Governor Says Trade Will Pull State out of Recession. Announces Trader of the Year Award
By Seattle Business Magazine March 21, 2011
Trident Seafood Corp., whose $1.2 billion in sales makes it North America’s largest seafood company, was the winner of the Governor’s Trader of the Year Award. The company, which began iin 1973 with a single crabbinig boat, now has operations in 44 countries.
Emerging Trader of the Year went to Swype, a company with an innovative system that allows for quick typiing on Ipad and smart phone screens. The company launched it’s first product last year, and already has its software preloaded on 20 million devices. Three quarters of the company’s revenues come from foreign companies including such foreign giants as Samsung, Nokia and NTT Docomo.
The two awards are given out annually by the World Trade Club. Past winners of the Trader of the Year Award include PACCAR, Tree Top, and The Boeing Company.
Governor Christine Gregoire, speaking at the event, said Washington’s strong export performance was helping to lift the state’s economy out of recession ahead of the rest of the country.She pointed to strong exports of everything from ultrasound equipment, whose export sales climbed double digits to $560 million last year, to frozen french fries, whose sales climbed by nearly 20 percent.
Gregoire has made it a personal mission to boost the state’s exports. She took partial credit for the rise in french fry exports pointing out that she had personally given out french fries at a KFC in China.