Local resource, global platform: how Utah small business owner Natalie Kaddas was invited to talk trade with Pres. Obama.

• Author: Miller, Derek B.
• Position: Worldview

Imagine sitting around a table in Germany with Pres. Barack Obama and 11 CEOs from Fortune 500 companies to discuss economic growth promotion. This scenario sounds like a storyline from a primetime business drama, but it was a reality for one of Utah's small businesses: Kaddas Enterprises.

Kaddas Enterprises is often touted as a Utah success story, and for good reason. You might say this family-owned enterprise is a poster child for showcasing where hard work, vision and help from outside resources can take you.

Founded in 1966, Kaddas Enterprises began in the kitchen oven of John Kaddas, an industrial design graduate from the University of Utah. John was intrigued with the thermoforming process and started making molds and forming parts as a lower-cost solution for companies across many industries.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Kaddas Enterprises is now a leader in thermoform plastic manufacturing.

It develops products that range from its patented BirdguarD, used to mitigate animal-caused power outages, to interiors for planes, trains and automobiles.

A small company of approximately 30 employees, Kaddas Enterprises proves that a company does not need to be large to export. In fact, 85 percent of exporters in Utah are small- to medium-sized businesses. There are a multitude of resources available to help these organizations succeed globally, one of which is trade missions.

Natalie Kaddas, CEO of Kaddas Enterprises, attended her first trade mission to Israel in 2013 and had such a positive experience she has since attended many others. The success of her international outreach efforts can be viewed in the company's bottom line: Kaddas Enterprises' export business has grown an average of 400 percent every year since 2013. Kaddas' participation in the last two Mexico trade missions resulted in a multiple-year contract with the federal government in Mexico.

The success Kaddas experienced on trade missions also led to an increase in publicity. So when the White House was looking for a small business to...