Bring it on home: A conversation with Jamie Daniel

Jamie Daniel served eight years in the U.S. military before coming home, anxious to use his $40,000 GI bill to take him beyond his computer programming degree. Frustration set in quickly as he and some likeminded service buddies found they couldn't use the funds to get the education they were after--the latest and hottest training being offered by leading-edge companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and Red Hat. So Daniel started his own company, Blade Technology, two years ago and began offering technical support services and application development for small to large businesses. There, a new frustration set in as he came face to face with the modern specter of offshore outsourcing. This led to his hosting a Web site called BringIThome.us. Telephony's Tim McElligott talks to CEO Daniel about his challenge to corporate America.

 

Q: What led to the creation of BringIThome.us?

A: Before I started my own company, when me and some guys that worked with me did get three or four thousand dollars together to go to school, we noticed all these people taking classes who were from overseas and whose governments or their support groups here in the U.S. were paying for them. It seemed we were training everyone else but Americans. I knew they were going to take all this technology back to their country where labor is cheaper, and before you know it, IBM moves 4700 jobs overseas. I was looking at college money I couldn't use, at corporate America who is offshoring, at staffing companies in the U.S. not supporting those people who supported them for so long.

Now I know we need to have foreign trade; I'm not against that. But we're having a problem placing our own people. After the towers got hit, our Congress stood on the steps and sang "America the Beautiful," but where is their patriotism now? Where are the American flags? Where is supporting the workers? Politicians throughout history have said, "A chicken in every pot." Well, where's the new deal?

I've tried to call my congressmen. I've tried to let them know. Now, well, I've had enough. So I put up the Web site and I'm going to tell every politician out there--Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green Party, I don't care--put up or shut up.

Q: Have you gotten much of a response?

A: The politicians are still trying to get over the caucuses, but there are people overseas who have put up their own Web sites, like H1B visa sites or foreign worker sites. They think I'm a Nazi. It's funny how someone who is trying to bring jobs home and employ Americans is a Nazi. That's cute. I was in the military for eight years. I am a card-carrying capitalist pig, warmonger Republican. I am into free-market trade, but you know what? There is a time you have to stand up and do something.

We're just going to be end users soon. Back in the 70s, when we had the oil embargo, OPEC could say they were going to limit production to two million barrels a day and the Exxon [station] down the street goes up 15 cents in three days. Who is in charge of your economy at that point? And I mean for the local guy, the guy that cuts your hair, bags your groceries and pumps your gas--guys who need it the most.

Q: One of your missions is to revitalize rural communities in places like Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Why there?

A: They have spent so many years developing their infrastructure, and without corporate money. They did it through taxes and their vision of the future. If it is so easy for a Dell to take a call center half way across the world to Bangladesh, why can't they take it to Beckley, West Virginia?

In West Virginia they closed the coalmines because of the environment. Now I love the environment as much as anyone else does. I want to see deer and I want my kids to be able to ride outside on their bicycles. But you don't just haphazardly cut things. If the elected officials who wanted to close the coalmines in West Virginia would have had a retraining plan like President Bush talked about this week 10 years ago, where would we be now?

In West Virginia, coal miners go to work sick. They go underground with pneumonia and broken feet and when they come out after 20 years their bodies are shot. But they're still worried about working. You have in rural America dedicated, responsible, hard working people that are begging for jobs. It seems like the only thing they want people from West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee to do is pick tobacco or go under the ground and dig some rocks. There are very intelligent people from West Virginia. In fact, Cisco CEO John Chambers is a graduate of West Virginia University. I sent him a letter challenging him to put up or shut up and bring business to West Virginia. People there might have funny accents, but at least when someone says, "My name is Billy Bob," they're probably telling the truth.

Q: What about the money companies save by taking work offshore?

A: I understand that as you're coming out of a recession you need to minimize expenses, but what companies don't understand is the more we rely on overseas services, we will wind up in the same position we did with OPEC and someone else will gauge how much data they let in and out. You know how the Democrats say we flew into Iraq to rescue the oil? What will they say when, in 10 or 15 years, we have to drop an army into another country to rescue hard drives? Come on.