Commerce Secretary Evans, Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf Spotlight Importance of Exporting for Virginia Firms

Washington, DC - Commerce Secretary Don Evans today joined U.S. Representative of Virginia Frank Wolf in hosting a small business exporting workshop aimed at helping Virginia companies tap into world markets. Evans also presented local company Excel Holdings, Inc. of Leesburg the U.S. Commercial Service's new Export Achievement Certificate. The award recognizes companies that have attained their first significant export sales.

Excel Holdings, a minority-owned company, recently made a $35 million dollar sale of its five gallon-a-day Water Finder units to a distributor in Mexico and another large sale to Singapore. Excel was greatly assisted in this effort by the services of the Commerce Department's Northern Virginia U.S. Export Assistance Center, which provided export counseling and arranged overseas meetings with key business contacts. The Export Assistance Center counsels over 350 Northern Virginia firms annually and helped facilitate over $90 million in exports sales in fiscal year 2001.

Secretary Evans joined Rep. Frank Wolf (right) in hosting a small business exporting workshop and presented an Export Achievement Certificate to Hisham Fawzi (center), Chairman and President of Excel Holdings, Inc.