PROFILES IN BUSINESS: Joe Famolare and the Foreign Trade Zone

Vermont Business Magazine, Feb 01, 2004 by Marcel, Joyce

For example, an importer may bring a year's supply of product into an FTZ warehouse without paying any tariff in advance. Instead, he or she pays duty as the product is divided from the original shipment and delivered into the U.S. market. Technically, the product isn't really in America until it is shipped out of the FTZ.

Brattleboro, the home of World Learning and The School for International Training, already houses several import companies - ForesTrade, Inc., for example, brings in spices, essential oils and fair-trade coffee, and Mocha Joe's sometimes imports coffee - and has the potential of being an ideal site for an FTZ.

Famolare knows this because for many years, he ran a one-site FTZ - called a bonded warehouse - in

Brattleboro, in a building he put up that now houses the corporate offices of Entergy Vermont Yankee. In the past 16 months Famolare, working with his daughter, Hilary Famolare, has formed the Brattleboro Foreign Trade Zone, LLC, put together a board of directors, and garnered the support of every Windham County leader, Governor James Douglas and the entire Vermont Congressional delegation.

"Businesses considering locating in the Brattleboro region find that the area's knowledgeable work force, communications infrastructure, affordable cost-ofliving, overall quality of fife, and solid education and training capacity combine to make a powerful draw for companies doing business internationally," wrote Douglas in a letter of support to the Dept. of Commerce. "I would expect that a vibrant Foreign Trade Zone in Brattleboro would add significantly to that draw."

FTZs have to be approved by the Dept. of Commerce. Brattleboro's initial application was hand-carried to Washington by Cramer at the end of December. Already, Famolare has learned that he will first have to divide the town into "general purpose zones" - single large areas, like Cotton Mill Hill, owned by the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp., which houses many small businesses, or the Northeast Cooperatives building, which is empty - and later be able to create subzones for smaller enterprises. More revisions will probably be needed as the process proceeds.

Still, 45 business and building owners in Brattleboro have already paid $250 to participate.

FTZs are usually created out of abandoned military bases and other large enclosed spaces. If this project succeeds, Brattleboro might become the only FTZ town in the country, Famolare said. In Vermont, the only other FTZ is in Burlington, but it covers just a few buildings, not the entire town.

Famolare's idea sets conventional wisdom on its ear. For example, Brattleboro is far away from oceans and airports. But Famolare does not see distance as a problem. As he points out, the town is well-served by passenger and freight trains and its three exits on Interstate 91 make New York, Boston and Montreal easily accessible by car and truck. Bradley International Airport is about 80 minutes away, and the port of Boston is about a three-hour drive.