A Small Georgia Manufacturer Looks To Grow Overseas

The custom boiler systems that Dennis Dauphin’s company makes can burn just about anything, and that’s why their boilers​ ​are in high demand around the world.

Mr. Dauphin is international sales manager for Hurst Boiler Inc., a 250-employee company in Georgia that exports about 50 percent of its boiler systems overseas –many with the help of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. The company can burn biomass, natural gas, and anything else to help heat office parks, universities and hospitals.

Hurst Boiler represents just one of the thousands of small and medium-sized businesses that look to the services provided by the Ex-Im Bank to compete abroad and keep jobs local. Ex-Im has supported about 1.2 million jobs over the last five years and those jobs are at stake if Congress doesn’t reauthorize the bank by the end of September.

While politicians in Washington argue over whether the Ex-Im Bank should exist at all, Mr. Dauphin “would like to see a much more vigorous export program.”

Facing a tough domestic market, Hurst Boiler has to compete with companies around the world, many of whom have export credit financing of their own.

“The domestic market is shrinking because of the economy and a lot of the Environmental Protection Agency regulations have hurt,” he said.

He said there’s more opportunity for the company to expand abroad in places such as Mexico and Chile.

He said if the Ex-Im Bank were reauthorized, and changed so it is more user friendly, the company could easily double its business and would be able to build another factory and increase hiring in the United States.

“The opportunity to move and sell these products is incredible,” he said, “we just need the financing that Ex-Im provides.”​