Wayne-based wallpaper company is on a roll, around the world

John Collins and his children, owners of the Wayne-based wallpaper designer Wallquest Inc., were in Washington on Thursday, drinking mojitos and eating

arroz con pollo

with Export-Import Bank boss Fred P. Hochberg, to collect honors as the government-backed bank's Small Business Exporter of the Year.

Wallquest employs 120 at its Devon Park Drive headquarters and plant, and 30 at smaller factories in New York and New Jersey, almost double its payroll of two years ago. Foreign demand, targeted marketing, and careful use of both old and new print technology have given the industry new life, after cut-rate mass retailers nearly wiped out domestic wallpaper-makers, says vice president Jack Collins, John's son.

Wallquest sales abroad, financed by a $10 million PNC Bank working capital line partly guaranteed by Ex-Im, rose 76 percent in 2010, to more than $17 million, for buyers and brands in China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Brazil, and more than 40 other countries.

"Almost everything we sell is made by us in the United States, except for a few glass cloths and corks" used in a minority of the company's prints, Jack Collins told me.

Wallquest's Wayne works include old-fashioned rotogravure, 1800s presses that give "an almost hand-painted appearance," and modern laser printing.

John Collins, who learned the wallpaper business at the former ICI (now AstraZeneca) in Wilmington in the 1970s, bought what's now Wallquest in 1985 from a unit of France's Elf group (later Total), in a deal financed by the former Bucks County Bank.

At first the firm made its paper in Europe; it started production in Wayne after Collins' children joined the business in the 1990s. Jack's brother Brian heads sales, and sister Betsy is a saleswoman.

Carl Robinson, a third-generation wallpaper man, heads the design unit. PNC bankers Brad Weaver, Joe Zeccardi, and Jerry Hanley, who handle Wallquest accounts, joined the family in Washington for the award.

"Wallquest demonstrates the enormous opportunities awaiting small businesses that reach beyond U.S. borders, where 95 percent of the world's consumers are," Hochberg said in his prepared remarks. "We hope this innovative company's example will lead many more U.S. small businesses to tap government resources to expand globally while supporting American jobs."

Ex-Im Bank is an independent federal agency that says it helps create and maintain U.S. jobs by guaranteeing bank loans to U.S. exporters, and helps foreign firms finance purchases of U.S. industrial equipment and services.

The awards presentations were Thursday at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington.