 |
An
Interview
with Mr. Chris Runckel,
President
of Runckel & Associates
(www.business-in-asia.com)
in
Rainmakers
Column of
Portland Monthly Magazine
byTed
Katauskas
- Research assistance by John Draper
|
Notion Pacific:
Ask Chris Runckel just how he came to be one of the world’s
foremost experts on business in Asia, and he’ll
start
off by telling you that he grew up in Hood
River, where his father
invested hardboard,
a type of particle board.
Then he’ll mention that he was drafted into the
infantry in
1969, when he was 19, and fought in the jungles of Vietnam. And that after his tour, the GI Bill put him
through the University of Oregon,
then law school at Lewis & Clark. And
that the law degree he earned took him to Gerald Ford’s
White House
in 1975, when as deputy general counsel of the Presidential Clemency
Board he
helped pardon Vietnam-era deserters and draft evaders.
He might also offer that he has worked at
American embassies
in Bangkok (where he
married the
daughter of a noted Thai architect), Beijing,
Fiji, Hong
Kong and London
– and in 1996, as the first U.S.
diplomat assigned to Hanoi
after
the Vietnam War. Then he’ll tell you how
he abruptly retired from diplomatic life in 1998 to move his family
into his
parents’ house in Hillsdale so his teenage son – now a junior studying
genetics
at Dartmouth – could
attend Wilson High
School.
“We had moved 12 times in 14 years, and I made a
deal with
him that he would start and finish in the same high school,” says
Runckel,
president of Runckel & Associates, the international consulting
firm he
founded in 1999 and runs out of his parents’ home, which he now owns,
“I was
happy to come back here. People who’ve
been living here for a long time don’t understand how the city is
changing. One of the reasons I’m very
bullish on Portland is
because
there’s this resurgence, this considerable talent that is coming here.”
Including, of course, Chris Runckel and associates like his
wife, Soraya, co-owner and vice president of the firm, which
specializes in
helping U.S.
companies establish offices and factories in Asia,
something Runckel & Associates itself has done 15 times in nine
Asian
countries. As for the vice president,
who oversees the company’s 26 websites – some of which generate more
than a
million hits a month – Soraya Runckel also is an accomplished
watercolor artist
whose works have been shown in galleries from Beijing
to London.
Chris Runckel now spends most of his days on
airplanes,
advising clients around the world (he’s fluent in seven languages),
including
the State Department’s Office of Presidential and Vice Presidential
Travel
(Runckel has provided foreign travel logistical support for the last
six U.S.
presidents). He’s even helping officials
at Layola Marymount
University in Los
Angeles retool the focus of the school’s MBA
program
from Europe to Asia.
Which he thinks is a lesson his own hometown could learn
from.
“Portland is not
fully seeing its potential in Asia,” says
Runckel. “It’s not so much that Portland
doesn’t realize
that Asia is important, I think, it’s partially a failure of city
government,
state government and the business community to come together and
effectively
build a strategy that makes sense for the region. My
point is that when it comes to Asia, Portland
is just
scratching the
surface. A lot of opportunities are
being left on the table.” <>
And guys like Runckel are cleaning up.
