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Blog Category: Advocacy Center

Commerce's Advocacy Center Supports Jobs at Boeing Facility in Arizona

Secretary Pritzker signs an Apache helicopter during a visit to Boeing's Mesa, Arizona facility. She is joined by Kim Smith, Boeing VP Attack Helicopter Programs, and David Koopersmith, Boeing VP/GM Vertical Lift Organization

As the country’s Chief Commercial Advocate, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker works to ensure that U.S. companies have the best possible chance of selling their goods and services abroad.

Through the International Trade Administration’s Advocacy Center (AC), the Department of Commerce helps level the playing field for American businesses by coordinating U.S. government resources on behalf of U.S. companies that are bidding on contracts to sell goods and services to overseas governments. This kind of collaboration and advocacy helps exporters win contracts and protects American jobs. In fact, the work of the Advocacy Center supported close to 200,000 U.S. jobs in fiscal year 2014 alone.

This week, Secretary Pritzker visited the Boeing facility in Mesa, Arizona, which has benefited from the efforts of the Advocacy Center. Just last August, the Advocacy Center helped Boeing win a $1.6 billion contract to sell 36 Apache helicopters made in Mesa to South Korea, which will support several hundred U.S. jobs.

Boeing is one of the many U.S. companies that receive support from the Advocacy Center, which is currently handling almost 1,000 active cases on behalf of companies of varying sizes and business sectors. With proven success, Commerce Department will continue to advocate for U.S. exporters so that America can remain competitive in an increasingly global economy.

As a resource to help U.S. businesses sell their goods and services abroad, the Advocacy Center is a key component of President Obama’s National Export Initiative (NEI), a government-wide effort to support U.S. businesses in exporting to the 95 percent of worldwide consumers who live outside America’s borders. Since NEI was launched in March 2010, the Advocacy Center has been successful in 228 cases, which have a U.S. export content value of $163.7 billion.

Department of Commerce Helps American Company Secure $42 Million Contract With Colombia

Advocacy Center logo

Contract supports $38 million in U.S. exports

U.S. Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank today announced that L-3 Communications Corporation Warrior Systems Sector (Londonderry, New Hampshire) and its distributor Aviation Specialties Unlimited (Boise, Idaho) recently secured a contract from the Government of Colombia worth $42 million. The announcement comes on the heels of Acting Secretary Blank’s trade mission to Brazil, Colombia and Panama, which wrapped up on May 17. The trade mission included 20 U.S. firms with expertise in a wide variety of infrastructure industry sectors, and was intended to help American companies expand their business opportunities in Brazil, Colombia and Panama and promote U.S. exports.

“L-3’s export success is a concrete example of the Department of Commerce’s continued efforts to help U.S. firms be more competitive in this growing market,” said Acting Secretary Blank. “L-3 benefited from an aggressive, coordinated interagency commercial advocacy campaign spearheaded by our Advocacy Center to win a contract that will increase U.S. exports and support American jobs. With U.S. exports reaching an all-time high of $2.2 trillion in 2012, and supporting nearly 10 million American workers, the work of our Advocacy Center and U.S. embassies across the world is more important than ever. I congratulate L-3 Communications and their distributor Aviation Specialties Unlimited on winning this valuable contract.”

The contract will support $38 million in U.S. exports, as well as nearly 50 American jobs, according to L-3. Through this contract, L-3 will provide fully-assembled night-vision goggles, spare parts, tooling and test equipment to the Colombian government. Full release

Spotlight on Commerce: Bryan Erwin, Director of the Advocacy Center of the International Trade Administration

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series, which highlights members of the Department of Commerce who are contributing to the president's vision of winning the future through their work.

Bryan Erwin is the Director of the Advocacy Center of the International Trade Administration.

As the Director of the Advocacy Center of the International Trade Administration, it is my duty to ensure that sales of U.S. products and services have the best possible chance competing abroad. I am constantly reaching out to exporters and letting them know that this Administration stands ready to assist them win new business. Through our efforts at the Advocacy Center, we work very hard to ensure that America’s exports are as competitive as possible. That often means talking with foreign governments and business leaders to ensure U.S. companies competing for public international contracts aren’t at a disadvantage. I firmly believe that American companies can’t be beat if they have a level playing field. This level playing field not only helps exporters win public international contracts, it also helps put Americans back to work. In fact, we have supported over 100,000 U.S. jobs this year alone.

An example of how the Advocacy Center works occurred earlier this year when we were contacted by an aerospace company from Iowa.  They were competing against Israeli and French firms for a half a billion dollar contract to supply avionics to a South American company.  Our Regional Managers worked closely with ITA colleagues, including Trade Specialists in Iowa, Commercial Service personnel in South America, colleagues at headquarters and interagency colleagues to approve the company for advocacy and begin to work on their behalf.  In addition to great efforts by the Embassy Team, we helped to facilitate both Secretary Locke and Under Secretary Sanchez’s advocacy to their counterparts, stressing the value of U.S. goods and service and urging a transparent procurement process.  The company won the procurement and estimates that 150 jobs will be retained or created as a result.