Despite the growth of HDMI, other audio/video protocols still remain relevant and important in the electronics world.

The RO6-SPL-102 is one of several new product from Tri-Net Technology that are designed to manage and distribute DisplayPort signals.

The Skinny: One format not named HDMI that is extremely important in the commercial electronics world is DisplayPort, and the Walnut, California-based manufacturer Tri-Net Technology (TNT) is doing its part to support DisplayPort through several new product releases.

The Specs: The five new products are the DisplayPort 1×2 Splitter from 1 DisplayPort source to 2 DisplayPort Displays; the DisplayPort 1×2 Splitter from 1 DisplayPort source to 2 HDMI Displays; the DisplayPort 1×2 Splitter from 1 DisplayPort source to 2 DVI Displays; the DisplayPort Equalizer; and the DisplayPort Extender over 2 Cat-5e/Cat-6 cable. These products are engineered to handle 1920×1080 at 60Hz video and DisplayPort extend mode 3840×1200 at 60Hz content, and the extender and equalizer products are designed to eliminate the degradation of signals sent distances more than 25 feet.

The Solutions: The TNT products can be used for just about any simple DisplayPort installation.

http://www.commercialintegrator.com/article/tri_net_technology_displayport_accessories

Tri-Net Technology has introduced the 4-port Power Charger Docking Station for iOS devices (Part number: R09-4PWR), coming out this summer.

This unit can simultaneously charge up to 4 iPad/iPhones/iTouch at the same time, while the front port can sync device with iTunes and has a 3.5mm audio jack to plug speakers into and enjoy music.

About Belden Electronics Division
Belden Electronics Division, a unit of Belden Inc., is a leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of specialty wire and cable products for the electronics and electrical markets. Belden Electronics Division is headquartered in Richmond, Indiana. Belden has manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and Hungary, with distribution centers in the U.S., Canada, Singapore, Australia, and the Netherlands. A majority of Belden’s manufacturing, engineering and support functions are registered to the International Organization for Standardization.

Download press release (.pdf file 351KB) ]]> http://TriNetUSA.com/2012/06/29/2594/feed/ 0 http://TriNetUSA.com/2012/06/29/distributors-add-service-to-the-supply-chain/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=distributors-add-service-to-the-supply-chain http://TriNetUSA.com/2012/06/29/distributors-add-service-to-the-supply-chain/#comments Fri, 29 Jun 2012 02:21:20 +0000 TriNet http://TriNetUSA.com/?p=2592 Approximately 40 companies manufacture the cable used in today’s structured cabling systems. A number of companies-some of them the same companies that manufacture cable-produce the connecting hardware that completes these voice and data systems. And each of these companies has its own method, whether technical- or marketing- based, to differentiate itself and its products from all others.You, as the installers and users of structured cabling systems, face multiple options when selecting from among these cable and hardware makers. In addition to making these choices, you have to decide from whom you will purchase products. A 1998 survey of cabling-installation contractors showed that only 19% of contractors make most of their purchases directly from product manufacturers. The other 81% purchase through distributors. And more than half of those make their purchases
through national distributors. by: Patrick McLaughlin

Tri-Net Technologies manufactures this 25-pair cable assembly that bears the Lucent name. The ability to manufacture cable to the specifications of a company like Lucent is a service that distinguishes Tri-Net Technologies from other distributors. These national distributors do just as much to distinguish themselves from one another as do the product manufacturers. And their opportunity to add value to a purchase lies largely in the area of service. What can a distributor do to position itself as the most desirable option for a cabling contractor to go for products? A lot, as the industry has found out in recent years.

Manufacturing and Distributing
Tri Net Technologies (TNT-Industry, CA) has filled installers’ needs for cabling products for more than 15 years, says company president Thomas Chung. Among the products available from TNT are Belden’s (Richmond, IN) MediaTwist cable and patch cords, as well as cabling products from Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ). But TNT not only carries these products but also makes them. “We are a certified assembler for Lucent’s Category 5E, 25-pair patch cord, called the 525,” Chung says.

The company manufactures assembly-type and injection-molded-type patch cords, he continues, as well as fiber-optic cable assemblies. Additionally, TNT conducts metal fabrication, typically used for wall-mount panels and fiber-distribution panels. Chung adds that investments in verification and verification equipment are necessary to ensure the products that TNT ships are of acceptable quality. For example, Intertek Testing Services (ITS- Cortland, NY), which grants the ETL symbol, provides third-party verification of TNT products. “We signed a two-year agreement with Lucent to manufacture their products,” Chung says. “In those two years, we spent $30,000 for testing.”

The company also continuously performs in-house testing on its products. “We use an analyzer from Hewlett-Packard, as well as a tester from DCM Industries that certified modular patch cable,” Chung continues. “We can perform a full channel test, including connecting hardware, with the testing capabilities we have.” The company includes a testing report in each shipment to customers. Originally a supplier of only twisted-pair products, TNT now provides fiber-optic products to its customers as well. “I’ve been dealing with UTP [unshielded twisted-pair] products for 15 years,” continues Chung. “In that time, I have learned that UTP can handle only so much. Fiber, on the other hand, does not have the limitations of copper.

“With UTP, however, modularity is a big plus. That’s one reason it has remained so popular. But now with fiber, connectors like the MT-RJ are providing the same modularity that has benefited copper for many years. “Both domestically and internationally, I noticed that in 1999, the demand for fiber increased significantly.” TNT has facilities in Mexico and Asia in addition to its U.S. operations.

Product Customization
Other product distributors also manufacture products. “We manufacture so many products- connectors, test equipment, cable, and termination equipment-they’re too numerous to list,” says Brian Molis, director of marketing for Fiber Instrument Sales (FIS-Oriskany, NY), adding that his company offers hard-to-beat service over other equipment sources. “Particularly with respect to test equipment, we are more responsive than others. We provide immediate calibration and repair. The tester doesn’t have to go through us to the manufacturer for repair. We are the manufacturer. We can also make test equipment to order for our customers.”

That’s another benefit that makers/distributors of products offer: customization. Molis says, “We can custom-design a cable jacket for a customer and not force that customer to order an extremely high-quantity minimum.” Despite its name, the company does not limit itself to fiber-optic products. “We started off dealing strictly with fiber products but worked our way into copper-based products,” Molis says. He points out that most networks employ fiber in the backbone and use copper cabling in the horizontal, so dealing with both types is in his company’s best interest. “Copper is also a significant part of the design software that we offer.”

The software package is another benefit that FIS offers its customers. Last spring, the company introduced the software package, which is designed to help cabling-installation contractors design networks. Elements of the package let users calculate job and labor rates, manage customer information, design a campus layout, add floors to a building, design outside cabling runs, select cable types, request pricing and availability from FIS, and prepare a proposal. A service that helps customize shipments is the Assemble, Wire, and Test (AWT) service available from Sprint North Supply (New Century, KS). Through the program, the distributor assembles products from multiple manufacturers; wires the equipment into a
rack, hut, vault, or cabinet; and tests the completed system to specifications. AWT can be used for any application that requires the combination of several products into one system. The customer determines which products work best for the specific application. Sprint North Supply says one of the major benefits of this service is speed: It gets service providers to market faster than they would accomplish
on their own.

Training
According to FIS’s Molis, one of the primary attributes that distinguishes his company from other cabling-product providers is the company’s ongoing training program. “Our training program tours the country, going to approximately three cities per month. Typically, we train between 25 and 40 people per class.”

FIS offers two one-day classes, Molis explains. One class combines hands-on training, fiber-optic theory, and information about cable construction, termination practices, test equipment, and specialty tools. The other class focuses more on local-area-network design and includes fiber-optic and copper media as well as active equipment. Students also learn how to use FIS’s design software, and Molis says the class is aimed primarily at contractors. The classes cost $69 each, and students who sign up for both pay $99. “It’s very affordable,” Molis says. “We also offer a corporate training program, where we’ll go to the organization and teach at their facility.” He says this training option attracts companies from all industries, and the students typically are not limited to those working in a company’s information- systems department.

Similarly, communications-products distributor Communications Supply Corp. (CSC-Carol Stream, IL) offers hands-on workshops in its own facility and at locations around the country. All instructors are registered communications distribution designers (RCDDs) with experience in design and application. CSC has been authorized by BICSI (Tampa, FL) to teach the three-tier BICSI-licensed Cabling Installation Training and Registration Program. CSC also offers full fiber-optic training, featuring a team devoted specifically to fiber optics. Any course can be customized and taught at the customer location, CSC adds. In addition to training, CSC provides application support services, including blueprint review, system design, product recommendations, and request-for-proposal development. Specifically for fiber-optic
applications, CSC offers product specification and integration as well as custom-cut cable, cable assemblies, prepulled ductwork, and preterminated enclosures.

CSC moved to new corporate headquarters last year and has made several acquisitions to become a nationwide distributor. In July, CSC acquired Computel Inc., based in Springfield, NJ-the sixth CSC acquisition in approximately 30 months. The company maintains 20 sales and distribution centers as well as five sales offices in the United States. In February 1999, the company moved to its new corporate headquarters and distribution center in Carol Stream, IL. The 100,000-sq-ft facility includes 80,000 sq ft of warehouse space and a training center.

Product Verification
Perhaps the farthest-reaching efforts by distributors to provide service to their customers are in the area of product- performance verification. Graybar recently introduced the VIP program, and Anixter (Skokie, IL) has effectively shifted the cabling-industry landscape with its Levels program. Both programs test copper-based cable and components.

The “VIP” in Graybar’s program stands for “verified independently for performance.” In the program, which was announced in August, ITS tests channel configurations consisting of cable and components from manufacturers whose products are available through Graybar. ITS tests the channels’ near-end crosstalk (NEXT), far-end crosstalk (FEXT), attenuation-to-crosstalk ratio (ACR), power-sum NEXT, and power- sum ACR levels. The aim is to ensure that a channel can support high-speed applications, particularly Gigabit Ethernet.

The program includes two testing options: VIP 1000 and VIP 2000. VIP 1000 is for systems designed to support Gigabit Ethernet and other applications developed in the next five years. Graybar says VIP 2000 “tests for higher speeds and additional frequencies to provide similar headroom beyond the IEEE standard for cabling systems designed to work with the TIA/EIA Category 6.” To achieve entry into the VIP 1000 program, channels must achieve 22.8-dB attenuation measurements, 30.5-dB power-sum NEXT, and 7.7-dB power-sum ACR. VIP 2000 performance requirements include 20-dB power-sum ACR at 100 MHz, positive power-sum ACR at 250 MHz, and improved return-loss performance at all frequencies. Every three months, ITS randomly selects products from any of Graybar’s 270 locations in the United States
and tests them. Products must pass the aforementioned tests to remain on the VIP list.

According to Dennis DeSousa, vice president of communications/data marketing for Graybar, initial response to the VIP program has been positive. “Customers have praised our efforts to bring independent channel testing to the market,” he says. “Our program has confirmed products must be tested as a channel.”

The Levels Program
The people at Anixter can tell you all about the need to test products in a channel configuration. This distributor’s Levels program is widely heralded as the impetus for the current standards structure. The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA-Arlington, VA) adopted the original Levels program, with few modifications, as the Category system.

In 1997, Anixter introduced Levels ’97, which sought to sort out cable manufacturers’ claims of performance beyond Category 5. In early 1998, the Anixter Levels Channel (ALC) program rolled out.
This program was the first effort to test cable and components in a channel configuration before shipments to customers. This is how the Levels and ALC programs work: When Anixter receives a shipment of product from the manu facturer, Anixter tests the product in its own laboratory to verify performance. Anixter has created Levels 5, 6, and 7 for cable, connecting hardware, and the channel configuration. If a product fails to meet Anixter’s Level 5, it is shipped back to the manufacturer. “We have millions of dollars in inventory at any given time,” explains Pete Lockhart, Anixter’s vice president of technology. “We want to make sure it’s good. We own it first, then we sell it to our customers.”

Anixter has had the capability to test products in its own lab environment since 1995. The company recently took steps to take the program to a new height. “Our lab is approximately 3,000 sq ft,” Lockhart continues. “It includes 130 permanent channels, with three or four connections each.” He further explains that the company has developed a way to pull in ad hoc cable to test that cable in the otherwise-controlled channel environment. Through the use of network- and protocol-analyzing equipment, Anixter can change one network element at a time to pinpoint a cause of failure. “Dealing with real data in the Ethernet world is like trying to grab hold of Jell-O,” says Lockhart, explaining in layman’s terms the difficulty of identifying data problems in live networks.

“The industry has been conducting static, megahertz-based testing of the electrical attributes of cable,” Lockhart said at the most recent BICSI (Tampa, FL) conference, held in Orlando, FL, in January. “But at our Anixter Levels Lab, we can now conduct live, or active, megabits-based testing of data transmission from one end of a cabling system to another. Testing megabits means testing data, so we are significantly increasing the ability to determine if a cabling system can reliably transfer data.” He says verifying the performance of patch cords in a live network has been difficult and explains that Anixter is creating its own testbed and test procedure to help this verification. ]]> http://TriNetUSA.com/2012/06/29/distributors-add-service-to-the-supply-chain/feed/ 0 http://TriNetUSA.com/2012/06/29/colorful-patch-cords-unveiled/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=colorful-patch-cords-unveiled http://TriNetUSA.com/2012/06/29/colorful-patch-cords-unveiled/#comments Fri, 29 Jun 2012 02:19:42 +0000 TriNet http://TriNetUSA.com/?p=2590 by: Staff

To mark its entry into the fiber optic marketplace, Tri-Net Technology (TNT) Inc. has introduced a new line of multi-coloured fiber patch cords. The fiber patch cords — available in red, yellow, green, blue and orange — are designed to simplify networking efforts for cabling installers.

Developed at a new fiber optic assembly outfit at TNT headquarters, the cords follow the release of the company’s Cat 6 MediaTwist 550 MHz and Cat 5e DataTwist 350 MHz patch cables. Tri-Net Technology, Inc. Industry, California Circle Reader Service Card No: 1

Tri-Net Technology, Inc. has announced the availability of a nice line of fiber optic MTRJ products, which includes MTRJ connectors that use a “jack connector” approach. The connectors feature an ergonomic design a small form factor that is half the side of duplex SC, and dual fiber connectivity.

The product family also features MTRJ mating couplers that have high precision mating structure and low insertion loss. The multi-mode styles are composed of ABS plastic bodies with flanged panel mountable
hardware.

Rounding out the lineup are MTRJ to SC/ST cable assemblies, MTRJ face plate and panel mount snap-in modules, and 19″ rack mount feed-thru panels.

Walnut-Most successful entrepreneurs operate on a simple philosophy- find a need in the marketplace and satisfy it for a profit. Tom Chung, president of Walnut-based Tri-Net Technology Inc., has done just that. Chung, a native of Taiwan, has made a bundle recently by helping foreign businesses set up shop in the computer age, when there’s a need to link personal computers together so they can communicate as a network.

Tri-Net, aka TNT sells the cable and accessories needed to make that linkage possible, forming a network that can interact. Such networks are called LANs, or “local area networks,” and nearly every business that has more than a handful of employees working on PCs requires some form of network. With an initial investment of $100,000, Chung set up shop in a modest Walnut business park. In its first year, TNT grossed $900,000 in sales, selling mostly to the domestic market. By its second year, gross sales topped $1.2 million. And by its third year, sales hit nearly $3 million in export business alone, bringing TNT’s total sales to more than $6 million, Chung said.

That success is what prompted the Los Angeles District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration to name Chung “Exporter of the Year.” He’ll be picking up his award next month at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Chung said that a number of factors have helped boost international sales: the fact that the United States is a high-tech industry leader, a burgeoning economy throughout Asian countries, foreign government trade agreements that favor U.S. suppliers, lower international telephone rates in the U.S., and a weaker dollar overseas.

It’s probably Chung’s unique background and sense of timing that has propelled TNT forward so far, so fast. “I came late to this market,” Chung said. “So, I knew that I needed to spend my time and effort in other countries where they’re just beginning to develop networks.” Chung’s goal is to eventually have a distributor in every nation around the globe. Today, he’s well on his way, with distributors throughout the Pacific Rim, Europe, Russia, and to a much smaller extent, South America. Besides his past experience selling telecommunications equipment in the U.S. for a Taiwanese firm, Chung has a computer science degree. Chung is able to offer distributors both marketing and product know-how.

INDUSTRY — When the Asian economic crisis struck in October 1997, few U.S. high-technology manufacturing firms understood the punch it would ultimately deliver. Many U.S. exporting orders fell while projects dried up as exchange rates fluctuated wildly by as much as 70 percent depreciation between the United States and many Asian nations.

It was an economic thud that could be heard all the way from the floor of the Nikkei stock exchange to Wall Street. But Tom Chung, 44, president of Industry-based Tri-Net Technology Inc., a privately held computer networking firm that had relied heavily on Asian exporting, was able to keep his company in the black with little or no impact on the firm’s infrastructure. “The issue wasn’t making a lot of money,” said Chung, “but to prove myself in business.”

Chung, an entrepreneur who emigrated in 1979 from Taiwan to the United States with $300 cash in his pocket, was a business leader who heard the impending Asian economic thud. His decision was to curtail the company’s focus from exporting – which had been as high as 55 percent – and turn Tri-Net’s focus to the domestic marketplace. “I’m only 44 years old, and I wasn’t ready to retire,” said Chung. “I wanted to see my business plan come true.” His business plan indeed ended up paying dividends just as the empirical financial numbers were showing serious monetary consequences for companies that didn’t adapt as swiftly. Chung’s Tri-Net has grown from $900,000 in sales in 1993 to $7.5 million in 1998. This year’s projected revenue is $9 million, with just over $1 million expected in profits.

Before the Asian economic turmoil struck, U.S. Customs in 1997 had reported $185.8 billion in imports and exports that passed through the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Ventura, and at Los Angeles International Airport and McCarren Field in Las Vegas. But U.S. Customs officials in 1998 reported a drop of nearly $4 billion in imports and exports fell to $181.5 billion, the first decline in that figure since 1982, because of the Asian economic crisis.

Two years later as the Asian economic turmoil appears to have run its course, Chung oversees a company that has two manufacturing facilities and a distribution center – a 33,000-square-foot facility in Industry that Chung bought this year for $2.5 million; a 10,000-square-foot facility in Tecate, Mexico; and a 9,000-square-foot distribution center in Taipei, Taiwan. The Taipei facility escaped serious damage or injuries to its employees in Monday’s 7.6 temblor that struck the island nation. Tri-Net, which manufactures high-speed cables and whose clients include AT&T, has grown from two employees in its first year – 1992 – to nearly 40 employees at its corporate facility in Industry.

With Asia’s economy on the mend, Tri-Net’s business plan now calls for “about 45 percent” of sales to come from the exporting side of the house, according to Chung. In doing so, Chung has built one of the strongest medium-sized cable and assembly manufacturing firms in the San Gabriel Valley, a hot-bed for high-tech firms. Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, said Chung was very savvy as far as focusing on the U.S. marketplace. ‘You have to have a very flexible business plan,” said Kyser. “The world today is very fast moving, and you have to constantly monitor what’ is going on in the technology market.”

TRI-NET AT A GLANCE
Owner: Tom Chung Age: 44
Nature of business: Computer networking products manufacturer and distributor
Location: 21709 Ferrero Parkway, Industry
Phone: (909) 598-8818
Founded: 1992
Employees: 26 full-time, 13 part-time
Annual revenue: $7.5 million (1998 data)

INDUSTRY — When the Asian economic crisis struck in October 1997, few U.S. high-technology manufacturing firms understood the punch it would ultimately deliver. Many U.S. exporting orders fell while projects dried up as exchange rates fluctuated wildly by as much as 70 percent depreciation between the United States and many Asian nations. It was an economic thud that could be heard all the way from the floor of the Nikkei stock exchange to Wall Street. But Tom Chung, 44, president of Industry-based Tri-Net Technology, Inc., a privately held computer networking firm that had relied heavily on Asian exporting, was able to keep his company in the black with little or no impact on the firm’s infrastructure. “The issue wasn’t making a lot of money,” said Chung, “but to prove myself in business.”

Chung, an entrepreneur who emigrated in 1979 from Taiwan to the United States with $300 cash in his pocket, was a business leader who heard the impending Asian economic thud. His decision was to curtail the company’s focus from exporting – which had been as high as 55 percent – and turn Tri-Net’s focus to the domestic marketplace. “I’m only 44 years old, and I wasn’t ready to retire,” said Chung. “I wanted to see my business plan come true.” His business plan indeed ended up paying dividends just as the empirical financial numbers were showing serious monetary consequences for companies that didn’t adapt as swiftly. Chung’s Tri-Net has grown from $900,000 in sales in 1993 to $7.5 million in 1998. This year’s projected revenue is $9 million, with just over $1 million expected in profits.

Before the Asian economic turmoil struck, U.S. Customs in 1997 had reported $185.8 billion in imports and exports that passed through the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Ventura, and at Los Angeles International Airport and McCarren Field in Las Vegas. But U.S. Customs officials in 1998 reported a drop of nearly $4 billion in imports and exports fell to $181.5 billion, the first decline in that figure since 1982, because of the Asian economic crisis.

Two years later as the Asian economic turmoil appears to have run its course, Chung oversees a company that has two manufacturing facilities and a distribution center – a 33,000-square-foot facility in Industry that Chung bought this year for $2.5 million; a 10,000-square-foot facility in Tecate, Mexico; and a 9,000-square-foot distribution center in Taipei, Taiwan. The Taipei facility escaped serious damage or injuries to its employees in Monday’s 7.6 temblor that struck the island nation. Tri-Net, which manufactures high-speed cables and whose clients include AT&T, has grown from two employees in its first year – 1992 – to nearly 40 employees at its corporate facility in Industry.

Who would have thought a decade ago that cables, wires and a slew of other networking contraptions would today be the rage, with consumers from Beijing to Budapest clamoring for American-made parts? Tom Chung, for one. In 1983, when the 42-year-old entrepreneur first got involved with connecting computer systems, e-mail had not yet been introduced and people still relied on floppy disks to exchange computer information.

Now Chung runs one of the area’s fastest-growing networking export companies, Tri-Net Technology, whose sales this year are expected to be $8 million, up from $900,000 five years ago. The Walnut businessman won this year’s Exporter of the Year award from the regional office of the Small Business Administration. Chung is among hundreds of Taiwanese Americans who have established small to medium-sized computer businesses in the Southland, a trend fueled by the worldwide craze for leading-edge technology. Tri-Net Technology is one of the more modest-sized companies, but its rapid growth offers lessons on how someone with good instincts and a careful business strategy can take advantage of an exploding market. “When I first got into this industry, people were just starting to talk about networking,” Chung said. “I had a feeling it would be big, so I stayed in it. Sometimes in business, you have to look into the future and follow your feelings.”

This year the global market for networking products is estimated at $14.2 billion, almost $8 billion of which is outside the United States, according to Dell’Oro Group, a Portola Valley, Calif.-based market research firm for networking products. “The exporting potentials are just phenomenal, because the market is still untapped,” said Dwayne Shirakura, a Dell’Oro Group analyst. John Armstrong, a networking analyst for San Jose-based research firm Dataquest, said there is strong worldwide demand for networking parts. He said developing countries, such as those in Southeast Asia, are particularly eager for these products because their governments have made it a priority to upgrade the countries’ communications infrastructure. “The whole industry is growing at a pretty steady rate,” Armstrong said. “And with all the new technologies being introduced, I think that will only support this growth.” Chung launched his business in 1992, with only two employees and a 2,000-square-foot office in Walnut. Now the company has 30 employees and operates out of a 12,000-square-foot warehouse. Chung hopes to buy a 30,000-square-foot facility as early as next year.

Tri-Net Technology specializes in local-area network products, which link computers, and wide-area network parts, which allow video, fax and telephone capabilities to be integrated onto a single system. Initially, the company exported its products only to Taiwan and Hong Kong. It now sells more than 5,000 networking products to distributors in 22 countries, including South Korea, China, Singapore, Japan, Greece, Australia, Russia and the United States. Chung sees the rest of Europe as well as South America as his next target. “My goal is to have distributors in every country of the world,” he said. “Exporting has all kinds of good potential because there’s still not much competition. Most companies are still focusing on the domestic market.” Tri-Net manufactures cables at its two warehouses in Walnut and Taipei, but its primary business is exporting brand-name products from such American companies as AT&T, Belden, Lucent Technologies, Cabletron and Cisco through its mail-order catalog. Chung decided to carry top-of-the-line U.S. products because his foreign customers specifically request American networking parts. “People feel they have to buy from the U.S. because it’s the leader in this type of technology,” Chung said. “But the main reason this market is growing is that people know they need good communication systems to make their countries stronger.”

After immigrating from Taiwan in 1981, Chung attended Valdosta State College in Georgia and received a master’s degree in computer science. When he and his wife moved to Los Angeles, Chung began selling cookies to Chinese grocery stores. He sold televisions and home appliances for a trading company before being hired away by a manufacturing firm to sell telephone jacks in 1983. With that introduction to the telecommunications industry, he and a business partner in 1987 started a networking company called Unicom in Santa Fe Springs. Unicom carried products similar to those offered by Tri-Net, but Chung decided to set up his own company because Unicom concentrated on the domestic market and he had his sights on overseas clients. He picked Asia as the starting point because of his own background. His brother, who used to live in Japan and speaks Japanese, came on board as his international sales manager. “We’re Asian, and we know our culture,” he said. “We know how business is done.”

Chung initially financed Tri-Net Technology with a $100,000 certificate of deposit at a local bank that extended a $95,000 credit line to him. That was adequate for the first few years, but as his business expanded, he needed new sources of funding. He took advantage of the SBA’s Export Working Capital Program, which helped him secure a $300,000 loan from Far East National Bank in 1995. The following year, the loan amount was increased to $450,000. Having now paid off that loan, Chung is utilizing an $800,000 credit line loan from East West Bank and is considering applying for another type of SBA loan to expand his facility.

“It’s very difficult to stay alive without government assistance,” said David Wang, a senior vice president at Far East National in Los Angeles, who nominated Chung for the SBA award. “Capital access is so important to small exporting businesses. Without capital, they can’t grow and survive.”

Chung believes he has been able to survive because he tapped the right market at the right time, surrounded himself with the right people, selected the right products and utilized the right resources to allow for growth. Another important thing he did was pick the right location. “Los Angeles has the largest seaport in the country,” he said. “And you can fly to Asia nonstop in 10 to 12 hours. There’s also no interstate freight charges.” Chung said the time difference between California and Asia also gives his company an advantage over its East Coast competitors because he can contact his business associates in Asia during the workday. The fact that the East Coast is three hours ahead makes that more difficult.

A stumbling point for many exporters is finding honest distributors and maintaining good relationships with them. To accomplish this, Chung used the business services provided by the U.S. Embassy in each country he exports to to gain the credit reports of potential distributors. He also sought the Commerce Department’s assistance as he expanded into new markets. The agency advertised his products in trade magazines and helped him set up trade shows in various countries. “Because we’re a small company, we need the government’s help,” Chung said. “It’s so important to get the right assistance.”

To keep up with changing technology, Chung said, he and his team constantly develop and test new markets and products. They also regularly attend trade shows and training seminars to keep up on the latest products. “Whenever new technology comes up, we pass that information to our distributors, and they’re able to pass it on to their customers,” Chung said.

With technology changing so fast, Chung can’t say for sure where his company is headed. But he knows he has a long history in a niche market and that it’s up to him to take advantage of it. “We’re working with the world’s leading technology firms, so whatever their direction is, we’ll get firsthand information and be able to share that with our customers,” he said. “We still have a lot of countries to get into, but I believe if we do our marketing the right way, we’ll be able to sell to a worldwide market.”