For the past nine years, Mr. [Ron] Ball, 64, has been driving, working and manufacturing rubber handrails in the Shanghai area, which he has adopted as his permanent home -- along with a lake cottage in Ontario.

"This is a businessman's haven, an entrepreneurial paradise," says Mr. Ball, a lean rail of a man who scuba dives in his leisure time. "That is part of the reason I love it here: There is every imaginable opportunity." [Emphasis mine]

Few Western business people have embraced the idea of doing business in China with as much gusto as Mr. Ball. He not only built a business here, he moved a lot of his life to China--and well before the Chinese thing became trendy.

Mr. Ball makes one of the world's truly pedestrian products, and he has ridden this niche to $30-million in annual sales, making him the global leader in his narrow sector. His private company Escalator Handrail Co. (EHC) and Austrian rival Semperit AG share 80 per cent of the world market for the rubber and plastic railings that help move people up and through airports, hotels and shopping malls.

More than a decade ago, he could see that his major customers, escalator makers such as U.S.-based Otis Elevator Co., Switzerland's Schindler Elevator Corp. and Finland's Kone Corp., were moving to China for low-cost production and to exloit commercial development. He had to be close to them.

China has boomed since then, and EHC's sales are rising about 20 per cent a year, providing escalator handrails for venues that include the Guangzhou subway and a raft of Beijing shopping centres. The firm is highly profitable in China. [Emphasis mine] By reacting quickly, he says, he probably saved his business and the 307 jobs that EHC maintains around the world, including 95 in Oshawa.

"Our business timing isn't always great, but coming here turned out to be nearly perfect for us," he says, adding that "we certainly would have been locked out of about half the world market if we hadn't been here."

When told about Mr. Ball, Jim Hemerling, senior vice-president in Shanghai for Boston Consulting Group, says this is the rare case of a small to mid-sized operator who saw China's promise early and seized it. "I would say this is a guy who got it, and then took the appropriate action," he says. "There is still a huge number of companies hoping China will go away."

Ball’s company has a 48% share of the China market. That’s no misprint.

A big part of Ball's success was good timing, but it was also recognizing reality and acting on it. As the Shanghai-based consultant implies, this characteristic put Ball well ahead of peers at similarly-sized companies.