Laguarda.Low Architects
Urban Designers

Since its founding in 2000, Dallas-based Laguarda.Low has completed more than 20 projects in eight countries, ranging from Brazil to Poland to China. The firm, currently working on assignments in 17 countries, has offices in Beijing, Tokyo and Kiev.

Laguarda.Low beat out eight other international architectural firms for the Toyosu retail and lifestyle center in Tokyo, which opened in October 2006. The 915,000-square-foot project includes department stores, restaurants and entertainment venues.

The Toyosu design blends modern, functional shopping areas with flourishes that capture the historic character of the IHI dockyards that once stood on the site. A double-layer mesh facade mimics shipbuilding techniques. Prowlike forms frame a large public plaza that abuts the waterfront and offers stunning views of Tokyo Bay.

The company won an American Institute of Architects award for the Toyosu project's residential towers.

Geokinetics Inc.
Geophysical Services

Houston-based Geokinetics uses seismic technology to help clients in the oil and gas industry find new reserves. The company maintains offices in 18 countries, including Canada, Colombia, Brazil, Egypt and Australia.

Geokinetics used both proprietary and state-of-the-art technology to conduct three-dimensional surveys of more than 4,000 square miles around the world in 2007. The data produced computer-generated cross-sections, maps and 3D images of the subsurface.

Geokinetics specializes in surveying in difficult environments—high mountains, dense jungles, deserts, swamps, and the transition zone between land and sea.

For the Florena Pauto project in Colombia's Llanos Foothills, crews covered a vast region of high mountains, steep slopes, limited roads and environmentally sensitive areas.

After 10 months in Florena Pauto, Geokinetics provided its client with about 200 square miles of data to assist with decisions about drilling.

Methodist Healthcare System
Medical Care

San Antonio's largest provider of medical services, Methodist Healthcare extends its reach across borders by caring for patients from Mexico, Spain, Russia, Brazil, India and three dozen other countries.

With 22 San Antonio-area facilities, Methodist Healthcare offers a full range of medical specialties—obstetrics, cardiology, oncology, transplants. The system treated more than 1,500 international patients in 2007.

The international services department's multilingual staff helps foreigners with doctors' appointments, medical records and air ambulances. Concierge services lighten families' burdens by tending to their needs—from travel and accommodations to sightseeing and recreation.

In the past few years, doctors performed a bone marrow transplant on a 5-year-old girl from Pakistan and implanted a $90,000 automatic internal defibrillator in a patient from Peru. Under the disease management program, a Mexican business executive flew in for checkups every three months.

FTI Consulting
Business Advice

Working for companies and shareholders to preserve enterprise value, FTI Consulting helps clients navigate the treacherous waters of global financial, legal and regulatory issues. It has 2,400 employees in 52 offices around the world.

Enhancing the expertise of FTI advisors is proprietary technology for information management and electronic investigation that allows users to review, manage and transmit documents in more than 200 languages.

In the past year, Dallas-based consultants worked on investigations that took them to Venezuela, India, Indonesia, Russia, Dubai, Scotland, Angola, Ireland and Slovakia.

The Dallas office led the financial restructuring of a telecommunications manufacturer. FTI set up new finance and accounting systems and arranged debt financing in six countries.

“You don't have to be the corporate headquarters to take advantage of opportunities in global markets,” says Terry Orr, a senior managing director in Dallas.

Fluor Corp.
Engineering and Construction

Irving-based Fluor operates across six continents, handling large-scale projects in such countries as Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, China, Mongolia and Australia. The company's services include engineering, procurement, construction and maintenance.

Fluor often works in remote and inhospitable settings. From 2004 to 2007, its Houston office was part of a global design, logistics and construction team for an onshore oil-processing facility on Russia's Sakhalin Island, where winters bring minus-40-degree temperatures and blizzard whiteout conditions.

Some of the world's most advanced satellite-based communications linked offices in Houston, Moscow, India and South Korea to subcontractors on Sakhalin Island. On a fast-track schedule, Fluor's engineers divided the project into 36 prefabricated units, each weighing up to 1,700 metric tons. The mammoth modules could only be sent by sea.

Fluor successfully completed its work on the Sakhalin project ahead of schedule, earning the company additional business in the region.

Stanton Street
Web Developers

Even small businesses are cashing in on services exports.

El Paso's Stanton Street assembled a bilingual, bicultural and binational team to develop Internet solutions for companies. In addition to U.S. customers, the company found business across the border in Mexico.

Novamex, a food and beverage producer, hired Stanton Street to create a website featuring its products, including Jarritos soft drinks, Ibarra chocolates, Mineragua mineral water and Cholula hot sauce.

Website visitors enter a Mexican mercado without ever stepping across the border. Novamex uses Spanish and English to communicate directly with retailers serving its target market of first- and second-generation Mexican-Americans living in the U.S.

“We see growth opportunities for Stanton Street based on the fact that U.S. companies are doing more business in Mexico and Mexican companies are doing more business in the U.S.,” says President Brian Wancho.