Quality Switch Wins President’s Export Award

NEWTON FALLS, Ohio — Quality Switch Inc., a family-owned business that designs and manufactures switches for electrical transformers, is one of 48 companies from across the nation honored this week with the President’s “E” Awards for exports.

The awards were presented Thursday by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross during a ceremony in Washington, D.C. It is the second time that Quality Switch has received the presidential award for exports and this year the company was presented the “E” Star award, which recognizes previous “E” awardees that have reported four years of additional export growth.

“President Donald J. Trump has placed a high priority on restoring the balance of global trade to ensure American businesses and workers are not left behind,” Ross said at the awards presentation. “With companies like these awardees who have placed a premium on export success, we can reclaim the lost years of ever-expanding trade deficits.”

Quality Switch’s designs range from 100 to 3000 amperes and voltages from 600 volts to 345 kV depending on the application. In 2016, to expand into higher voltage applications and quickly test new and existing designs, Quality Switch opened the Horace H. Sewell High Voltage Testing & Research Center.

About 40% of the the company’s customers are outside the United States.

“This has been a team effort from our whole company,” said Russ Sewell, CEO. “Being a small company, we must carefully weigh the risk versus the reward for every project we pursue. Time and patience are the keys to develop new customers and new products.”

“Opportunities exist in every country,” added Larry Dix, company president. “Our efforts are directed to finding those opportunities and adapting our products to the needs of those customers. We do not strive to be the lowest first cost option. We strive to be the high quality, best total cost option for those customers. We help them by modifying our product to fit into their designs. We do not ask them to change their designs to adapt to our products.”

In 2018, U.S. exports were the highest on record with U.S. services at $821.1 billion and U.S. exports of goods reaching $1.7 trillion, according to the Commerce Department.

The President’s “E” Award was created in 1961 by Executive Order of the President and is the highest recognition a U.S. entity can receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports.

Companies are nominated for “E” Awards through the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service office network within the department’s International Trade Administration. Record years of successive export growth and an applicant’s demonstration of an innovative international marketing plan that led to the increase in exports is a significant factor in selecting the overall winners.

Winners this year hail from 25 states, and of the 48 honorees, 41 are small- and medium-sized businesses, and 26 of the companies are manufacturers, according to the International Trade Administration.

Pictured at top: U.S. Secretary of Commerce presents the “E” Star Award to Larry Dix, president of Quality Switch and Jeremy Sewell, vice president. With them is Gilbert Kaplan, under secretary of commerce for international trade.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.