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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick will address New England businesses about expanding their sales in foreign markets and creating U.S. jobs. The presentation will be made at a half-day interactive seminar organized by six federal agencies Oct. 6 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston.

Patrick, who was elected governor of Massachusetts in November 2006, will be a featured speaker at Exports Live! Real Deals, Real Profits, an eight-city seminar series. The meetings will share strategies and partnerships used by local small and medium-size businesses that already have discovered how to increase profitability through exporting.

The seminars will feature presentations and Q & A sessions by successful small-business exporters that have benefitted from government export services and solutions. Representatives of the government organizations providing these export services also will be on the program and available later in the day to offer one-on-one sessions.

The Boston Seminar follows one in New York on Oct. 5, and will be followed by similar sessions in Miami (Oct. 26), Houston (Oct. 27), Chicago (Nov. 10), Los Angeles (Nov. 16), Seattle (Nov. 17), and Detroit (Dec. 11). Leading the meetings will be the heads of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Although 95 percent of the world's customers are located outside of the United States, the vast majority of American companies aren't currently accessing this global market because of perceived difficulties in successfully finding and financing foreign sales, said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg. We plan to show seminar participants how to overcome these difficulties.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Patrick served as a law clerk to a federal appellate judge before joining the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. In 1986, he joined the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow and was named partner in 1990. In 1994, President Clinton appointed Patrick to serve as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Patrick returned to private practice in 1997 with the Boston firm of Day, Berry & Howard, and subsequently worked as General Counsel and in other executive positions at Texaco and then The Coca-Cola Company.

For more information and to register for the nearest Exports Live! seminar, visit www.export.gov/exports_live/ or call toll-free 1-(888) 966-2009. Please note that space is limited.

NOTE TO EDITORS: To clarify: the web site address for more information is www.export.gov/exports[underscore]live/

In other words, there is an underscore between exports and live