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PASSAGE TO INDIA THE LAST STRAW ; FASHION DESIGNER JOINED OTHERS IN LEAVING A TRADE LOSING JOBS OVERSEAS.
South Florida Sun - Sentinel; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Nov 17, 2002; Doreen Hemlock Business Writer;

Abstract:
Photo/Michael Francis McElroy CHANGE: [Cindy Wallick] relaxes at home in a sitting area she designed. The former fashion designer on the Home Shopping Network decided to change careers when asked by the network to move to India. Wallick now sells high-end real estate, using her design talents to help buyers. Photo/ Javier R. Franceschi NEW DIRECTION: Grisele Arritola is getting computer training at New Horizons Computer Learning Center to remake her life and start in a new industry after losing her job at a fabric-cutting plant because of production relocation.

Full Text:
(Copyright 2002 by the Sun-Sentinel)

South Florida fashion designer Cindy Wallick called it quits after 20 years in the apparel industry, when managers at Home Shopping Network asked her to move to India to oversee production of her popular line of women's dresses and separates in that lower- cost nation.

The single mother of three now puts her talents to work selling real estate in Fort Lauderdale and helping clients redesign their homes: knocking down a wall here, adding a new bathroom there or sprucing up a drab living room with ethnic fabrics and colorful paints.

She's one of thousands in South Florida remaking their lives after most garment production and fabric-cutting operations moved offshore in the 1990s, often nearby to the Caribbean and Central America.

Wallick's C-Wall Designs once created jobs in South Florida for more than 200 people -- mainly in Hialeah -- cutting fabrics, sewing garments, packing and shipping them. She sold the clothes under a private label on TV, sending out as many as 25,000 units per month.

But as competition stiffened, Wallick saw her profits shrink, falling to perhaps $2 for each $80 set -- leaving her slim rewards for lots of work and stress. When new managers at Home Shopping Network asked her to move to India two years ago to be closer to the source of her fabrics and further cut costs by producing there, she'd had it. She closed up shop.

"I'm grateful to be out of the apparel industry. It was beating me down to the ground. Now, I have my passion back," said Wallick, who works with ReMax Consultants Realty in Fort Lauderdale.

Adapting has proved far more difficult, however, for Cuba-born Grisele Arritola, who lost her $8-an-hour office job at an apparel company near Miami International Airport last year, when its fabric- cutting and administrative operations shifted to the Dominican Republic.

Arritola earned her college degree in economics in Cuba and had worked in a Havana office. But she moved to South Florida six years ago seeking better opportunities. She landed a job packing garments and then, advanced to the factory office -- pleased to earn $8 an hour, frequent overtime pay and health insurance in her new homeland.

Now, after months searching unsuccessfully for work, Arritola is taking computer courses and studying English under a special government program that helps employees displaced by shifts in trade. She takes home a fraction of her former pay -- too little to cover the costs of health insurance for herself and her 19-month- old daughter.

"I'm scared to get sick," Arritola said. "And I'm worried I might not find a job when school is over and benefits run out under this program. There are so many people looking for work in South Florida today."

Even those who have managed to stay in apparel have been forced in many cases to switch focus from working for a single employer to servicing many garment companies.

Mark Levey had been running computer systems for velour maker Niki-Lu in Miami in the 1980s, when he saw a chance to strike out on his own and help apparel companies needing to modernize.

Levey and two partners parlayed their skills into a small business that provides software and related services for apparel firms, now that online ordering, inventory control and other automated functions are considered essential to an industry that is far-flung, cutthroat and fast-changing.

Today, Accelerated Computer Technologies Inc. of Fort Lauderdale employs nearly 30 people in its South Florida, New York and Dominican Republic offices, posting revenues of about $2 million a year, said Executive Vice President Brian Javeline.

Their newest focus: "NearShore Outsourcing," offering U.S. clients a lower-cost alternative by blending the work of U.S. programmers and other computer specialists with those in less expensive and nearby Dominican Republic.

"Weakness in one area of the economy," said Javeline, "is an opportunity for the next person to survive and prosper."

Doreen Hemlock can be reached at dhemlock@sun-sentinel.com or 305- 810-5009.

[Illustration]
PHOTOS 2; Caption: Photo/Michael Francis McElroy CHANGE: Cindy Wallick relaxes at home in a sitting area she designed. The former fashion designer on the Home Shopping Network decided to change careers when asked by the network to move to India. Wallick now sells high-end real estate, using her design talents to help buyers. Photo/ Javier R. Franceschi NEW DIRECTION: Grisele Arritola is getting computer training at New Horizons Computer Learning Center to remake her life and start in a new industry after losing her job at a fabric-cutting plant because of production relocation.

Sub Title: [Broward Metro Edition]
Start Page: 10H
Companies: Home Shopping Network IncTicker:HSNDuns:07-690-2113Sic:513210Sic:454110Sic:4841Sic:5961Sic:513210Sic:454110Sic:4841Sic:5961Duns:07-690-2113

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