Whitefish mayor begins China venture in China

The Daily Inter Lake

Whitefish Mayor Andy Feury plans to spend much of the next two years in China, where his company has embarked on a joint venture to start a new factory near Shanghai.

Feury & Co. will join forces with Wing Fat, a leading packaging manufacturer in Hong Kong, to manufacture transfer foil that's used on home and office particle-board furniture. The project involves moving Wing Fat's operation 1,000 miles, from a factory inland from Hong Kong to a location outside of Shanghai, where his business partners own land.

"It'll take a couple of years to get the company infrastructure up and running," Feury said.

Feury's company makes various kinds of films that are laminated onto particle board. He has been doing business in Asia, mostly Korea, for the past decade.

About five years ago he conducted an exploratory business trip to China and found the conditions ripe to begin doing business with Chinese manufacturers.

"The consistency and quality of product is better from China than from Korea," Feury said. "In China there's a different mentality. They're more open to suggestions. [Businesses] are leaner and there's not a lot of middle management."

FEURY HAS a year left of his two-year mayoral term and doesn't know yet if he'll resign. He and his wife, Terri, will leave April 1 to spend a couple of months in Hong Kong, then will return for the summer. He will take a temporary leave of absence, during which Deputy Mayor Cris Coughlin would serve as interim mayor.

"There are a lot of big issues I want to see through," Feury said.

Among the high-profile city projects is the growth policy, slated for completion in a couple of months.

Feury has served nearly 14 years on the Whitefish City Council and is in his fourth term as mayor. Under his leadership, the city has completed myriad community projects, such as bike paths, The Wave fitness center, a skateboard park and a community center at the old armory.

He's also taken a lead in a 75-mile recreation trail around the greater Whitefish area aimed at keeping public lands accessible.

If Feury were to resign, Coughlin would fill the remainder of his term.

"My position doesn't get replaced," he said.

Whitefish voted last November to create a four-year term for mayor, starting with this year's election.

FEURY HAS been traveling to Hong Kong monthly and said so much travel is daunting.

"Over time we'll see more of our customers manufacturing in Asia. We're following the product," he said.

"Of all the people I do business with, and the number of people who do business there, we understand that [China] is the growth market. We bring a lot of knowledge we can apply. And the more you're there, the more opportunities there are."

The Feurys also are looking at business opportunities for Terri, who operates a baked-goods business in Whitefish called Finn Biscuit.

Five-star hotels are springing up regularly in China, and there's much room for improvement in their breads, Feury said. They've talked to one hotel head chef about teaching culinary arts.

There may be a way to economically ship organic flour from a flour mill in California to China, since there's a glut of empty containers continuously headed to Asia to pick up products for export, Feury said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com