North Dakota's biggest and most visible manufacturing company is now being run in part by a man who walked across South Korea for vacation.

That's Yongmann Park, chief executive officer of Doosan Infracore, which purchased North-Dakota based Bobcat in December 2007. The $4.9 billion deal was the largest overseas acquisition in South Korean history.

Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple and Susan Geib, head of the state's Trade Office, sat down with the chair of Bobcat's new Korean-based parent company during the Trade Office's recent mission to South Korea.

Park has visited the Bobcat plants in both Gwinner and Bismarck once since the purchase; this is the first time the Trade Office and delegates have visited South Korea. Park and the company have consistently expressed commitment to North Dakota, and this trip confirmed that.

More over, it also gave Dalrymple and others a chance to sit and chat with the future of Bobcat.

"This guy sat down and said, 'I want you to call me YM,'" Dalrymple said, noting Park's candor. They discussed his hobbies, which are hiking, photography and visiting and talking with people in small towns.

Dalrymple described Doosan's corporate philosophy as people-oriented; Geib said the most interesting thing that came out of the meetings was Doosan's desire to send Korean students to North Dakota, to study and intern at Bobcat.

Most notable, perhaps, was the company's commitment to closely look at a Bismarck city proposal to create a supply center at the Northern Plains Commerce Centre; the center could bring suppliers for Bobcats all in one place, cutting down on transportation costs and making the process more efficient. Details on the center proposal have not been released.

Dalrymple said the head of Doosan Infracore International agreed to personally review the proposal himself.

Jeremy Bauer, who works in the Bismarck Bobcat plant, said workers there have no concerns or issues with Doosan thus far.

"So far, nothing has changed," he said. "We're comfortable. Our bigger concern right now is the economy. Things are slowing down a bit. Other than that, we haven't seen or heard anything from Doosan."

Dalrymple said Park may return to spend more time in North Dakota.

Beyond the meetings with Doosan, delegates on the trade mission swam through about 200 meetings, which resulted in significant business relationships, Geib said.

A recent survey completed by the delegates showed that 25 percent of them established new distributorships; Geib said the number is low because not all delegates were looking for new distributors. She added that delegates believe $8.5 million of initial sales were a result from the mission.

"I think we were all pleasantly surprised," she said. "The Koreans were natural traders. They're good business people, highly educated. They move fast, they work fast, they are surrounded by technology."

In fact, not all of the delegates were there looking just for business. Thy Yang, director for Dickinson State University's Multicultural Center, visited five university campuses and discussed ways to host Korean exchange students.

"These universities found they can get very high quality students to come to North Dakota," she said.

Future missions could include visits to the Middle East or South America, Dalrymple said. But for now, they will continue to develop the relationships established in South Korea; for example, Dalrymple met with executives at Hanjin Shipping to discuss better container service. That company has now committed to sending more containers over to the United States.

"That type of thing you can only do really when you get in their office and meet them face to face," Dalrymple said.

(Reach reporter Crystal R. Reid at 250-8261 or at crystal.reid@bismarcktribune.com.)