The United States used to be a global power in the manufacture of bicycles, the fertile ground where the bike-building Wright Brothers took flight and Schwinn was the world’s gold standard. Today, most bikes and much of their parts are made and assembled in Asia while the U.S. factories and the Americans who used to make a living working in them became idle and obsolete.

One exception has been Chris King Precision Components, a Portland, Oregon company that has carved out a big piece of that billion dollar economic pie. On Sept. 6, company founder and chief executive Chris King made his way to the White House, where he had the leaders of several other job-saving, economy-boosting U.S. firms meet with Obama administration officials to share their formulas for exporting success. To read about what happened, click here.

Photo courtesy Bike magazine