Paul Sage, a technician for MartinLogan Ltd., 2101 Del., assembles one of the varieties of speakers the company sells worldwide. About a quarter of the company's products are sent out of the country.

Shipped from Lawrence, pure phosphoric acid is headed to Asian countries, high-end speakers have found their way into Russia and Hong Kong and little black boxes with high-tech communication powers have been sent to more than 120 countries.

As the economy continues to grow globally, the goods that are manufactured here end up thousands of miles away. Businesses in Lawrence help contribute to Kansas’ growing list of international exports.

In 2007, the state had $10.2 billion worth of exports. It was close to a 20 percent increase from 2006 and adds to a number that has been on an upward swing for the past few years.

Melissa Birch, director of Kansas University’s Center for International Business Education and Research, said that Kansas has a reputation for making quality durable goods. Combined with developing countries’ blossoming incomes and low prices from a falling dollar – in the words of Birch – “it’s a pretty attractive export market.”

As the dollar remains weak and the economy continues to slide, Birch predicts that overseas markets will only become more attractive.

“I think a lot of companies locally may find the slowdown in the U.S. drives them to be more inquisitive about foreign markets,” Birch said.

Although the U.S. economy still has a global presence, Birch believes that many of the developing countries are building momentum on their own that could shield exporters from the financial woes felt at home.

She also sees foreign companies relocating to the United States, where the falling dollar makes production costs cheaper.

The weak dollar

For the folks over at MartinLogan Ltd., international growth has been modest. But the weak dollar has helped sustain sales of its luxury audio speakers in a difficult economy, company president Mike Lyons said.

About a quarter of the company’s products are sent out of the country. Recently, the speakers have sold well in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, China and Hong Kong.

The Lawrence-based company gets the word out about its speakers through product reviews, a Web presence and distributors in different countries. Most of the business, which is largely one of numbers, is conducted in English. And, Lyons said, the speakers sell themselves without much talking.

“Music is a natural translator. You don’t have a lot of explanation. You are persuaded or awed by the performance,” Lyons said.

MartinLogan also displays its goods at international trade shows, such as the major show in Munich this month.

Many of the Kansas companies that export overseas reach potential clients on Web sites (some that come in multiple languages) and through distributors, Birch said.

‘Crunch time’

It would take awhile for Kantronics President and CEO Cheryl Seiwald to rattle off all the countries where the company’s products have been sold. There are more than 120 of them. On the list are Papua New Guinea, Moldova and Latvia.

For Kantronics, which has been around for 43 years, about 70 percent of its business in 2007 was overseas.

The company makes high-tech communications equipment that pulls digital information off of computers, codes it in little black boxes, sends the information through the air using radio signals and then decodes the information once it is received by another little black box on the other end. It’s a technology that melds well with the advent of GPS.

While the local company is working with taxi cab drivers in New York City and the Navy, it does quite a bit of overseas business as well. And compared with last year, sales are up, Seiwald said.

“I believe that when there is crunch time globally and the financial world is suffering and the dollar is weak, that is when people back off of the fancy, newfangled type technology and they go back to what they know works,” Seiwald said. “And what they know works is radio.”

Shipping from Kansas

The ICL Performance Products plant in Lawrence has multiple international ties. The company’s headquarters are in Israel, which is also where the phosphate mines are located that provide the plant with its raw material.

The high-purity phosphoric acid produced at the plant is used in the manufacturing of integrated circuits, computer chips, flat-panel monitors and other electronics necessities.

The product is shipped to Asian countries. John Conrad, technical services manager at the plant, said the shipping costs across the Pacific Ocean aren’t that much more than across Kansas. The reason, he said, is because ships that are emptied of their goods once they reach the United States are looking for freight to take back across the ocean.

Similar to other Lawrence businesses, ICL participates in trade shows and has sales people stationed in different countries to promote its product internationally.

“Once you get started with one company, it builds and helps with others,” Conrad said.