Japanese aerospace exhibition nets positive attention for county

Trip exceeded GCEDC executive director's expectations

GRANT COUNTY — The collective population's ears must be burning.

That's because people are talking about the area, even in Japan.

Grant County Economic Development Council Executive Director Terry Brewer returned last week from a nine day trip to Yokohama, Japan, where the GCEDC managed a booth in the 2004 Japan Aerospace Exhibition and, through the use of a seven-and-a-half-minute long Japanese-style video, portrayed the county as a good potential site in which and with which to conduct business.

"It became very clear early on that having used a very well-known, well-respected, high-quality media production firm, Sunrise, to produce the materials and the video (for us) was a very wise thing to do," Brewer said. The video, booth display and printed material got a lot of attention because they were high in quality and done correctly in the Japanese style, he added.

"We had so much attention in our exhibit space that it was just unreal, compared to the normal economic development spot at any trade show I've ever been in," Brewer said. "We had far more attention than the state of Washington did in their booth, which was not too far away on the trade show floor, but it was not in Japanese."

The trade show featured exhibitions from aerospace companies, other high-tech companies and some service organizations and entities that work in the aerospace sector in Japan and other countries.

While the GCEDC also had meetings scheduled that were related to trade of agricultural products produced or processed in Grant County, Brewer said he had the opportunity during the five-day exhibition to have private discussions about the county with several major companies that were exhibitors on the floor.

"There was a great deal of interest among a number of those individuals representing, in some cases, very large corporations that are interested in knowing more about what we're doing, what we're proposing and how it might fit into their plans," he said.

GCEDC consultants will remain in Japan and follow up with the contacts made at the exhibition, Brewer said, determine the level of interest from those companies and lay out a strategy to see how the Grant County community can line up its assets and benefits to their interest, and propose solutions.

"It could be, in a number of cases, related to air cargo (and) transportation logistics, moving goods from Japan to the U.S. and how they could ultimately benefit by moving those goods into Grant County International Airport," Brewer said, noting the possibility of capitalizing on the emptied cargo planes by determining opportunities to ship Grant County products back to Japanese customers.

While it's hard to predict, Brewer said that the GCEDC is not expecting anything to happen this year "or at any page of the calendar" because of contacts made during the exhibition.

He said that the organization is making contacts with influential people who are willing to make referrals if they don't have any real reason to be talking to the Council themselves.

"We're introducing Grant County, what we're all about here, to a wide variety of corporations and beginning to build a relationship," he said. "They may have something in mind right away that they're willing to work on … They may not have anything going on at the moment, but once we've connected with them, if they see things they like here, then who knows? They may call us when they do have something come up."

Brewer hopes to be able to keep the revenue generated in order to maintain the project, noting that the GCEDC's marketing initiative has generated "fair and generous" support from the public sector, with participation by six Port districts; the cities of Quincy, Ephrata and Grand Coulee, with requests into Moses Lake and Grant County Tourism, with hopes for the backing of Grant County commissioners.

The GCEDC also has a number of solicitation letters out to the private sector, but has received no commitments or support.

"We're going to work hard to influence the private sector to support us in this effort," Brewer said. "We're going to need their support to continue doing what we've started …"

He said that the GCEDC hopes to stay engaged through its consultants and their contacts in Japan, and is planning ahead for a fruit show in May 2005, where it hopes to represent Grant County food processors, commodities and crops that are grown here.

"Japanese consumers are interested in high-quality food, (and) we know that the food that is produced in Grant County is high quality," Brewer said. "That could very well be the item that gets ticketed for air cargo returning to Japan."

Other potential contacts in Japan include the electronics, machinery, high-value chemicals and other sectors that could work out in Grant County.

"We clearly have to keep working at this," Brewer said. "We can't go over there, make one trip, make a presentation at one trade show and expect a windfall of success if we quit. It won't work that way."