Michael Miller, Honorary Consul for Sweden in Cleveland

Look around you. Chances are excellent you’ll find something that came here from Sweden. Is there a Saab or a Volvo in your garage? Orrefors or Kosta Boda in your dining or living room? Not just decorative glass, either, but maybe also on an awards shelf? Is there a CD by ABBA or Per Tengstrand or even Birgit Nilson on the shelf next to the stereo? How about a Viking sewing machine, or Electrolux vacuum cleaner? Have you purchased clothing at the H&M store, or furnishings at an IKEA? Join the millions of folks around the world in celebrating Swedish ingenuity and its propensity for exporting that ingenuity to the rest of the world.

In addition to these consumer goods, Sweden is also involved in the space business with satellites, electronics and computers; they produce steel and fine precision steel products; timber and wood pulp but also first class pieces of finished wood products for the building industry and home use. Of course, any country with as much shore-line as Sweden would have considerable ship-building. Lately, however, they’ve emerged as a leader in yet another market—one of great interest to the Cleveland area—medical research, especially embryonic stem cells.

Sweden has always focused on its foreign trade—its imports and exports. It’s a small country, about the size of California, with less than a third of that state’s population. Of course, a goodly portion of Sweden (more than half) lies above the Arctic Circle or very near it, and while there are people living there among the reindeer and the trees and the mines, it’s not exactly over-populated. You go south from Uppsala to find the populated areas of the country. This is where the great universities are located, and most of the commercial areas, as well.

Sweden is big business in Cleveland, and vice versa. In fact, Cleveland is such an important commercial partner to the Scandinavian country that on Monday, June 12, the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce - Ohio will officially open the 20th office in the United States—right here in Cleveland. How important, you say? In 2005 (the last full year for which data is available, the total $$ in imports from Sweden was $515,292,477. USD, while we sent just about half that ($265,394,228. USD) to them. And that’s just the Cleveland numbers. If you count the Cleveland Customs District (one of 42 such in the country) the imports are $8,256,419,276. USD, while exports were $2,111,538.317. USD. (Figures courtesy of the World Trade Center Cleveland.)

Michael L. Miller, who retired three years ago as the senior partner of Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP has been the Honorary Consul for Sweden to Cleveland for 30 years, and is happy to bask in these figures. He’s even happier to be hosting Sweden’s Ambassador to the United States, Gunnar Lund, during the weekend preceding the SACC event. Miller is one of 30 such Swedish Consuls in the US, all honorary. There is a consular official at the embassy in Washington, D. C., (along with the ambassador, or course) career consul-generals in both Los Angeles and New York, and the ambassador to the United Nations in New York. (There are also embassies in Ottawa and Mexico City.)

The consul is an advocate between his (or her) two countries, encouraging commercial and cultural exchanges and assisting nationals who travel from one country to the other for employment or education, or some other reason. Cleveland has nineteen such officials resident here, representing various international locations interacting with our city and region. Some are natives of their ‘official’ country, others are American born with strong ties to their other land.

Of Danish heritage, Michael Miller has come a long way from the small town of Miamisburg in which he grew up. He went to Ohio University in Athens, graduating with a double major in history and government and a minor in English—plus a wife, Lynn. His law degree came from Duke University in North Carolina, and from there they came to Cleveland. The firm was known as Calfee, Fogg, McCord and Halter in those days and was located in the Union Commerce (now Huntington) Bank Building. He became lawyer number 24 on the roster. That was 1966. Now they’re located at 800 Superior Avenue, and have about 200 lawyers.

A fair number of consuls are attorneys, and he thinks the special training helps in being able to think logically, and to look at the details. But even though he’s retired from the law firm, he’s still very busy on behalf of both Sweden and Cleveland and the many ties between the two locations. One of the greatest joys is matching entrepreneurs with facilities or other commercial opportunities—an activity which will be greatly heightened by the presence of SACC-Ohio.

So just what does a consul do, exactly? Well, for instance: “We were put in touch with a Swedish gentleman, Anders Berg, who’d acquired the assets of a bankrupt company way out on the west side of Cleveland. His plan was to box up these assets and ship them off to Atlanta, where he already had a functioning business—EMBA, by name. We found that he was doing this through the Ohio Economic Development Office, and they asked if we would meet with them, too. Two or three of our SACC members met with him, and talked to him about staying here. Finally, with some assistance from the state of Ohio, Mr. Berg agreed to not only keep those assets here, but also to bring the ones from Atlanta up here, as well.”

“Another company, Trelleborg, had it’s North American headquarters here a number of years ago. It was a rubber company—they made tires of all kinds and other rubber products for the mining industry and others. They were one of my very first Swedish clients, many years ago. Time passed, the company grew. They sold off parts of the business in different places, moved parts of the business, built it up in different places, and for a long time there was no Trelleborg here. Trelleborg has now acquired a new business here—EPG—in the Twinsburg area which focuses on extruded polymer products, and so now, they’re back.”

“Another one is a water purification company called Kinetico, which has its world headquarters out in Geauga County. They have been recently acquired by the Axel Johnson group in Sweden. Here’s an existing business that now has a very significant tie to Sweden.”

“And then there was a Swedish company called Hornel Speed Glass named after the inventor, Oley Hornel who invented an automatic lens darkening system for a welding helmet. This was very innovative, that whenever the welding torch would flash, the lens of the helmet would automatically darken. The North American part of the business was here in Cleveland, but he sold it to 3M, who moved it to Minnesota. However, the managers of the original business stayed here, and now are running two other Swedish companies from that same facility. So we now have two new companies that weren’t here previously.”

“The newest business which just started here is BabySwede, the North American distributor of the Baby Bjorn products from Sweden. BabySwede is also a sponsoring member of SACC-Ohio.”

“All of these have happened in the last year or so. There’s a lot of activity, and that’s encouraging to SACC. We want to have Swedish investment come here, and then find a way to have it go the other way, too. We’re looking for trade and investment that can go from this area to Sweden, because Sweden is a great entrée to the EU. Sweden has a very good corporate tax structure, better than the US. Yes, personal taxes there are higher, but business taxes are lower, so it’s a good place to have a business. In addition, there are good communications, good transportation systems, and good labor.”

Now that he’s retired from active practice of law, Miller is able to spend time on matters that are beneficial for the Scandinavian and Swedish-American communities, SACC being one of them. He says, “We tried to start a chapter about 11 years ago, and we were close, but at that time, we were a smaller group of people, and didn’t have the active assistance from the SACC organization. They were in a re-organization and so our forward movement sort of stopped. Two years ago, Christian Bernadotte said he’d really like to see a SACC chapter here.” The two men talked, shared information, and finally Bernadotte said, ”Maybe we can make it work this time.”

First, they looked at the profile of businesses in Ohio; who they were, where they were, what kind of products or goods they had, and whether they might be currently included in the hundreds of millions of dollars of trade going back and forth. Even more, the task force needed to find enough other healthy Swedish companies that had a strong focus here plus enough US companies that had a strong trade interest in Sweden. If they could find all those ingredients, then perhaps an SACC chapter could happen.

Miller continues, “Essentially, we had ten strong Swedish companies at the table to begin with so in one way or another, we had a core group that had enough interest to get it going. They include some significant people in the Swedish community. In Columbus, too, not just Cleveland. One of our most important Swedish support people is there.”

“Then, we started inviting people to these planning meetings, even before we had the chapter officially organized, or had a charter or anything, and pretty soon there were 25 to 30 people attending. Well, that seemed a clear indication that yes, there is interest in doing this. We’ve found, very interestingly, that there have been Swedish companies that have come into this area, and established their business or acquired a business here since we started this project, even before it’s officially going. We can’t take any credit for any more than one of those—we worked pretty hard on one of them—but the others were just business transactions that happened.”

The other thing to know about SACC is that they sponsor Entrepreneurial Days every year. Lidköping will be the site this year from August 21-23. Last year this event was held in Washington D.C., the year before that in Uppsala. Miller adds, “I think there have been 10 or 11 of these E-Days so far. This is not just another trade show, either. You know, if you’re in the machine tool business, you go to McCormick Place in Chicago every year and see hundreds and hundreds of display booths of machine tool suppliers. Well, E-Days is where Swedish and American businessmen who want to make contact for trade purposes can meet with and find each other. It’s very pointed, as opposed to a broad spectrum. The neat thing is that before you leave, you can arrange meetings with people on the other side, and SACC will organize those meetings for you.” Not only will there be three days in Lidköping, but there’s another two days tacked on to the end, which will be for stem cell and other interesting medical research held in Goteborg. It’ll be an interesting program. It always is.”

This could be very important to Cleveland, with all the medical research going on here now. Miller took a representative from BioEnterprise to Sweden two years ago, for a one-week survey. They traveled the country, visiting especially Uppsala, Malmo and Goteborg, meeting researchers and business developers in the medical and stem cell research facilities, looking for connections between BioEnterprise’s interest in developing the medical business here. This encompassed devices and other medical research here as well as what’s happening in Sweden. These were interesting connections that they hope can be developed. Best of all, is that the connection still exists between BioEnterprise and the folks over there.

So, how did he get to be the Swedish consul? He smiles, then says, “I’m appointed by the Swedish Government—the foreign ministry—and the King, Carl XVI Gustav. Why me? I’m an American of Danish ancestry. Well, the answer is that when the former Swedish consul was thinking of retiring, he was trying to help the Swedish government find somebody who might be of some assistance. We knew each other, because we were both attorneys, and I was representing several Swedish businesses here in the United States. He knew my connections and my Scandinavian background. One day, he asked me if I thought his job was interesting, and I said, yes, I did. I didn’t know, however, that he then suggested my name to the Swedish Government as his replacement. The next thing I knew, I was appointed. It wasn’t that I really wanted his job but just that I thought it was interesting. My patent came in the mail as a request. ‘Would I do this?’ It didn’t take me long to consider it, and that was 30 years ago, in 1976. And I’ve been Swedish Consul in Ohio for that long.”

“I have to say I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s put me in touch with a lot of people of more different levels and more subjects than you could imagine. It’s one of the things that’s turned out to be a life enriching experience. I really enjoy it. And, when Sweden wins the gold medal in the Olympics, I root for Sweden,” he adds with a laugh. .

“There’s no regular schedule for me to go there, I’ve been invited by the Swedish Government three times, I think, but I have gone frequently at the request of my own clients, or business development projects that I’ve organized, like the BioEnterprise trip. I had another one last year with a hospital accreditation system from Chicago that wanted appropriate contacts in Sweden. I like finding ways to work within the government, organizing contacts that are—or can be—ultimately very helpful.

“Everybody who’s connected to Sweden in any way knows someone there, from the standpoint of business or education or culture—networking, in other words. My contacts are not necessarily along narrow channels, they can be in broad channels, because I work through the government. The foreign ministry and the economic development and trade areas in government will help us find and contact the right people, whatever the subject may be.

But the consul’s participation is not limited to commerce or trade. It extends to the arts as well. And sports, too, of course. Just as American companies sponsor the Cleveland Orchestra when it tours Europe, so do Swedish companies sponsor Swedish artists who tour here. Several years ago, the then-chairman of AGA (the Swedish gas company) brought the Stockholm Philharmonic here (as part of a national tour) and they performed at Playhouse Square Center. Other notable Swedish performers we’ve seen recently are Per Tengstrand, first prize winner in the 1997 Cleveland International Piano Competition, and soprano Marin Hartelius who was Gretel in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ at Severance Hall last season, and participated in the Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Cleveland Orchestra two months ago.

Miller adds, “While some of my consular colleagues, Swedish and otherwise, are lawyers, others are investment bankers, educators or in shipping or trade. They’re a real cross-section. The Cleveland scene for international trade is very strong.. Another thing that is very little known is the size of our consulate corps right here in Cleveland. We have about 19 countries represented with consuls here. We get together once a month from September through June for a lunch meeting. Sometimes we meet at other times, too, sometimes even in July and August, but there’s at least that one meeting a month. The list includes a few retired consuls, but they’re still considered part of the consular corps. Even if they are no longer consuls from an official standpoint, we like their presence, as they usually know something of value.”

We can but hope that the other 18 consuls here in Cleveland are as energetic on behalf of their countries as Michael Miller is for Sweden. We should have known our splendid local ethnic heritage would come in handy some day!

For more information about Sweden, visit http://www.sweden.se For information about attending the official opening of the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce-Ohio on June 12, call Michael Miller’s office at (216) 621-4995. His secretary is Grace Loudenstein.

For a map of Sweden, visit: http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/se.htm

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATadelphia.net (:divend:)