HuffPost Innovators Series: Audimated, Rural America Onshore Outsourcing, Groundlink (PHOTOS)

In our latest edition of the HuffPost Innovators Series, we've highlighted a company that's bringing sustainability to the denim market, a startup that hopes to be the Expedia of ground transportation and one firm that has a particularly interesting take on the problem of globalization. Rural America Onshore Outsourcing hopes to convince the business world that workers from rural America can be as cost effective -- and high-performing -- as their counterparts overseas.

The firm works as a placement agency for IT, marketing and design workers, giving companies that offshore an "alternative in their own rural backyard," says CEO Christopher Hytry Derrington.

(Check out previous editions of our HuffPost Innovators Series here, here and here.)

To submit an innovative entrepreneur, startup or established company, click "ADD A SLIDE" below and upload a short description and picture of the founder or business leader you'd like to nominate. (Note: Please skip the marketing jargon and keep your descriptions short.) If your story is compelling, a HuffPost staffer will contact you to learn more about your story.

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Know an innovative startup, entrepreneur or an established company that's changing the way we think about business? Tell us how you're innovating! Let us hear from you!

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Rural America Onshore Outsourcing: A Bulwark Against Losing American Jobs

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Number of Employees: 600+ Based In: Two Rivers, Wisconsin Founded: August, 2008 Funded By: Self-funded Five-Year Plan: Expand to all 50 U.S. states. A growing number of U.S. companies are saying goodbye to Bangalore, India and hello to America’s boondocks. Firms that previously outsourced work to cheap job markets in foreign countries are increasingly finding they can save almost as much money hiring Americans in rural towns. "It's really a win-win situation. The person in Dodge, Kansas is making more money on average than his neighbors and the U.S. companies are now getting services performed for them at close to offshore rates," says Christopher Hytry Derrington (pictured), CEO of Rural America Onshore Outsourcing. Rural America connects U.S. workers who live in regions with low living costs and low wages with companies that outsource IT, marketing and design projects. Derrington says they provide “American talent who are used to thinking and operating like Americans" at costs that are 25 percent to 40 percent less than the cost of employees based in U.S. cities, and typically just 17 percent more than the cost of overseas workers. About two years ago, Derrington was the CEO of a cash-strapped start-up that "had to offshore to India not once, but twice -- both times with dismal results." For a number of reasons, including communication differences and sub-par project management at the overseas firms, the work he sent to India was not getting done on time or within budget. Then, on a personal trip to rural Wisconsin, Derrington discovered he could hire entry-level IT workers in the region for just 20 percent more than the workers he employed overseas. That discovery ultimately lead to him starting Rural America. Now, his firm gives U.S. companies that can't afford the high cost of labor in America's metropolitan areas, and are dissatisfied with their overseas resources, “an alternative in their own rural backyard.” -- Nathaniel Cahners Hindman, Huffington Post Submitted by HuffPost User Wendy Kalman Hersh:
"Rural America OnShore Outsourcing serves as a resource for companies looking to outsource functions they can’t or won’t tackle in-house. Thanks to technology and a unique business model, co-Founder and CEO Christopher Hytry Derrington was able to create a company that can give each client the people best suited for the job at hand, regardless of where they are based."

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Number of Employees: 600+
Based In: Two Rivers, Wisconsin
Founded: August, 2008
Funded By: Self-funded
Five-Year Plan: Expand to all 50 U.S. states.


A growing number of U.S. companies are saying goodbye to Bangalore, India and hello to America’s boondocks.

Firms that previously outsourced work to cheap job markets in foreign countries are increasingly finding they can save almost as much money hiring Americans in rural towns.

"It's really a win-win situation. The person in Dodge, Kansas is making more money on average than his neighbors and the U.S. companies are now getting services performed for them at close to offshore rates," says Christopher Hytry Derrington (pictured), CEO of Rural America Onshore Outsourcing.

Rural America connects U.S. workers who live in regions with low living costs and low wages with companies that outsource IT, marketing and design projects. Derrington says they provide “American talent who are used to thinking and operating like Americans" at costs that are 25 percent to 40 percent less than the cost of employees based in U.S. cities, and typically just 17 percent more than the cost of overseas workers.

About two years ago, Derrington was the CEO of a cash-strapped start-up that "had to offshore to India not once, but twice -- both times with dismal results." For a number of reasons, including communication differences and sub-par project management at the overseas firms, the work he sent to India was not getting done on time or within budget. Then, on a personal trip to rural Wisconsin, Derrington discovered he could hire entry-level IT workers in the region for just 20 percent more than the workers he employed overseas.

That discovery ultimately lead to him starting Rural America. Now, his firm gives U.S. companies that can't afford the high cost of labor in America's metropolitan areas, and are dissatisfied with their overseas resources, “an alternative in their own rural backyard.” -- Nathaniel Cahners Hindman, Huffington Post


Submitted by HuffPost User Wendy Kalman Hersh:
"Rural America OnShore Outsourcing serves as a resource for companies looking to outsource functions they can’t or won’t tackle in-house. Thanks... more

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Comments

[Aryan Kuber]

12:48 PM on 09/01/2010

@ Wendy Kalman Hersh
It's Bangalore, not Bangladore. This is so typical of your 'rural american' education. You have trouble spelling a city correctly, and you write a whole article about a company that provides 'rural talent' to perform IT work. Thank you Wendy for proving what kind of 'talent' rural america produces = Crappy schools that don't teach kids how to spell correctly.

[Wendy Kalman Hersh]

01:12 AM on 09/02/2010

@Aryan Kuber I apologize for my typo. BTW, it's America, not america...and I was raised in suburbia. One typo by a person submitting a company as innovative does not equal all IT professionals in rural areas as having suffered from crappy education. Do you know what inductive fallacies, or false generalizations, are? They are arguments that improperly move from specific instances to general rules...

[Aryan Kuber]

12:47 PM on 09/01/2010

@ Wendy Kalman Hersh
It's Bangalore, not Bangladore. This is so typical of your 'rural american' education. You have trouble spelling a city correctly, and you write a whole article about a company that provides 'rural talent' to perform IT work. Thank you Wendy for proving what kind of 'talent' rural america produces = Crappy schools that don't teach kids how to spell correctly. I won't be surprised if you write an article for your Zionist campaign with Jerusalem spelled as 'Jew-slum'. Rural America is good at milking cows and making burritos and that's precisely what they should stick to.

[stape45]

10:11 PM on 08/22/2010

If it is truly good for America, the Anti-American elite that has been running the show for thee decades, is working on a way to squash it already.

[kdallas999]

08:00 PM on 08/22/2010

This is a fantastic idea! It's a win-win-win and I appreciate the efforts I'm sure Rural America has gone through in order to open up this market. It is innovative ideas that will bring us out of the funk our country is in.

I'm so sorry that commenters have chosen to use this recognition as an opportunity to politically polarize.

You're getting US citizens jobs doing what they want to do, living where they want to live. Nice work - congratulations.

[Kathy McNulty]

03:24 PM on 08/22/2010

WHY THE ECONOMIC RECESSION CONTINUES: Spending for and/or by the generation known as the "Baby Boomers" has been the driving force behind our economy for decades. The current economic downturn has hit this group harder than other sectors. These people are too young to retire plus they can't because they don't yet qualify for social security and their savings have been decimated. It is proving to be harder for them to find work because their skills are not in the areas that are hiring plus they aren't fluent with the new social media tools that businesses are embracing. The economy will continue to be sluggish until the Boomers find new jobs.

[Loraine Wells]

02:53 PM on 08/22/2010

Rural America Onshore is yet another scam. Have a look at their website and you can clearly see that half of their team members are Asians. Their co-founder himself is an Asian. So much for 'bringing jobs back to America'.
The company claims to have 600 employees, and yet their team page lists only a handful. I suppose they are including the number of people applying for their posted jobs into their 'employed fold'. How lame.

[christopherHD]

03:55 PM on 08/22/2010

Interesting cheap shot comments which should be addressed.

Two of the management listed are first generation AMERICAN citizens who happen to be Asian-Indians AMERICANS; this does not make us an Indian company. All of us at open point or another had family members as immigrants; these folk are the beginning of their families USA history.

Yes, we need to put more of the Team on the website. Its voluntary, not mandatory. the 600 includes full time, part time, on call Team members. We are recruiting in 19 states, so our database of talent exceeds this number.

[Loraine Wells]

11:48 PM on 08/22/2010

The first-generation Asians you mention obviously immigrated to the US through an H1-B visa program originally, something that your company opposes in order to fuel the concept of bringing jobs back to America! Isn't that correct?

[kdallas999]

07:55 PM on 08/22/2010

How lame your comment is. Being of Asian descent is "so much for bringing jobs back?" So now, the US isn't hiring any asian descendent tech people? Should we bring back japanese internment camps too?

And what company has all their employees on their website? Should they set up an annual yearbook, so you can see how they've all grown?

Wow. Nice unintelligent slam.

[Gibbon2010]

03:17 AM on 08/22/2010

Is it really a cause for celebration that wages of Bangladore, India are coming to America?

[valeskas]

09:19 AM on 08/22/2010

Thank the many mergers for that.

[Queen Regnant]

12:20 PM on 08/22/2010

No it isn't cause for celebration. If his cash strapped start up outsourced twice with dismal results one hopes he'd realize outsourcing isn't worth it. Dumazzzz.

[StevieRae]

10:13 PM on 08/21/2010

I don't know if it's rural companies that can bring us back. The answer is with small businesses in general, where ever they exist.

However, many of them can't make a dent in reducing the unemployed because of limited access to money and the lack of a national "we're going to land on the moon in ten years" strategy!

Obama is crippled right now into launching something like this because of politics and the unwillingness of the Republicans to support such a national approach. Also, a lot of dumb thinking prevails right now is that it's all about states rights, that national challenges can be solved doing them locally without a national driven purpose.

It will come some day when oil is $4-5 a gallon. Then Americans will force the change. Until then, we will see some encouraging sighs in rural areas (and urban) but nothing to root about.

[1oldhippie]

07:04 PM on 08/21/2010

I know 'rural'. I live 7 1/2 miles from any town. We had a steel mill that used to employ 6000 people. When it closed it affected a radius of 100 miles. We were part of the recession before it was fashionable.
Land is cheap, labor is plentiful and corn fed folks are the hardest working, most reliable and honest people on earth. If you're looking to 'expand', by all means go rural!

[Chicagofan1]

10:30 PM on 08/21/2010

F&F

[Gibbon2010]

03:27 AM on 08/22/2010

Good people are everywhere. Many people in rural communities have let the "God and guns"" mentality warp their thinking. They start to believe they are more pure than people in urban areas. They are also the people who put Baby Bush in as POTUS, twice.

[1oldhippie]

12:54 PM on 08/22/2010

Then why is it the crime rate ratio is so much lower in rural America? While every major city reports mass killings, rape and pillage, the only thing we're killing out here is flies and mosquitoes. We don't think we are 'holier than thou', the numbers just don't lie!

[EH14SCUSA]

04:29 PM on 08/21/2010

The ideas placed on this website seem to have a lot of merit.
But as a former Human Resourse/Benefits Manager I suggest there are many ways to increase American job creation with fair pay! These new style American jobs could provide fair pay with reasonable benefits for employees and could also compete with present off-shore manufacturing costs.
However, the main adjustment to attain these goals would require management of all companies to accept some personal workplace adjustments in order to bring the American worker back into the world of production!
Are you willing, American CEO's?

[murphthesurf3]

03:07 PM on 08/21/2010

A POSTER ON THIS SITE WHO CAPTURES THE SPIRIT OF THE CEO'S IN THE ARTICLE:
GREED IS GOOD.

From wdw505. Now tell me when my taxes go up do you honestly believe that I will take the pay cut.......or do you think it might be passed on in layoffs plus 25% for my inconvenience.......and increase the hours of the remaining EMPs. I pay more in tax each year than most pay in many years........i pay enough taxes

My response: As I read your initial statement it strikes me that you represent the upper income earners in our society.

The very act of extortion that I allude to in my initial comment is precisely what you are threatening. IF MY TAXES GO UP I AM LAYING OFF SOME WORKERS TO MAKE UP FOR IT (PLUS 25% FOR SPITE) and then passing on the hours to your remaining employees.

One of the most important things that the Great Depression, New Deal and WWII taught the upper income job makers was that their patriotism was expressed by their concern for the middle and lower income earners.

Your post makes it very clear that this lesson has been lost.

BTW, you do know that the top two brackets in the Ike years stood at 91% for both earnings and capital gains. And you are threatening to keep those who need jobs unemployed because you may end of paying 1/3 of that.

[LegallyPalin]

02:55 PM on 08/21/2010

Want the jobs back? Make outsourcing illegal and stop giving tax breaks to companies that relocated.

[frogflip]

09:43 PM on 08/21/2010

It won't happen in my lifetime, but what a nice thought it is.

[exile]

02:51 PM on 08/21/2010

politicans get paid to help big business off shore good paying jobs.
after the middle class has totally crashed
then big business will say...
so if you dimwits want to work for min wage we may bring some jobs back
but
no vacation days
no sick days
no time off
no osha
no epa

ok we will think about it.
oh
do you want to work for round 28 cents an hour or you not broke down enough yet ??

[Gary M James]

02:25 PM on 08/21/2010

America needs to be a little more of a protectionist in order to survive! I know I will get the argument about being a Global Economy and having a Global Workforce... BS I say... Corporations use the term Global workforce to use the L1 Visa and bring foreign workers to the USA. Our H1B program is out of control and HR Managers post jobs in the USA to only meet federal requirements and then hire a foreign worker. We are being pushed aside and the middle class is fading away.

Tell your congressman that we need to BAN H1B and L1 Visas and tax the heck out of corporations that use foreign labor. Companies like Rural America will be bankrupt in 5 years if Americans do not demand a change!

[StevieRae]

10:16 PM on 08/21/2010

I'm not sure banning visas answers the basic problem big companies have today; our American educational system is not producing workers capable of doing the work required by large companies.

[Gibbon2010]

03:35 AM on 08/22/2010

i think the main problem of big companies these days is that they are layered with too much greedy management personnel and they want to go back to the early 1900's with sweatshops and no OSHA or worker protection laws.

[mozartian]

10:28 AM on 08/24/2010

Agreed. If you stop accepting immigrants how are you going to address the critical lack of nurses in the US? Americans just don't seem to into going into nursing in college.

[valeskas]

09:17 AM on 08/22/2010

Don't rant. We cannot do without others. The $ is very low and we can now export to europe much more things then before, when the $ was 4 times more then today. The thing is that mostly experienced people get hired, they are specialized for certain things. Of course you have many unskilled people, from south america and mexico, from the eastern nations of europe and asia, they come here, because they believe this is still the land of milk and honey and now they are dissapointed because it is not true anymore.

[mashtoe]

01:44 PM on 08/21/2010

These are just jobs waiting to be offshored.