Couple tells GB Rotary that there’s more to Kazakhstan than ‘Borat’
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

Submitted Photo Chad and Nancy Clay pose for a photo opportunity in front of the Altay Mountain range in northern Kazakhstan. The Clays spent more than two years consulting small businesses in the central asian country.

From the banks of the majestic Potomac River near Arlington, Va., to the Slavic mountain ranges of Kazakhstan, to the picturesque waters of the Gulf Coast and Gulf Breeze, Chad and Nancy Clay have traveled, honing the skills of small businesses and helping entrepreneurs reach their target markets. The Clays, who currently reside in Arlington County, Va., spent two and a half years mentoring and consulting small business owners in the central Asian country of Kazakhstan. Nancy Clay said the backward misogynist society depicted in the 2006 film “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” couldn’t be further from the truth.

“The movie gives a falsified image,” Clay said. “Women in Kazakhstan were very strong and very successful. They were not only raising children, but having successful careers as well.”

The Clays returned to the United States in late 2004 and recently visited the Gulf Breeze Rotary Club in late November to share their experiences.

“We had them come speak because their experiences are kind of unique,” said Rotarian and Nancy Clay’s father, Bill Delavan. “Kazakhstan has grown tremendously economically over the past 10 to 15 years. Their experiences there interested the Rotarians because most of us are businessmen.”

The Clays, who both previously served as surface warfare officers in the Navy, were involved with the MBA Enterprise Corps, an organization that takes recent MBA graduates from 50 of the nation’s top business schools and sends them to developing nations to serve as business consultants.

The Clays were given 10 weeks of Russian language training, after which Nancy said “We could pretty much function on our own. We spoke functional Russian and could hail a taxi and order dinner at a restaurant.”

The couple spent one year in northern Kazakhstan volunteering with the MBA Enterprise Corps with five other volunteers before relocating to the southeastern, ex-capitol city of Almaty and landing paid positions as consultants.

“If you develop a strong middle class you ensure a strong middle class,” Nancy, a Gulf Breeze High School Graduate, said. “We were there to work with small businesses, to help them with their marketing, finances and infrastructure of their companies.”

What seems obvious to many Americans who grew up in a market based economy, seems strangely foreign to citizens of the former Soviet territory, Chad explained.

“We dealt with several consultant

issues,” Chad said. “Mainly the transition from the Soviet management environment. We were trying to move them from a planned economy to a market based economy.”

Chad Clay said one important element involved in this transition was inventory management.

“In the Soviet system, inventory was more important than cash,” he said. “If you are running a factory, you never wanted to be out of product. If the state came knocking you didn’t want to be out of whatever you were making. In a market-based economy, inventory costs a lot of money. The change of mind set was a paradigm shift.”

Nancy Clay described the trip as “rewarding, yet frustrating.” She said the international business consulting process involved many “baby steps” and that one had to revel in the small victories.

“We brought in a butcher from Pennsylvania,” Clay explained. “In Kazakhstan, they don’t have specific cuts of meat, they just hack it up. Our butcher came over and taught them different cuts of meat.”

Chad Clay said he loves consulting small businesses on an international scale and plans to spend more time doing just that in Indonesia this summer.