By Catherine Cuellar, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Catherine Cuellar, KERA 90.1 reporter: Ted Enloe has shifted with the tide of employment over the last decade. After serving as founding director and interim CEO at Compaq computer in Houston, he took early retirement. In 1999, he was lured back to employment by an Austin-based startup.
Ted Enloe, CEO, OPTI Soft: When I got there, I think the grand total of revenue was $49,000. And it had spent $60 million developing a product for which it had no customers. And it was losing $1,600,000 a month. And it only had $27 million in cash left when I got there, so it was going to go out of business. My view is that if you end up with a company that survives, then whatever the number of jobs are, then you're providing a career for those people rather than just let the company go bust. And then everybody loses their job and the investors lose all their money.
Cuellar: So Enloe had no choice. He had to lay people off.
Enloe: Don't take this the wrong way, and I don't say it lightly, 'cause it is an emotional decision. Nobody likes to terminate people, and particularly qualified people. But a lot of the downsizing was caused by oversizing [laughs]. And in many instances it was driven by too much investment money creating too many firms going after the same markets.
Cuellar: Even employees who survived the boom and bust of the late '90s now face another challenge - international competition. It's nothing new. First, manufacturing moved abroad. Now, tech jobs have followed suit. Ron Robinson, of the Metroplex Technology Business Council, sees globalization as a catalyst for a new kind of economy.
Ron Robinson, President and CEO, Metroplex Technology Business Council: I am amazed at technology companies who start up today and have 6, 7, 8, 10 employees and are already global companies. I think the platform created by Internet and a variety of other communications media has just made it much easier to be a global company today. Right now, 76% of all companies we talk to are involved globally. They're buying components from somewhere in the globe, putting 'em together maybe somewhere else or in the U.S., and selling them globally. That is an enormous shift. When you say 'the Telecom Corridor' today, it is a veritable United Nations of people.
Cuellar: But programmer Kevin Searle in Dallas thinks the post-Y2K economy, compounded by international outsourcing, puts him at a disadvantage. Since late 2001, Searle has struggled to find contract work, going as long as six months between jobs. His hamster and roommate's cat watch as he works in a corner of his bedroom, which looks more like a dorm than a high-tech office.
Kevin Searle, freelance programmer: I just have a DSL connection, and I have two computers, one server. One LINUX server that I run and test everything on, develop everything, and then just my laptop, which I do take to client sites.
Cuellar: He's currently the sole U.S.-based contractor working with an Indian supervisor in Irving and a team of programmers overseas.
Searle: If I were to retrain into another field, I don't know if that would be safe either from competition. I don't feel I can even compete with someone in a country that they can live cheaper. I just don't feel like I can compete at all really.
Cuellar: Searle is already under-employed and doesn't expect that to change, but would like to stay here. The city of Richardson, which houses the telecom corridor, is working hard to keep people like Searle here. Gary Slagel has been mayor of Richardson since 1991. He thinks ex-telecom workers can stay in North Texas and compete internationally.
Gary Slagel, Mayor of Richardson: It's been a negative thing in that it's taken jobs away. At the same time, the companies who can take advantage of it have benefited. Now, what does that mean to the worker? Well, in some cases that means that workers are just being replaced. In other cases it means that the workers are working on the next generation solution products, whatever it might be. This country has been a leader in innovation. The fact that there are lower-cost resources in other parts of the world to do product development for current products can mean it frees up resources in the U.S. to be able to do research.
Cuellar: Allister Westgarth is CEO of Navini Networks in Richardson. His company, which provides high-speed wireless broadband access, has a third of its clients in North America, a third in Asia, and a third in Europe.
Allister Westgarth, CEO, Navini Networks: There's a fundamental reality that if you're going to deal with markets outside of North America, you cannot be based 100% in North America. Your customers will demand that you have facilities located elsewhere. We constantly get told that we're too North American. It's hard to say whether we'd be as effective if we didn't have the facilities in places like India and China. What I do know - that allows us to be more competitive. And if we're more competitive, that means we can grow and produce more opportunities and jobs for everybody in all areas.
Cuellar: A robust telecom industry still won't employ as many people locally as it did during the late '90s. Former tech executives are leveraging their experience as entrepreneurs, creating a variety of new jobs on a smaller scale. Ted Enloe, who once oversaw Compaq's 90,000 people in 125 countries, now works in the corridor with 30 employees. His new company OPTI Soft isn't telecom-related. Enloe thinks it's unfair to condemn businesses like his for subcontracting jobs, whether it's to domestic or international companies.
Enloe: There's nothing inherently wrong at all in outsourcing. It's the inevitable prospect of globalization and you make a judgment. It's not just price-driven, it's quality and deliverability and a lot of other factors.
Cuellar: Enloe's company is creating scores of jobs, they just happen to be outside his office. Whether he's using an Oklahoma-based payroll company or foreign-owned Tennessee manufacturer, his Richardson company has embraced the efficiency outsourcing allows. That approach is breathing new life and diversity into the telecom corridor. For KERA 90.1, I'm Catherine Cuellar.
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