GT Equipment-ITRC partnership blazes a global trail: the Merrimack firm turned to the state agency to help it tap international markets.

In 1994, Kedar Gupta and partner Jonathan Talbott started GT Equipment Technologies with a $1,000 investment. Twelve years later, GT Equipment is one of the fastest-growing companies in the state, with between 85 and 90 percent of its market overseas.

In fact, China alone accounts for $80 million worth of business. GT also has customers in India, Taiwan, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, among other countries around the globe.

The company includes two divisions: GT Crystal Technologies, which specializes in crystal growth equipment for the semiconductor and materials industry, and GT Solar Technologies, the division responsible for the company's skyrocketing success.

GT Solar manufactures the equipment that is, in turn, used to manufacture photovoltaic, or PV, cells.

PV is a semiconductor technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity, while using no moving parts, consuming no fuel and creating no pollution. The basic PV cell typically produces a small amount of power. To produce more power, cells are interconnected to form modules, which can, in turn, be connected into arrays to generate even more power. These arrays are what are seen on rooftops of buildings that like GT Equipment's Merrimack headquarters--use PV-generated electricity.

Start of the partnership

From the start, Gupta and Talbott focused on the export market, particularly for their PV technology. "The U.S. is a good place to develop new products, but the world is more interested in buying those new products. Europe and the Far East have the vision to see the importance of solar," said Gupta, the company's president and chief executive officer.

In working to tap international markets, the firm turned to the staff of the New Hampshire International Trade Resource Center, the state agency charged with helping New Hampshire businesses break into global markets.

"We got involved very early in the company's development. Since then, Kedar and his staff have taken advantage of virtually all the services we offer, from our individualized strategic counseling to participating in our trade missions to the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in 2004, and to the Czech Republic and Ukraine in 2005," said ITRC Executive Director Dawn Wivell. "Their staff members have attended over 40 of our seminars on all areas of exporting. We've helped them develop proposals and prepare for incoming delegations--including understanding protocol--and we've provided market research and worked with them in the export finance area, including with the Export-Import Bank."

Wivell said that the center also worked to help GT Equipment find lawyers in China, identify potential clients for nanotechnology in Japan, and in developing a contract with a partner in Cyprus. The center also "brought a commercial specialist on government subsidies for solar energy from the Nordic region to them" she said.

Developing export markets is all about relationships, and that's something the center was instrumental in helping him build, said Gupta.

"It's very important to understand the culture of each country. In the U.S., selling is very direct--here's the product and the price. In building markets in other countries, you need to be culturally sensitive and develop the relationship with a company over time. It can be a slow process, but it's worth it because these companies tend to be very loyal and they don't change partners."

Recognizing excellence

Gupta gives much of the credit for the company's success to its staff; which numbers about 90, at the company's Merrimack headquarters and also includes representatives overseas. About 10 percent of the Merrimack staff is made up Ph.D.s, and the staff includes native speakers from many of the countries the company sells to.

Charlotte Redeschi, who's been with the company for seven years, points to the foresight and leadership of Gupta and Talbott as the driving force behind the company's success. "There's a great emphasis here on gearing customers and employees right. It's so important to listen to customers to find out what they need."

While the company exports most of its products, most of its suppliers are from New England, according to Vice President of Operations Jim Bosco. "In order to increase capacity, we often rely on local suppliers to assemble some of the components which go into the equipment we manufacture. It's a ripple effect: as we do well, so do other New Hampshire businesses."

The company's success and Gupta's leadership have not gone unnoticed. In April 2005, the company was named Ex-Im Bank's Small Business Environmental Exporter of the Year. Four months later, the company won three federal technical grants totaling nearly $1 million.

Two of the grants were awarded under the Small Business Innovation Research Program and another under the Small Business Technology Transfer Program.

In January, the Angeleno Group, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm focused on high-growth investments in the energy sector, invested in GT Equipment. The investment is part of the recently announced acquisition of a majority stake in GT, led by GFI Energy Ventures, in partnership with Angeleno Group.