Projo Biz Blog

John Fitzpatrick attended his first World Trade Day conference at Bryant University last year, not certain what to expect. Yesterday, he was honored at the university’s 23rd annual world trade conference for making so much of last year’s visit – a minimum of $30 million in new contracts in Russia.

“John is a success story,” said Raymond W. Fogarty, director of the Chafee Center for International Business at Bryant, as he introduced Fitzpatrick to about 500 people at the conference.

Fitzpatrick said afterwards that he grew up in Boston and has known Fogarty for several years. He runs a computer repair business in Houston called One Source Computer Service. He attended last year’s conference to see if he could line up any new business.

Fogarty introduced him to a member of the Russian parliament at the conference. Fitzpatrick subsequently traveled to Russia with a consultant from the Chafee Center, and quickly began closing contracts.

“We do PC (personal computer) repairs,” Fitzpatrick said. “Nobody does it over there. They basically throw things away. So we brought in western processes and fix computers.”
Fitzpatrick said he has 150 employees in the U.S. and about 300 in Russia.

The way his business is growing, Fitzpatrick said, it soon could be a billion dollar company. And he gives a lot of credit to Fogarty.

“Ray is the one who made it happen.”

Read more about World Trade Day in Saturday's Business section and online at projo.com

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