For Wade Merritt, heading the Maine International Trade Center is no foreign task

Wade Merritt is president of the Maine International Trade Center and the state’s director of international trade. The Bangor native sat down with Mainebiz at MITC’s Portland Fish Pier headquarters to chat about his unconventional path to international relations and how his organization helps Maine businesses tap into foreign markets.

Mainebiz: How did you get into this field of work?

WM: Funny story! I grew up in Bangor, and my father ran the catering operation at Bangor International Airport. There were a lot of international flights that were coming through there, a lot of European tourist charters that would be making their way from the U.K. down to Florida and would have to stop in Bangor to take on fuel and food. From a very early age, my dad would have clients and vendors over to the house. They would come over because they would cater the aircraft on the next leg down, so I grew up with a soda can collection from Italy and Mexico and Germany and the U.K that I still have. We’d also have newspapers that would come off the flights and end up in our house. My first job, the summer when I was about 15 or 16 years old, was working for my dad, taking garbage off of international flights and throwing it into, essentially, a pressure cooker. Believe it or not, that’s what triggered my international interest.

MB: And you went on to study international affairs?

WM: I went to the University of Maine and studied international affairs and history, with a minor in Canadian studies. Right after graduation, I took a job with the Trade Center, and the rest is history.

MB: What’s the biggest challenge for Maine companies looking to enter foreign markets, and how does MITC lend a hand?

WM: The first is trying to find a willing buyer for your products. That is something the Trade Center works with companies on. We can connect them with resources overseas to be able to identify buyers, and that goes right up through to the trade shows and trade missions that we organize for groups of companies. The second is workforce development, a focus for us in terms of consulting, education and in-person training. Our bread and butter is to help companies identify potential customers and also train them to take advantage of those opportunities when they do come up.

MB: Among clients you’ve helped, any success stories you would highlight?

WM: One is a very small company with three people called Scythe Supply in Perry. The owner imports these beautifully handcrafted European scythe blades from the Czech Republic and resells them. When something went wrong with a Czech supplier she had a 20-years relationship with, she wasn’t sure what happened since no one in the office spoke Czech. She called us for help, and we ended up reaching out to my counterpart in Pennsylvania with a Czech speaker on staff who was able to help out. It was a game changer for the company here. The other one is RainWise, a small manufacturer in Trenton that’s exporting weather stations all over the world. We’ll be highlighting these and other success stories in our new video series.

MB: Next year, a new shipping route is set to open between Maine and Greenland. What will that mean for Maine companies?

WM: It’s an exciting opportunity for a number of our companies here, because we will have direct container access to Greenland. It’s a small market, of around 57,000, but they have a lot of needs that match up nicely with things that Maine can potentially provide, such as lumber, forest and consumer goods.

MB: What are your thoughts on Portland ever getting a waterfront cold-storage warehouse — are you impatient?

WM: I would like to see it. I think it’s an important piece of infrastructure for the state, both internationally and domestically. It’s an important piece of the puzzle that we would like to see get done.