Getting business from abroad

Helped by the weak dollar and other factors, exports from Georgia rose nearly 19 percent in the first half of this year, driving new hiring and dreams of expansion at barely noticed offices and factories.

On Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Chamblee, for instance, Magnolia Plastics is planning a renovation to add more space for 10 new hires — lab technicians, bookkeepers, sales people and others. About 20 percent of its custom-made epoxy resins are bought by overseas aircraft manufacturers and other export customers.

Next to a shuttered Target store in the shadow of Stone Mountain, meanwhile, CCP Inc. has hired 59 computer programmers, artists, writers and other folks this year to develop and upgrade online role-playing games for its headquarters studio in Iceland.

And, in an industrial park with several vacant buildings near Clarkston, Ceradyne has been hiring more workers and thinking about adding more capacity to its plant, which makes advanced ceramic parts, often for export.

“We’re back pretty much at maximum capacity,” said Bruce Lockhart, president of Ceradyne’s Termo Materials division, on metro Atlanta’s east Perimeter. The firm’s 150-employee Clarkston plant makes ceramic radomes, or nose cones, for defensive missiles and large tub-like crucibles that are used in the production of solar power cells.

The rebound in exported commodities and physical goods from Georgia and the rest of the nation is also evident in government figures.

So far this year, Georgia’s exports have recovered nearly all the ground lost since their peak in 2008. The state’s total exports through June totaled almost $13.7 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That was almost 19 percent higher than total exports during the first half of 2009, but just below 2008’s first-half total of almost $13.8 billion.

Among the state’s largest exports by value were aircraft, machinery and electrical equipment, vehicles, wood pulp and paper, medical instruments, plastic and food items such as chicken parts.

While such figures track only tangible goods and don’t include services such as tourism and professional work for overseas clients, they still give a good indication of where much of the recent growth in the local economy has come from.

“That seems to be the only game in play right now,” said Don Sabbarese, director of Kennesaw State University’s Econometric Center. He said most of the growth indicated by the center’s monthly Purchasing Manager Index seems to be coming from capital spending and manufacturers’ exports.

American producers have gotten a boost from the relatively low value of the dollar, which has generally been down as much as 5 percent versus other currencies over the past year, making U.S.-made goods cheaper for overseas buyers.

“Companies were really looking proactively at opportunities,” said Kathe Falls, director of the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s international trade office.

For instance, aircraft exports from Georgia were up 22 percent through June, mainly to buyers in Singapore, China, Luxembourg and Germany, said Falls. Georgia’s major aircraft makers include Gulfstream in Savannah and Lockheed-Martin in Marietta, plus several engine and aircraft parts manufacturers in Columbus, Macon, Milledgeville and other cities.

It’s possible such progress will be short lived. Export growth could already have tapered off since June, the most recent numbers available, as fears of a double-dip recession grow and recent turmoil in Europe’s financial markets take their toll. Also, the value of the dollar recently has climbed, especially against major trading partners’ currencies, such as the euro, Canadian dollar and British pound.

Still, a sampling of local employers with significant exports or ties overseas indicates continued optimism, sometimes because they’re in industries that have continued to grow rapidly, despite the recent deep recession.

At Ceradyne, for instance, Lockhart was recently planning to meet with the California company’s board of directors to consider expanding its Clarkston plant and adding 20 to 30 more employees.

“The product mix we’re in is more important than the economy,” said Lockhart, noting that demand from solar electric cell manufacturers is growing roughly 35 percent a year, by some estimates. Much of the growth is in China, which offers generous subsidies to build solar cell factories there.

About half of the Clarkston plant’s output is so-called solar crucibles, which are large containers made of fused silica. Manufacturers use the crucibles to produce large silicon crystals at high temperatures — a key building block for making solar electric cells.

Even without an expansion, the Clarkston plant has had an about-face. Ceradyne had expected to cut production at the factory as it doubled solar crucible production at a similar plant in China, then began building a second one there.

Late last year, Ceradyne did slow output at the Clarkston plant and laid off about two dozen workers as the global financial crisis froze up financing for some of its customers. But because of growing demand, it has since replaced most of the laid-off employees and is again running near full capacity.

Magnolia Plastics, likewise, has recovered most of the business it lost during the recession.

“Right now, we’re maxed out,” said Grace McElleney, marketing director for the company, which has 36 workers and custom-formulates epoxy resins to make parts for aircraft ranging from single-engine Cessnas to fighter jets, helicopters and airliners.

She said the company’s sales had dropped about 9 percent during the financial crisis of the last two years, partly because corporate jet sales plunged amid the public backlash over executives’ use of such jets at companies that got federal bailout money.

But now, sales have largely recovered, and Magnolia plans a $150,000 renovation to make room for more employees by early next year. The company has also shifted more of its marketing budget to overseas trade shows and advertising.

“We’re very positive. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be spending as much as we are,” said McElleney.

Meanwhile, the scene is dark over at CCP’s Stone Mountain operation, but not because of the economy.

In CCP’s quirky offices, employees who occasionally sport dyed hair, tattoos or flamboyant mustaches toil at their computers in dimly lit rooms. Their cubicles have tall, Gothic partitions of fake brick, wrought iron and street lamps reminiscent of Jack the Ripper’s London.

Technically, the employees that have been rapidly filling those cubicles create few products that would show up in government tallies of exports.

But the well-paid software engineers and digital artists are generating reams of computer code and data that translate into digital vampires and spaceships. They’re then zapping them to CCP’s other development centers in Iceland, China and England to create online role-playing games worth tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

“The teams here export, in a sense, a lot of creative aspects,” said Mike Tinney, president of CCP’s U.S. operation.

Since CCP bought Stone Mountain-based White Wolf Publishing in 2006, the operation has grown from about 25 employees to 180 — CCP’s second-largest studio.

Tinney said one local team is developing an online role-playing game based on White Wolf’s “World of Darkness” books and card games, which feature vampires, werewolves and other scary creatures.

Another group upstairs is working on upgrades of CCP’s flagship game, called EVE Online. The so-called “massively multi-player” online game generates roughly $65 million a year for Reykjavik-based CCP, from more than 300,000 players in North America, Europe and Asia who pay about $15 a month to assume roles as spaceship pilots, miners, pirates, warriors and other interstellar denizens.

CCP hopes to make even more money from its still-unfinished game based on “World of Darkness.”

The privately held company isn’t saying how long it could take to finish it, but it doesn’t seem to be worried by economic concerns in this world, such as the recent recession that precipitated a near-meltdown in Iceland.

“EVE has grown year after year for us,” said Tinney. “We have a very secure [business] model.”