Based in Spokane, Washington, Keith Scribner, thru Scribner Investment Companies, has overseen dozens of numerous commercial developments in the local area. An avid traveler, Keith Scribner has had the opportunity to visit locales beyond Spokane such as Greece and Italy, as well as Croatia, a country with a lengthy coastline on the Adriatic Sea.

Occupied by a people known as the Illyrians starting around 1200 BC, Croatia inhabits the Balkan Peninsula and was colonized by the ancient Greeks from the fourth century BC on. Maritime traders from Syracuse, a Greek port in what is today Sicily, founded a colony at Issa (present-day Vis), and followed this with settlements in Tragurion (Trogir) and Paros (Hvar). While these port cities did successfully trade with the Illyrians in commodities such as metals, wine, salt, and olive oil, there were simmering hostilities.

By the third century BC, the Illyrians were actively seeking to create an independent state once again, which triggered skirmishes. In 229 BC Greeks requested assistance from the Romans in countering a growing lawlessness. Unfortunately, a Roman contingent sent to negotiate a peace settlement was executed by the Illyrian Queen Teuta, which sparked a full blown war. Only after 60 years of intermittent fighting was a peace settlement arranged, creating Illyricum as a Roman province.

By the early years of the first millennia, interior lands had also been annexed by Emperor Tiberius, with the region split into three provinces: Noricum (northern Croatia and southern Austria), Pannonia (present day Hungary), and Dalmatia (Adriatic seacoast). The fortresses, and the road and city building that accompanied this effort, set the groundwork for the modern infrastructure now to be found in Croatia. Numerous remnants of this era in trade and commerce exist underwater between Pula and Cavtat, including amphorae, which were used in storing and transporting products of wine, oil, perfume, and wheat.