Landing on Solid Ground : Foreign Sales Help Chute Maker FXC Survive Defense Cuts
Well after the Cold War thawed and a shrunken Pentagon budget sent defense contractors scurrying for commercial customers, the maker of Guardian parachutes and automatic rip cords was still relying on the U.S. armed forces for much of its revenue.
But during the past 12 months, FXC Corp. began to feel the pressure too, and it sought new customers in a way that expands the meaning of the term defense conversion. Just because the Defense Department was cutting back on orders, didn’t mean militaries abroad were tightening their purse strings, figured FXC founder Frank X. Chevrier.
So the Santa Ana company began peddling its chutes and cords to countries that were involved in regional conflicts or were simply upgrading their military operations. It deployed 40 sales agents, many of them former military officers, to 40 countries worldwide.
The effort paid off. Foreign sales grew 29% last year as the privately held FXC generated $4.5 million--about 60% of its revenue--from exports. Its overseas effort also garnered it recognition by the World Trade Center Assn. of Orange County for export excellence among small companies.
“Business is picking up more and more,” Chevrier said. “We’re starting to groom South America, and Germany’s starting to buy some of our stuff.”
Talk to Chevrier, a 65-year-old French Canadian who immigrated to the United States three decades ago, and the latest news on military buildups in any given country rolls right off his tongue, making him sound more like a foreign affairs officer than a designer of high-technology parachutes and escape gear. He knows where the sales are hot.
“Mexico is the biggest one,” he says. “They’re buying like mad right now. They’re buying our special force equipment for the elite--and they’re buying them complete. Chile is buying the same system every three months, and Peru is buying every four months.”
Special force equipment is highly advanced high-altitude parachute gear that comes with goggles, oxygen masks and the automatic rip cord device Chevrier invented two decades ago.
Chevrier now has his sights set on Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Some of his gear, however, is so advanced that he must get U.S. clearance before he can sell it overseas, and some countries--Libya, North Korea, Iran and Iraq--are excluded.
FXC’s latest invention is a computer-aided cargo-dropping parachute that, with satellite guidance, can wind around mountains and many other obstacles, constructed or natural, to reach a pre-programmed site.
“That will probably be used for food drops,” Chevrier said.
The special force equipment is popular in Colombia, Peru and other South American countries where military pilots fly sometimes dangerous missions in their fight against drug trafficking.
FXC is in a tough market. Major foreign companies can undercut FXC’s prices, and it can’t compete against them on price alone, Chevrier said. Instead, the company emphasizes that it is the only one to offer a complete package of gear, including the automatic rip cord, he said.
Chevrier’s interest in aviation goes back a long way. He enlisted in the Canadian air force when he was 20--using his older brother’s high school diploma because he had dropped out of school in the seventh grade. He spent seven years repairing planes; then, after he had returned to civilian life, he helped design defense radar systems for his country for two years. A 1953 midair collision that killed two Canadian air force friends prompted Chevrier to think about coming up with a device that could have helped save their lives.
By 1973, he had created his patented parachute rip cord, which opens up parachutes automatically for those unconscious or otherwise unable to do it themselves.
