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"We are just on the cusp of developing a new business outside the port that the port traditionally did," Richardson said.
With new clients virtually calling every day, Royal appears to have found an incredible niche on a new Silk Road, less the silk.
China has become a premier destination for U.S. wood exports, moving from eighth place in 1999 to third in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In fact, 83 percent of U.S. log exporters shipping to China now didn't do that in 1999, according to the Center for Forest Products Marketing and Management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Currently, the apex of demand appears to be centered over the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
"In the end of the first quarter of this year, migrant workers from all over the country returned to Beijing successively as soon as the Spring Festival passed in order to find stable jobs in the big [Olympics] engineering programs," according to a report by Beijing-based China Wood International Inc. Massive quantities of wood are needed for the main hall of the Olympic games, many other establishments and supporting projects, and for—not least of all—a subway system. Logs from North America "are highly demanded and sold very well," the report says.
Perhaps most revealing of all, the associate director of forest marketing and utilization for the state of Maryland couldn't be reached to comment for this story.
"Hi this is Dan Rider, I'm in China," according to voicemail. "I'll return your message [later]."
For his part, Richardson might one day enjoy his own royal treatment at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse for the herculean accomplishment of speeding logs to the mainland with spray. That's if all goes to plan.
So far, while his ideas are ingenious, his business is modest, although growing.
With sales reinvested back into expanding operations, Richardson said he's essentially breaking even. But over the last three years, revenues have grown from $3 million to $5 million to $7 million, Richardson said. They should hit $10 million this year, he said.
Furthermore, in the pest control business, profit margins are around 15 percent traditionally, Richardson said. Over next five years, Richardson expects to see double that, and he's the sole owner of the company.
If bananas are any indication of success, the company is on track for greatness, said Kevin Bradbury, a salesman with Mobile, Alabama-based Air/Sea Forwarding Specialists Inc. (and a Royal business partner).
"They added two weeks to the shelf life of bananas" because of refrigeration and spraying changes Royal made to the fruit's fumigation procedure, Bradbury said. "Royal is just so far ahead" of the competition, he said.
Richardson is much more humble, and although he has never been to the Orient, he realizes how important China is to his success.
"It looks like a large percentage of our business is going to be with China now," Richardson said.
Richardson's story certainly shows the American Dream is alive and well. But, like America's wood, its dream-realizing ingenuity is becoming an admirable veneer. While it may be grown and its bugs are worked out stateside, it's increasingly attached to an underlying support: The economic powerhouse that is China.
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