In Stockbridge, there’s a company based in a nondescript building that exports aircraft equipment to destinations worldwide. Parts and Repair Technical Services Inc., or PARTS, specializes in hard-to-find, obsolete parts as well as technical maintenance training. It supplies civil and military aircraft parts and defense services to Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Japan, Israel, Egypt and Indonesia.
“We just pushed out an order to Indonesia,” said Michael Caudill, the company’s vice president for logistics, a few weeks before leaving for the Dubai Air Show. “Over the past year, we exported to Egypt as well.”
The Georgia Department of Economic Development, the state’s sales and marketing arm, often tells businesses throughout the state to think globally. No company, it says, is too small to compete internationally. For me, a Georgia native, it would have been hard to imagine giving such advice decades ago. Times have changed, though, and PARTS Inc., founded in 2003, offers proof.
The company employs about 50 people and has an office in Warner Robins and two others in Saudi Arabia. It has a database of nearly 250 manufacturers and distributors, and is a direct contractor for maintenance training to the Royal Saudi Air Force.
“Every country is unique,” Caudill told me. “In Saudi Arabia, business is based on relationships. It’s not so much the best value. It is who they trust and who they know. The way we became successful is we go to small aerospace manufacturing companies that don’t want to accept the risk, the fluctuations in currency and have to deal with a foreign customer. We are the third-party inspection for the customer, and we mitigate risks for American-based companies.”
PARTS is compliant with federal regulations for technical assistance and international traffic in arms. For example, the company can’t sell munitions or anything classified as top secret by the federal government.
That said, it distributes a variety of products, from mechanics’ handsoap to flight-line tow tractors, structural wingtips for F-15 fighter jets and wooden aircraft tire chocks. Nearly 99 percent of the company’s exported products are manufactured in the United States. And while its lifeblood entails exports, PARTS’ management has plans to grow domestic operations by pursuing government contracts.
“We can still see a lot of growth because we are very small,” Caudill said. “We anticipate — if everything flows correctly — that in the next 12 months our company will grow two-fold just in personnel.”
Last month, the U.S. Commerce Department presented the company with its export achievement certificate for its foreign market sales.
Michael Camunez, the U.S. Commerce Department’s assistant secretary of commerce for market access and compliance, visited company headquarters, calling the business a “shining example” of how Georgia companies are tapping into the global market.
Next month, PARTS will display at the Dubai Air Show. The company also plans to attend and display at the Singapore show in February. The two biannual shows are huge factors in marketing to potential customers. About $23 billion is spent on U.S. parts alone yearly.
“The aerospace community is very small,” Caudill told me. “There are always pros and cons to who you do business with, but the key is to figure out the process.”
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