The Money Trail

Mark Kreisel thought he had it made. His company, Tradewinds Engine Services, was doing nicely. Since its founding in 1996, sales for the Coconut Creek, Fla., aircraft-engine refurbisher had ramped up smartly. By 2001, Kreisel added a handful of employees and expanded business services, and the company outgrew its 7,000-square-foot facility. To keep the business purring during cash-flow gaps, he had two lines of credit from a large, nationally recognized bank: one based on Tradewinds’ assets; the other, on foreign receivables insured by the U.S. Export-Import Bank of the United States.