Are You Ready to Export? Partners in Exporting 2025 Series

Wednesday Webinars with SBA Seattle District is an ongoing series of free, virtual, webinars covering a variety of topics to benefit small business owners. On the fourth Wednesday of each month is Are You Ready to Export? featuring conversations with different members of the Washington Export Outreach Team (WEOT). For 2025, the focus will be Partners in Exporting: how WEOT agencies collaboratively work together along with other organizations to support Washington businesses to sell their goods and services internationally

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This Month

Please join the January webinar to learn how SBA is collaborating with Greater Seattle Partner’s to support their Greater Seattle Export Accelerator Program. The Greater Seattle Export Accelerator (GSEA) collaborates with community, state, and federal trade organizations to provide free advanced export training, export advising, and access to international markets support. The program is designed for small and medium-sized businesses located in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties who have previously exported or currently export goods and services internationally. GSEA empowers companies to expand their global reach. By providing the tools and resources to grow exports, the Greater Seattle Export Accelerator helps businesses to increase profits, diversify risk, and create new job opportunities—fueling economic growth across the region.

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John Brislin | International Trade & Finance Specialist, SBA Office of International Trade, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)

John Brislin is SBA's International Trade & Finance Specialist (Export Finance Manager) for Washington State, Northern Idaho and Alaska. He has over 23 years of private-sector international banking and trade finance experience working at Bank of Boston (Bank of America) and Bank of California (U.S. Bank). John has over 12 years of public-sector export trade finance and risk mitigation experience working at Export Finance Assistance Center of Washington (EFACW), Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM Bank) and SBA Office of International Trade (SBA OIT). He looks forward to working with Small Businesses so they can turn their export opportunities into actual sales and to achieve the ultimate goal of getting paid—especially on time—for those sales.

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SBA Office of International Trade – U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) helps small business owners and entrepreneurs pursue the American dream. SBA is the only cabinet-level federal agency fully dedicated to small business and provides counseling, capital, and contracting expertise as the nation’s only go-to resource and voice for small businesses. SBA provides guarantees to Lenders which enables them to provide SBA Loans to Small Businesses. SBA funds a Resource Partner Network of Small Business Development Centers, SCORE Chapters, Veteran Business Outreach Centers, Women’s Business Centers to assist small businesses. SBA provides grants and prize award competitions to organizations to support small business initiatives.

SBA Office of International Trade's (OIT) mission is to enhance the ability of small businesses to compete in the global marketplace.

Office of International Trade works in cooperation with other Federal Agencies and public-sector and private-sector groups to encourage small business exports and to assist small businesses seeking to export.

Through U.S. Export Assistance Centers, SBA District Offices and a variety of service-provider partners, we direct and coordinate SBA's ongoing export initiatives in an effort to encourage small businesses going global.

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Vern Jenkins | Program Manager, Seattle Export Accelerator Program (GSEA) – Greater Seattle Partner

Vern Jenkins is the Program Manager for Greater Seattle Partner’s – Greater Seattle Export Accelerator Program (GSEA).

He is a NASBITE – Certified Global Business Professional (CGBP) with a Master’s Degree in International Business Management.

Vern has over 25 years of International Business and Trade Experience. He has worked with both SMEs and Fortune 500 companies such as Reebok and Nike to facilitate them towards doing business in Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Eastern Caribbean, Western Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East.

For the last decade Vern has worked as an International Trade Specialist for the Washington Small Business Development Center (SBDC) hosted by Washington State University. Vern developed and delivered an award-winning Export Readiness Training Program which has been adopted at both the State and National Levels. He has organized and lead annual out-bound trade missions to Asia for small and medium-sized businesses.

Vern has advised over 800 SMES assisting them with becoming “Export Ready” and implementing their export business plans for successful foreign market entry.

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Greater Seattle Partners

Greater Seattle Partners (GSP) was launched in 2018 as the first public/private economic development organization to serve our entire Puget Sound Region. GSP’s mandate is to attract investment, promote international trade, and grow existing industry by marketing the Puget Sound region, recruiting targeted business and trade focused on the region’s assets, using sophisticated data and analytics to tell region’s competitive story, and engaging leadership and funding from both the public and private sectors.