Ezio and Rebecca Valentini are taking a page from the history books to help companies do more business among themselves in today's challenging economy.
The couple spent the better part of the past decade figuring how to develop a trade cooperative in which member companies issue their own electronic form of money in transactions with one another. It is a system modeled after the successful Swiss business cooperative WIR, which was started in 1934 during the depths of the Great Depression, and today has more than 62,000 members.
They think they've got it right, and their Reno-based American Trade Co-operative is gearing up its sales effort.
The company has hired its first seven sales people, and the owners say it's possible that American Trade Co-operative could employ as many as 250 people within the next 24 months. They're already scouting office locations to house call centers.
"We are a sales and marketing company," says Rebecca Valentini.
The Hawk Group, the privately owned parent of American Trade Co-operative, operated call centers for 20 years, ran a time-share marketing company that had an office in South Lake Tahoe and developed residential and mixed-use projects in the West.
After selling those companies, the Valentinis began development of the trade company.
The American Trade Co-operative seeks to create a network of business that do business with one another for a combination of U.S. dollars and private money " so-called "AT dollars."
When a business signs up, it provides American Trade Co-operative with lists of customers and vendors that might also want to do business in AT dollars as a way of preserving their own cash. (Transactions conducted in the AT currency are just as taxable as sales that involve traditional U.S. dollars.)
American Trade Co-operative jump-starts the process by providing lines of credit in AT dollars that are secured by personal and corporate guarantees from participating companies. The borrowings of AT dollars are repaid as participating companies generate revenues through the American Trade Co-operative network.
The Valentinis take their cut through a $500 sign-up fee from a new business member, transaction fees that typically run about 3 percent, monthly administrative fees to handle the paperwork and the interest they collect on the ATS-dollar credit lines.
Those revenues could be substantial for The Hawk Group.
The Valentinis project 1,500 members in the trade group in northern Nevada by 2013, and they project the regional system could be handling $480 million a year in business-to-business sales in less than five years.
Right now, membership is far more modest " fewer than 20 companies.
Ezio Valentini notes that the value of the network depends in large measure on the number of participating companies. The more options that members have for buying and selling to one another with ATS dollars, the more likely they are to regularly utilize the network.
In an effort to get membership numbers up quickly, the Valentinis are working to win the support of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce as well as the Northern Nevada Development Authority in Carson City. Rob Hooper, executive director of the development authority, sits on the advisory board of American Trade Co-operative.
Membership is limited to companies in six sectors " retail, manufacturing, construction, hospitality, professional services and real estate.
And the participating companies need to be credit-worthy " they'll be borrowing AT dollars " and profitable.
The Valentinis pitch the network as a way to get unused capacity in the northern Nevada economy back into operation during a time when many potential buyers of business merchandise and services are short on cash.
Ultimately, Ezio Valentini hopes American Trade Co-operative can launch its own banking services. That would follow the model of the company's Swiss model, WIRBank, which added a bank in 1990 to serve its business members in the European nation.
The Valentinis each own 50 percent of American Trade-cooperative. So far, the business has been entirely self-funded by its owners.