For two decades, Jim Reis, president and chief executive of the World Trade Center Denver, has proved a constant force pushing to expand Colorado’s global reach.
“No one has contributed more to educating local companies on doing business overseas, promoting Colorado exports and raising Colorado’s profile globally than Jim Reis over the past 20 years,” said Pam Reichert, the state’s director of international trade.
But Reis, 67, is hanging up his hat with the following advice to his successor: Focus more on service exports, and fight the isolationism that comes with being so far inland.
The nonprofit WTC Denver, despite a staff of three and about 250 members, hosts a steady stream of workshops, meetings and mixers.
Highlights of Reis’ long career include landing the Western Hemisphere Trade Ministerial & Commerce Forum in Denver in 1995, working on the 1997 Denver Summit of the Eight and helping Denver open its first trade office in Shanghai in 2001.
But much of the work he does is one-on-one, using his social network to connect people with contacts and opportunities abroad and in a few cases getting them out of trouble.
Reis’ departure comes as Colorado exports are under severe stress. They fell by $1.9 billion, or 25 percent, last year, despite a weaker U.S. dollar.
Some of the decline reflects less demand for molybdenum, beef and other Colorado exports because of the recession. More worrisome, however, are permanent losses in semiconductor and electronic-goods manufacturing.
More recently, the dollar is strengthening because of turmoil in Europe, which will make it tougher for Colorado companies to sell overseas.
Reis who previously spent 26 years at Johns Manville working on trade, has always considered himself a “goods” guy. But Colorado’s advantages will increasingly come in exporting services and more customized and niche products that don’t draw competition from larger players, he predicts.
“The challenge for Colorado is: What kind of service business will we have?” he said.
Like the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., the Denver WTC got its start out of the state’s severe recession in the 1980s. Both groups emphasize a cooperative model.
Reis said one goal of the group early on was to get Colorado noticed by other countries.
“We weren’t on people’s radar screens,” Reis said.
The other part of the WTC Denver’s mission has been persuading local businesses to pursue international trade and educating them on how to do it.
More than 10,000 people have participated in WTC Denver programs in the past 20 years, according to the group.
Reis said he plans to spend time with his grandchildren this summer and travel to South Korea.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
Jim Reis file
Age: 67
Who he is: President and chief executive of the World Trade Center Denver, October 1990 to May 2010.
What he did: President of the Colorado Host Committee for the Western Hemisphere Trade Ministerial & Commerce Forum in 1995; member of the host committee for the Denver Summit of the Eight in 1997; and co-chair of the 2001 Denver trade mission to China.
Additional impact: Past chairman of the Rocky Mountain District Export Council; advisory-committee member for the International Programs at the University of Denver, the School of Professional Studies at Regis University and the International Institute of Business at UC Denver; board member of the Porter Hospital Foundation and Rocky Mountain Adventist Healthcare Foundation.
Previous career: Exec with Johns Manville for 26 years.
Education: Bachelor’s, Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.
