Nantes delegation June 7-June 14

I had the pleasure to welcome and organize last week the visit to Seattle of a delegation of 19 people from Nantes. Their program was pretty full every day. Have a look at it below:

MONDAY
Visit at Microsoft
Meeting with French IT company Adeneo Corporation and its rep Yannick Chammings.

TUESDAY
Presentation and meeting with Michael Killoren, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs for the City of Seattle about creative industries

Visits of several art galleries and lofts

WEDNESDAY
Presentation given by Bill Stafford from the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle giving an overview of the local economic situation
Presenation of the French presence in WA State by Jack A. Cowan, executive director of the FACCPNW
Overview of the High Tech industry given by Karl da Gama Campos
and finally a presentation given by Steve Garritson about the Clean Tech technology.

The presentation session was followed by a visit at the Washington Technology Alliance and a tour of the labs, followed by a meeting and tour at the Washington Convention and Trade Center and Visitors Bureau. We were welcomed by Brad Jones and Michael.

THURSDAY
The day was focused on biotechnologies:
Presentation about the biotechnologies in Washington States by Lee Huntsman, executive director of the Life Sciences Discovery Fund and very famous in the region; followed by a speech given by David Schubert, who works at Accelerator Corp, an investment and development company based in WA.

Visit of the Institute of System Biology where we were honored to be received by Leroy Hood, founder and CEO of ISB and Accelerator Corp.

Meeting with Vulcan Inc. about the South Lake Union Project followed by a visit of facilities of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Presentation of the biotech industry in France and introduction to Atlanpole Cluster given by Georges Igor Chargardieff, biotech attaché at UBIFRANCE in San Francisco and Olivier Kitten, responsible for the biotech sector at Atlanpole (Nantes). Both presentations were followed by a networking evening where people from many different spheres have had a chance to talk to each other and have fun.

FRIDAY
Visit of The Boeing Company plant in Everett before going to the Sea Tac airport.

Everywhere we went, we all had the pleasure to be very welcome and many times by francophones.
The group was also of a great quality, curious, interested, motivated.

I really appreciated being their guide throughout the week. The week was so busy that I even feel a bit lonely now!

Below are a few pictures. More are to be found under the pictures and video gallery tab.

NetwWine - March 6

I have launched a new program for the FACC called NetwWine, which stands for Networking and Wine.This is first of all an informal networking event along with a glass of local or French wines.

My goal was to enable our current members to be able to promote themselves and their companies by giving a speech of 5 to 10 minutes during the evening. 
This program is also ment for people who are not members to meet our organization, learn more about the FACC activities and enjoy a nice evening in a French atmosphere. For our first NetwWine on March 6, we invited Philippe Sanchez, new Managing Director of Starbucks Coffee France. We even let the guests have a coffee tasting led by a Starbucks Coffee Master. The event was very much appreciated by the people who attended. The ambiance was warm and welcoming and good contacts were made.

French Wine Connection 013108

The new year has begun for the FACC with the organization of a trade wine tasting for a French delegation of 19 wine makers.

The day started with a seminar whose aim was to give the exhibitors the opportunity to understand better the stakes of the American and more specifically Washingtonian wine market. The Executive Director of the FACC, Jack A. Cowan started by giving a wide overview of the WA States, underlining the high qualification of local employees and the many HQ of worldwide firms such as Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon.com etc.

Bill Schallert, Young & Columbia’s Distributors’ presentation gave a rather precise idea of what the tendancies and figures for the wine industry in the Pacific Northwest were.

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Finally, the third speaker, Ray Bloom from Riversati Importer, talked about what the American consumer was looking for in terms of wine flavors, labels etc. underlining the importance of educating the younger population who is also start drinking wine.

The tasting took place in the afternoon at the Bell Habor International Conference Center and brought over 220 visitors. Among them were importers, distributors, retails etc and our exhibitors have had the chance to meet interesting contacts. Mostly were indeed look for an importer.

 The second and last day for the delegation was dedicated to visiting the Chateau St Michelle winery, the biggest one in WA State, followed by a visit at Costco, QFC, Esquin Wine merchants and finally at the Tasting Room, which is a wine bar downtown Seattle.

Thanks to those visits, the French producers have had the opportunity to see how wines in general and French wines in particular where sold in the largest points of sales to the smallest one. Also, they had the chance to taste WA wines allowing comparison with their own. They indeed were surprised by the good quality of local wines in general.

15th Beaujolais Nouveau Gala and Benefit Auction

The French-American Chamber of Commerce has organized its 15th Annual Beaujolais Nouveau Wine Gala on November 16.

The evening was featuring a reception, a nice meal, a live and silent auction to raise money for the FACC. The French American Chamber of Commerce is indeed a non-profit organization.

I was directly responsible for targeting and soliciting corporate contributions for the event and for developing and managing promotional and publicity materials.

To name only a few of the Corp. Sponsors who contributed to the success of our Gala: Air France, Microsoft, TV5 Monde, French Consulate, etc.

If you want to have a look at the event, click on the following link: http://www.teamphotogenic.com/ph/ev.asp?eid=6852.

 

Air France Inaugural Flight - Sept. 28, 2007

On the occasion of the inauguration of the direct Flight Paris-Seattle, Air France in partnership with the Port of Seattle invited a delegation from France to participate in a wonderful and sunny cruise .

The French Minister for Transportation was also present. On the same morning, he met the managers of the French aerospace firms, suppliers of The Boeing Company in WA State in a private meeting. This exchange was very helpful for everyone and everybody seemed to agree about the strategy to follow as French firms on the US market.

Please click here to see the Gallery pictures. (User: port; password: inaugural)

http://www.donwilsonphoto.com/client/index.php  

Cerep, Inc.’s 10 Anniversary Celebration - Sept. 20, 2007

The Chamber has been contacted by the French laboratory Cerep, Inc., subsidiary of Cerep HQ in Paris, to organize it’s 10 Years of Successful Service in the USA.

I took over this task and organized the whole event at the Marriott Courtyard on Lake Union. The presentation entitled: ” Applying High Content screening to in vitro Toxicology” seemed to be quite successful as 40 people attended whereas no more than 30 people were expected. Most of the public were scientists, who also stayed until the end of the reception. The ambiance was very good and the networking very effective.

3 sponsors were present: Air France, LabTemps (Recruiting staff agency) and Falco&Sult Cie (auditing firm), which I really thank for participating.

I also need to thank Marie-Christine Bodinier, Cerep, who was great to working with!

Bastille Day-July 14, 2007

My first task at the FACCPNW was to be in charge of the wine tasting for Bastille Day 2007. Different wines were presented (Muscadet, Sauvignon..). About 90 persons participated in the tasting, which is a lot more than last year!

See you next year!