Public resources (World Trade Center Tacoma) help man become global entrepreneur

Turkey needs cows. But not just any cows.

Holstein heifers, 600 head, all artificially inseminated and four- to seven-months pregnant on delivery.

Enter "Cowboy" Bill Pullen of Auburn, Wash.

The Associated Press MagicValley.com

Call him an entrepreneurial matchmaker. He rounded up a supplier, secured financing and arranged for shipping. Then he made an offer to the Organik Tarim Urunleri, a Turkish agricultural consulting company that wants to start dairy production near Ankara.

Pullen should learn by the end of June whether the company will accept his offer to ship the U.S. cows to the Middle Eastern country just northwest of Iraq.

But this isn’t just a story about cows. It’s a story about finding new opportunities in a bad economy.

The nation’s unemployment rate climbed to a nine-year high of 6.1 percent in May, according to the Labor Department. In Washington it’s worse: 7.3 percent. Now’s the time for frontier-minded entrepreneurs like Pullen to explore new business opportunities.

Pullen got his start in the bovine business as a kid. He milked cows for Grade A dairies in northeastern and central Oregon and later became an inseminator for Oregon dairy breeders. Then his career took a turn into construction, where he spent much of his life running roofing crews and building homes.

At 63, Bill said he can’t do that physical work any longer. He needed a fresh start, a new job.

So he turned to the federal government and the World Trade Center Tacoma for help.

This spring, Pullen took a six-week course through the center that taught him and 26 others how to get started in international trade. And he logged on to the Department of Commerce Web site — http://www.statusa.com — free through the King County library computer and searched for deals.

On that Web site, foreign governments and companies list products and services they need. Pullen found the Turkish agricultural company looking for pregnant cows.

"What I do at that point is I put out feelers over the Internet to cattle buyers and suppliers. I put out hundreds of inquiries," Pullen said. "I found a cattle buyer who had the capacity to gather, stockyard, feed, breed and meet the requirements of this type of order."

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For more information or to register, please contact
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Marketing & Information Coordinator
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Pullen contacted Expeditors International of Washington, a Seattle-based freight specialist. Expeditors found a Dutch firm with a fleet of 10 cattle ships, complete with air-freshened comfort coaches to keep the cows content on the ocean cruise. The company has two shipments lined up for Pullen’s pregnant cows.

Finally, the World Trade Center put Pullen in touch with Union Bank of California for the required letter of credit. And guess what? Turkey qualifies for a Department of Agriculture credit guarantee program. That means the U.S. government will pay Pullen if Organik defaults on the deal — worth about $2.5 million.

"That’s a darn good deal," Pullen said. "Your bankers and shippers are working for you. They make life very easy and a whole lot simpler."

Consider Pullen’s story a lesson for others looking for a new line of work, for new opportunities, said Beth Willis, trade specialist for the World Trade Center Tacoma.

"Yes. This really is real," Willis said. "It’s so rewarding when you get a match."

And it’s not just Turkey. You can find deals waiting to be done and matches waiting to be made all over the world.

Willis will head to Peru later this month with Lt. Gov. Brad Owen to work on specific opportunities to connect the South American country with the Northwest. In one case, an entrepreneur wants to buy old ships from the Peruvian navy and barge them to China for scrap recycling. In another, a Kent cold storage company wants to import Peruvian flowers. A Fife candy company wants to bring home some Peruvian nuts.

"This is a wide open window for somebody that wants to do it," Pullen said the other morning, just in from a ride on his horse, Thunder Moon. "The thing is, people just don’t know it’s wide open.

"It’s just like anything else, you have to learn the ropes. But once you’re there, it’s easy."

http://www.magicvalley.com/news/business/index.asp?StoryID=2285