Tactical Medical Solutions Inc. (TacMed) in Anderson, South Carolina, has been named New Exporter of the Year by the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM). TacMed will accept the award at  EXIM's 2018 Annual Conference, which is being held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., on April 19-20.

TacMed, which exports medical equipment and supplies, has used EXIM's export credit insurance to average an impressive $400,000 in export sales per year for the past three years.

"EXIM is honored to support and to recognize the success of one of our newer customers, TacMed, which is not only veteran-owned but also engaged in humanitarian efforts abroad. EXIM's short-term insurance helps small businesses such as TacMed to expand their exports by taking the risk and the worry out of sales to creditworthy international buyers," said EXIM Senior Vice President of Small Business James Burrows.

"EXIM has been instrumental in TacMed's international expansion. The ability to mitigate the risk associated with exporting at such a low cost is a powerful tool for a small business," said TacMed CEO Ross Johnson.

As a Special Forces medic for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, Ross Johnson came to understand the needs of medical and emergency response personnel first-hand. After returning to civilian life, he decided that he would make it his mission to create more effective, compact, and lightweight lifesaving equipment. In pursuit of this goal, he founded TacMed in 2003. Today, Johnson and his team, many of whom are also U.S. military veterans, work tirelessly to support lifesaving, rescue and hospital missions around the world.

To export to customers in riskier or more complicated markets, including Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, Johnson turned to EXIM. Through its short-term export credit insurance, EXIM empowers TacMed to offer internationally competitive credit terms to overseas buyers and to protect the company's insured foreign receivables from nonpayment. This offering of "open account" credit terms does not require cash in advance. It enables TacMed's international partners to carry more inventory, which saves lives by improving delivery times to the end users.

EXIM Bank's support of TacMed is one of many EXIM-supported South Carolina success stories. Over the past five years, EXIM has supported some $4 billion of South Carolina exports through approximately $800 million in authorizations (a ratio of more than four to one) sourced from about 60 South Carolina businesses, 59 percent of which were small businesses, including eight minority-owned and five women-owned businesses.