Ex-Commerce Official to Open Office

After spending 26 years helping Southland companies sell their products abroad, a former U.S. Commerce Department official said he will start his own marketing and trade consulting firm in Santa Ana.

Jesse E. Campos, 73, said he will open an office next spring with his sons, Jesse Campos Jr., 37, a marketing executive at a Santa Ana carpet manufacturing company, and Arthur Campos, 36, who recently retired from the Navy.

Campos, a Montebello resident, said his company--J.E. Campos & Sons International Marketing Consultants--would specialize in California-Latin America trade, especially trade with his native Mexico.

Campos opened the Commerce Department’s first Orange County office in 1968, and was in charge of Orange and San Bernardino counties until his retirement last month. Steve Arlinghaus, Commerce’s district director in Los Angeles, is serving as interim manager of the Santa Ana office until a successor is selected in January.

During his tenure at the federal agency, Campos “helped a lot of Orange County companies get established in exporting,” Arlinghaus said. Among them are Trimedyne Inc., the Irvine maker of fiber-optic catheters, and Cherokee International Inc., a Tustin manufacturer of power supplies.