Exporting pays off - IKR Corporation's export activities - company profile

Business America, May 20, 1991

A Houston, Tex., firm generates U.S. exports disproportionate to the number of its employees: a husband-and-wife team. The two arrange for American manufacturers to produce firefighting gear and industrial equipment to specifications. They buy it outright and resell it overseas. They also help companies to improve their overseas marketing efforts. We select our export success stories, not because we endorse any particular firm or its business plan and activities, but because we believe their experiences will instruct other companies to improve their export performance. We welcome your report success story. Write or call us: Business America, Room 3414, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 20230; tel. (202) 377-3251.

Richard Koehler of Houston, Tex., recently sold three fire trucks to Taiwan, and believes there will be a lot of followup business not only for his firm, the IKR Corporation, but for many U.S. manufacturers.

"As the Taiwanese become accustomed to American technology, they are going to want more fire trucks and related equipment, such as gauges, pumps, and nozzles," Koehler said. "A mini-market of firefighting equipment could lead to sales for a number of U.S. manufacturers. There are spinoffs at the third and fourth levels and, of course, the spare parts market. One thing leads to another."

Koehler, who went to Taiwan to talk to government officials about the tender for fire trucks, arranged for a small manufacturer to build the trucks to specifications--he spent 1 1/2 years lining up the sale. He feels he made a breakthrough for U.S. suppliers, because, up to now, all of Taiwan's fire trucks came from Japan and Europe.

Koehler and his wife, Inga-Marit, who comprise the entire workforce of IKR Corporation, generate a large quantity of U.S. exports through this type of "contract manufacturing." They do not themselves manufacture a product. They buy products from U.S. manufacturers and resell them outright to overseas customers. They also help other small companies to set up export departments or to expand their overseas marketing.

The firm, which started up 10 years ago, exports products to all products of the world, chiefly to the Middle East, South America, and the Far East--Europe to a lesser degree. It specializes in firefighting gear and industrial equipment. Koehler had up to six employees at one point, but finds that he and his wife, with the help of several computers, can handle the operation very efficiently. Koehler has been in international business for 20 years, having lived in Venezuela, Indonesia, Malaysia, Norway, and Spain.

"We get totally involved with our client firms," Koehler said. "We participate in their operations to the extent they want us to." He is preparing now to present a seminar for executives of a firm in the Austin/San Antonio area on export development and letters of credit.

IKR contracts with a manufacturer to make tube bundle extractors for heat exchangers, which it exports under the firm's own label. The company advertised the extractors in the Commerce's Department's catalog-magazine, Commercial News USA.

Koehler, a member of the South Texas District Export Council, has made good use of other Commerce Department export services, working with International Trade Administration trade specialists in Houston and Little Rock.