My name is Greg Sieminski
I am one of the owners
and I'm Eve Sieminski, also a co-owner at Iron Fist Brewing 
We started our production in 2010, so right now we are in business three and a half years
We started from our hobby, which was our home brewing
It was four years before we opened a commercial business
Really, what drove us to go into commercial production
rather than just keep it at a home brew level is
the fact that right around that time where they were getting really good at their home brewing,
the economy took a complete nosedive
Our personal businesses which, we were both self-employed, took a 75% hit
and we had some savings, we had a nice big home equity line,
and we said, "We're either gonna do this now, or we're never gonna do this."
We've been exporting to many different countries
our first country we went into was Hong Kong, China
which was wonderful
we won Best Beer in Hong Kong
kind of helped the ball get a little faster rolling in that way
 
We were so proud of that, and so we started...Greg and Eve really started
trying to get more countries involved and seeing what the opportunities would be for us
in exporting our products to everywhere
We've done Sweden, Norway, Finland
Our biggest shipment so far has been to Sweden
they took a full container's worth of beer
three different brands of our beer over into three countries
We also send our product to Canada
Mexico
and we are ready to ship two pallets to Australia
We found out about Carrie Brooks and the U.S. Commercial Service about a year and a half ago
at a San Diego Brewers Guild meeting
She did a speech for all of the Guild members
really, we thought it was gonna be a good match for Iron Fist
so the next day we came right back with all of our notes
and told Greg and Eve, the owners, about what a great opportunity we thought it would be for us
Exporting has allowed us to definitely hire more people
and create more jobs
We had at least two full-time positions that have been created
as a result of our growing demand internationally
so it's definitely good for the health of our business and just the fact that we get to create more jobs in the community
I absolutely loved working with Carrie Brooks and the Commercial Services because 
it made that transition into exporting pretty much seamless
and easy, and something that I really was a little bit afraid of
to tell you the truth, when Mike and Melody came and told us about what they had heard
at the Guild meeting, I was a little apprehensive, just because of all the red tape that is involved
in international shipping, but she made it very easy
