(Secretary of State Reed stands with former Secretary of State Munro (left) and WTC Tacoma President/CEO Anthony Hemstad after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award.)

The World Trade Center Tacoma has honored Secretary of State Sam Reed for his long years of work on behalf of international trade and tourism to benefit the nation’s most trade-dependent state.

The center, a fast-growing member of the international network of trade centers, gave Reed its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award.   The 19th Annual Globe Awards were held in Tacoma Thursday night, with movers and shakers from the South Sound region filling the convention hall.

Former five-term Secretary of State Ralph Munro, who created the tradition of using the office for promoting two-way trade, tourism and higher education and citizen exchanges, hailed the work of his successor, who is retiring after 12 years in office.  Munro noted that Reed and his wife, Margie, have visited 28 countries as private citizens and have led privately financed trade missions to China, India, Vietnam and other counties to promote Washington products and to seek foreign investments and tourism here.

Reed said he was deeply honored by the award, as well as support from the region for expanding foreign markets and aiding the economies and citizens of importing and exporting nations.  He said he learned first-hand the importance of exports when he grew up in fruit-producing Wenatchee and later attended high school in export center Spokane and trade-savvy Washington State University in Pullman.

Reed, who recalled transformational visits to Uganda and the Russian Far East as an election observer, said he has enjoyed hosting scores of foreign delegations and high-ranking dignitaries in Washington state.  Reed said it has been his joy to “tell the story of this great state, its people and its products.”

Awards also went to The Boeing Co., the state’s largest private employer and the nation and state’s No. 1 exporter of manufactured goods, exporter of the year;  Grakon, maker of truck lights; importer of the year; Johnny’s Fine Foods, emerging business of the year for its growing export business; Access the USA, service provider of the year; and Congressman Norm Dicks, powerful ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, who is retiring after serving the longest tenure of any Washington congressman.  David Zeeck, president and publisher of the News Tribune, moderated a panel discussion on world trade with the business winners.