By Jim Baer
There’s a revolution brewing in Macon, Mo. of all places. Bucking
the trend of sending information technology jobs overseas, Shane
Mayes, 34, president and CEO of Onshore Technology Services
is turning a rural setting in North Central Missouri into a
place where work can be produced strictly at home. So where
exactly is Macon, Mo. anyway?
Head west to Columbia 100 miles, then go north on US-63 (four
lanes) for 57 miles into the county seat of Macon with a population
of 6,000. Along the way you pass farm fields prepared for soy
bean and corn crops. Macon was the first city in Missouri to
develop an ethanol fuel plant.
Mayes and his wife Lisa were shopping for an osteopathic school
to accomplish her dream of completing a medical education. They
picked up stakes in St. Peters, Mo. for school and for Mayes
to start an IT business in Kirksville. They considered Michigan
and West Virginia before settling on Kirksville’s College of
Osteopathic Medicine. However, Kirksville was more bent on having
manufacturing plants and less interested in things like IT development.
Flat broke, Mayes turned to Macon, Mo. and its progressive attitude
towards rebuilding its infrastructure. Kirksville’s loss was
Macon’s net gain.
Mayes, once labeled the “prince of darkness” while working for
Elsevier in St. Louis brought a beam of new sunlight into Macon
and North Central Missouri.
Mayes started up his company, Onshore Technology Services, in
January 2006 with investments from the Macon Economic Development
Council, the State of Missouri, a little federal assistance,
and a hope and a prayer.
Two and a half years later, Onshore is a thriving company doing
global business, while creating highly-skilled, technically-based
jobs back in rural Missouri. A brain drain was killing Macon,
just like nearly all the smaller rural towns statewide.
“I believe in entrepreneurship and American values. I got this
idea of rural outsourcing and patterned it after what’s been
done in the automobile industry in America,” says Mayes. “I’m
surprised that (rural automobile manufacturing) wasn’t done
sooner,” he indicated.
He was referring to Toyota, Saturn, BMW and Honda building manufacturing
plants in small town America.
Yearly, according Macon Mayor Dale Bagley, the city will fund
the County Economic Development Commission with about $100,000
seed money to bring in projects just like Onshore Technology.
Everyone points to the same sad story. Toastmaster (they produce
the George Foreman Grills) closed everything but distribution
activities in town and moved 500 jobs offshore to China.
Nearly everyone you talk to in Macon loves the rural, laid-back
lifestyle that comes with living there. Macon boasts miles of
lake recreation and property, a park system that is supported
with grants of $1 million a year, $14 million dollars worth
of fiber optics connections for every home and business in the
community and a YMCA supported by most the locals. The city
of just 6,000 residents is staging a miraculous economic recovery.
What started out as three positions at Onshore has grown to
22. Presently, Onshore has a variety of clients ranging from
two companies in St. Louis in the financial services and transportation,
oil and gas industry. (Non-disclosure policies preclude the
naming of names.)
At the same time, Onshore does software development for the
University of Missouri-Rolla, National Diagnostics in North
Carolina, Maverick Technology, Columbia, Illinois and many others.
“Our people work on really cool projects,” boasts Mayes. Each
new project tends to be in the $200,000 range. Company billings
are in the $1 million range annually.
“We didn’t just create jobs; we create careers for our new employees.
We have freed them from their routines and gotten them off their
dependency of punching a time clock,” says Mayes. “Our workers
are doing a lot of out of the box thinking. They will stay and
work until 11 at night. We are beginning to meet the needs for
future workers in rural Missouri,” he states. While India alone
is developing upwards of 400,000 IT programmers annually, the
U.S. will produce just 75,000 to 100,000 and few in small towns.
Onshore uses a ‘boot camp’ style six- week training regimen
at the nearby Macon Vocational Technology School in order to
train programmers. Eighty percent of the graduates work for
Onshore. The training program is run by Jason Bush, principal
consultant to Onshore, and a Macon native who returned from
Kansas City to rejoin the local workforce.
Frank Withrow, Economic Development Director for Macon helped
set up Onshore with a revolving loan from the city. Withrow
pointed to Onshore being recognized by Microsoft as Gold Certified
and a company singled out for excellence in technology in the
market.
“Legislators from all over the State have taken notice of this
company,” says Withrow. U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof has visited
the company, along with staffers from Sen. Kit Bond’s office;
Greg Steinhoff, Missouri Department Director of Economic Development
and Roderick Nunn, Director, Division of Work Force Development
for the State of Missouri.
Mayes says the challenge remains much the same. “It’s still
in vogue to send IT work offshore. India and China have a taste
of capitalism and they are hungry for more. We cannot lay back
and be fat and sassy,” says Mayes.
Mayes claims that his workers are 10 times more productive than
the average workers and happy with their advancement opportunities.
They may start out in the $20,000 annual range as a trainee,
but salaries $60,000 and higher are obtainable in short order.
Mayes will spend time in St. Louis at least one week each month.
A year ago, his company hosted a “World Outsourcing Consortium”
at the Ritz Carlton in Clayton.
Mayes is a big believer in the concepts of journalist Thomas
Friedman, author of the World is Flat. Onshore’s response
to the belief the best companies are the best collaborators
was by establishing a World IT Consortium. By that, he is busy
creating a network of strategic partners who have agreed to
adopt common business practices to establish a seamless, multi-country
global sourcing solution network.
Furthermore, Mayes is working towards creating 16 rural technology
zones throughout Missouri (away from the big cities), while
moving his company forward rapidly. Mayes thinks big. “Con Agra
has 300 employees and they are the biggest employer in town.”
Someday, he’d like to top that mark. He continues pumping trainees
through his boot camp-styled training program with the aid of
Community Block Grant money for displaced rural workers. The
company is in its second physical location already (an office
park on the edge of town) and wants to build a free standing
headquarters office and training center next.
The economic winds of change have come to Macon. Smiles are
all around for those who know what Shane Mayes is trying to
accomplish these days in this progressive, yet small, community
located in North Central Missouri.
