by: Brett Sporich

Walnut-Most successful entrepreneurs operate on a simple philosophy- find a need in the marketplace and satisfy it for a profit. Tom Chung, president of Walnut-based Tri-Net Technology Inc., has done just that. Chung, a native of Taiwan, has made a bundle recently by helping foreign businesses set up shop in the computer age, when there's a need to link personal computers together so they can communicate as a network.

Tri-Net, aka TNT sells the cable and accessories needed to make that linkage possible, forming a network that can interact. Such networks are called LANs, or "local area networks," and nearly every business that has more than a handful of employees working on PCs requires some form of network. With an initial investment of $100,000, Chung set up shop in a modest Walnut business park. In its first year, TNT grossed $900,000 in sales, selling mostly to the domestic market. By its second year, gross sales topped $1.2 million. And by its third year, sales hit nearly $3 million in export business alone, bringing TNT's total sales to more than $6 million, Chung said.

That success is what prompted the Los Angeles District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration to name Chung "Exporter of the Year." He'll be picking up his award next month at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Chung said that a number of factors have helped boost international sales: the fact that the United States is a high-tech industry leader, a burgeoning economy throughout Asian countries, foreign government trade agreements that favor U.S. suppliers, lower international telephone rates in the U.S., and a weaker dollar overseas.

It's probably Chung's unique background and sense of timing that has propelled TNT forward so far, so fast. "I came late to this market," Chung said. "So, I knew that I needed to spend my time and effort in other countries where they're just beginning to develop networks." Chung's goal is to eventually have a distributor in every nation around the globe. Today, he's well on his way, with distributors throughout the Pacific Rim, Europe, Russia, and to a much smaller extent, South America. Besides his past experience selling telecommunications equipment in the U.S. for a Taiwanese firm, Chung has a computer science degree. Chung is able to offer distributors both marketing and product know-how.