Rick Maxwell was the teacher as he hosted a Russian businesswoman at Buy Rite Market in Sun Valley.
As so often happens, the teacher learned as much as the student.
"It was interesting to see how they do business in Russia," said Maxwell, the store's manager.
"It was fun to have her around."
That's the sentiment of increasing numbers of Reno-area businesspeople as Community Connections, a program affiliated with the University of Nevada, Reno, continues to sponsor visits by businesspeople from the former Soviet Union.
Three times a year, groups of about 20 business people from Russia and neighboring republics come to Reno for visits of three to five weeks.
One group wraps up a visit this week; the next is scheduled to arrive in June.
While they're here, the Russian entrepreneurs spend time with professionals and managers at organizations ranging from fast-food restaurants to local governments.
The immediate goal, as Maxwell learned at Buy Rite Market, is to provide Russian entrepreneurs with information they can use as their homeland heads down the path to free markets.
But Debbie Chase, who organizes the Community Connections program for the Northern Nevada International Center, said the U.S.
State Department hopes for greater benefits from the $200,000 it invests in the program in Reno each year.
"We need to make friends on as many possible levels as possible," Chase
said.
So far, she said, it's working as many of the Nevada hosts stay in contact with their new-found business friends.
Community Connections works to make the visits as hassle-free as possible.
It lines up host families to provide bedrooms and a couple of meals a day.
It arranges transportation to work for the visitors.
It finds volunteers to provide some social activities.
And yes, it takes a lot of volunteers.
"The response from the community has been amazing," Chase said of the program which began in late 2001.
"Word has spread on its own."
The visiting businesspeople know enough English to get them through a day on the job, and their travel expenses are paid by the State Department.
Another program, in which groups of like-minded Russian professionals travel together to Reno and elsewhere in the United States doesn't have the same requirement for English skills.
Reno is one of 52 cities nationally chosen by the State Department to host the Russian entrepreneurs.
(Interested in hosting a Russian entrepreneur at your business? Call Chase at 784-7515; her e-mail is dchase@unr.nevada.edu.)
