FROM: U.S. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK
Export-Import Bank Small Business Success: Jamestown, N.Y.
Washington, D.C. – Dawson Metal Company is a small-business exporter based in Jamestown, N.Y., that sells custom sheet metal parts for a wide variety of original equipment manufacturers including passenger rail cars. Dawson Metal also has a division called Dawson Doors which offers high-end architectural entrance systems.
A third-generation family-owned business founded in 1946, Dawson Metal currently employs 100 people. After learning of Ex-Im Bank through a broker, Dawson purchased an export credit insurance policy in 2012 that enabled the company to expand into Canada and sustain jobs in Jamestown. Export credit insurance enables companies to increase export sales by limiting their risk of non-payment by purchasing an insurance policy, just as someone limits their risk of fire by purchasing homeowners insurance.
“Ex-Im Bank provides the financing tools needed to help support small businesses like Dawson to be successful as they vie for new contracts in new markets,” said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg. “In FY 2013 alone, Ex-Im Bank supported $1.7 billion in New York State small-business exports.”
“We could not win international business without the help of Ex-Im Bank,” said David G. Dawson, president and CEO. “We had an opportunity to manufacture passenger rail car components for a foreign company if we could offer terms of net 60 days, and we could not extend credit to the foreign company without credit insurance. The credit insurance offered by Ex-Im Bank allowed Dawson Metal to extend 60-day terms and win the contract.”
