An interview with Uri Attir, the Dayton region’s trade office director
By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer, June 2010

In April, Uri Attir began his work as business development director in Israel for the Dayton Region Israel Trade Alliance, an entity of the Dayton Development Coalition and the Municipality of Haifa. The aim of this new alliance is to expand partnerships among tech and aerospace businesses in the Dayton area and Haifa region, Israel’s tech capital. Attir visited the Dayton region May 9-19 to become acquainted with the key players in the Miami Valley.

I understand you have a connection to Gert and Bob Kahn here in Dayton?
Bob and Gert’s daughter, Karen, is married to my wife’s brother.

And you’ve lived in Cleveland?
I lived in Cleveland between ‘77 and ‘81. My wife was studying nursing at Case Western Reserve and while she studied, I worked with a U.S. company, Diamond Shamrock Corporation, while I had a fellowship and finished my MBA at Case Western. When we were done with our studies, we packed and moved to Israel. From the beginning, we had plans to do it.

My wife, Sharon, is from Cleveland. I was raised in Jerusalem. My father worked for the United Nations, so a lot of the years in my youth I spent in South America and in the States, close to the U.N. Building, where my father worked for three years when I was a teenager. I’m not religious but I studied at Yeshiva University High School, so for a few years I got a good religious education in New York. In my later teen years, I returned with my family to Israel to finish high school there and go to the army.

Your background is in business development?
I came to this position after having managed three high-tech start-ups before, the latest one in water treatment technology and previous to that, two Israeli start- ups in medical devices. Before that, there was a considerable amount of time, close to 16 years, that I did a lot of matchmaking, business development type of activities, the most important of which is that I worked for eight years with the Binational U.S.-Israel R&D Fund, better known as the BIRD Foundation. This is where I got to learn and like the art of matchmaking, of finding business ties between companies, each one with different contributions to the relationship but a common bond or interest. And this is what I’m supposed to materialize here in this position.

My job has first loyalty to Haifa-based or Northern Israel-based companies. But from the point of view of the geographical boundaries, it’s actually all of Israel, with some preference to Haifa-based or northern-based companies.

Is there much competition among trade representatives?
There are only, as far as I know, two representatives for Ohio, Rick (Schottenstein) for the whole state, and myself. There are in Israel representatives of other regions in the United States — whether it’s the Atlanta region or the Virginia region or the Chicago region — which have their trade or otherwise representatives and that’s the competition. It’s not so much it is going to be between Cleveland or Dayton because Rick has enough things to serve Cleveland, he will give some of the Cleveland potentials to Dayton if there’s a real tie. But if I’m competing for an Israeli company to set its marketing offices in Atlanta or Virginia or Dayton, then it’s real competition. I’ve got to come up with good enough reasons why the Israeli company should prefer the Dayton region.

What are Dayton’s strengths?
Aerospace is definitely one of the major areas for potential interaction or cooperation but it’s not the only one. There’s also, for example, sensor technology, materials science technology, and other areas. I’m willing to take the risk and say the Dayton area, in aerospace, is a heck of a strong competitor to any other, because I know what’s in the Dayton area and that, for most Israeli companies, would be a good enough reason to listen carefully and try to set up some basis here. Dayton’s not the only one, there are other areas in the United States, but for the larger companies in Israel, it’s not necessarily (that they’re looking for) one place in the States, it’s another place in the States and it’s another major place in the states and Dayton is as good as many others out there.

We hopefully will concentrate on the midsize and established Israeli companies and the connection with Dayton to open new markets, new opportunities, new businesses to strengthen the Israeli companies and Israel.

I’m working alone in Israel, but here (in Dayton), I’ve got a wonderful staff of six people who are dedicated to give all the support to this project on this end that’s possible. That’s wonderful. Here are people who are actively involved in making this side deliver what it’s supposed to deliver. The objective is to have at least a dozen or so relationships a year that end up in tangible business relationships.