Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Seed Business Sprouts from Layoff

Photos and story by James Hill

by Gary AllenAs both a mechanical and materials engineer, Sue Berge was familiar with numbers and physics, not the intricacies of managing a business. But a December 2001 layoff from the medical facility where she worked provided the impetus to try something different and Portland Community College was right there to help. Berge, 42, is owner, operator and sole employee of Dimension Trade Company, a Scappoose-based company that imports seeds from her native China. The one-year-old company is a good fit for the wife and mother, who enjoys gardening, but had no intention of making it a vocation. "I had grown many of the Asian vegetables for our own use for quite a few years,"Berge said. "But, I was not considering quitting my job to pursue my business idea at the time. Getting laid off certainly made me think harder about the business. Especially after attempting to find a job at a time when the job market was not very good."When she decided to give the seed-importing business a try, a brother in China provided the seeds, Berge supplied the initiative and PCC kicked in with expertise in the form of a business management class, as well as a class in QuickBooks, a popular accounting program. "The QuickBooks class was really good because the instructor (Ron Liquory) not only taught how to use QuickBooks, he gave us many ideas on managing and organizing files,"Berge said. The business fills a niche Berge couldn’t find in the U.S. – providing seeds for fruits and vegetables she grew up with but was unable to find locally, such as stem lettuce, white cucumber and baby bok choy. "Missing these vegetables was the main reason I started to grow them myself for many years,"she said. Dimension Trade Company’s seeds – on sale at Fred Meyer stores and the Portland Nursery, to name just two – include something unique to seed packets, recipes on the back. "When I was working, I shared a lot of the vegetables I grew with co-workers and friends,"Berge said. "Because some vegetables are strange to them, many times I had to give the recipes with the vegetables. "I met many people (researchers) from all over the world where I worked … I always enjoyed cooking, so I discussed food a lot with these people. What I found out was that every country has simple, good ways of preparing food; that inspired a lot of my recipes."Berge came to the United States about a dozen years ago to complete her post-graduate education (she has a bachelor’s degree in material engineering and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering). While here she met and married her husband. Berge’s initiative was guided by PCC in the form of instructor Jackie Babicky. "Her class is very helpful,"Berge said. "She is very good in providing business management ideas and resources."Sherrie Kenney, an assistant seed buyer and retail sales person for Portland Nursery, sang the praises of Berge from the nursery’s Stark Street location, where they’ve been carrying Dimension Trade Company products for two seasons. "She’s a wonderful person … she’s a very down-home person,"Kenney said. She added that many of Portland Nursery’s customers are from the Asian community and recognize the fruits and vegetables as a taste of home. "They love it, because it’s stuff they can’t get anywhere else,"Kenney said.