayor of Seattle in 2002. He was elected to a seat on the King County Council in 1987, where he served for 14 years. In 2009, Nickels was named president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
For more information and to register for the nearest Exports Live! seminar, visit www.export.gov/exports_live/ or call toll-free 1-(888) 966-2009. Please note that space is limited.
NOTE TO EDITORS: To clarify: the web site address for more information is www.export.gov/exports[underscore]live/ In other words, there is an underscore between exports and live