Close to home

Randy Thrasher's office can be anywhere - a granite nook in the kitchen, a leather recliner in the living room, even an actual room with a desk.

He can work where he wants, as long as he has his laptop and high speed Internet.

Thrasher, a software developer for a multinational corporation, is one of the rare, but growing examples of high-tech outsourced worker who remains in the U.S.

Thrasher worked for CNA Life Insurance starting June 1999, after graduating from Auburn University with a computer engineering degree that combined electrical engineering and software development.

Thrasher lived in or near Nashville, commuting to an office job like the majority of American workers.

Swiss Re, the world's largest life and health insurer, bought CNA in 2004 and Thrasher's job became outsourced.

Typically, the story would end with Thrasher unemployed and the job shipped overseas to a cheaper labor market.

Instead, Thrasher's job became "inshored."

The term, a wink to offshoring that rose to prominence in the 1990s and early 2000s, comes from the idea that jobs can be shipped around the domestic market, thereby keeping high-tech jobs within the U.S. work force.

Computer Sciences Corp., a software development company based out of Virginia with offices in Singapore, Sydney and Hampshire (U.K.), became Thrasher's insourcer and set up shop in Muscle Shoals where his wife, Misty, is from.

"People have found that working with developers offshore, there were cultural gaps that make communication difficult," said John D. Crabtree, computer information systems professor at the University of North Alabama.

Now, a Wall Street software developer can skip the high Manhattan cost of living and live in an area more economical.

The raw statistics of inshoring are likely impossible to obtain, but Matt Shocklee, president of Global Sourcing Optimization Services and U.S. Ambassador for the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, said the professional organization will soon start a census effort with its more than 100,000 members to track the near $10 trillion outsourcing industry.

The planned demographic data, to be collected during the next few years, will include both outsourcers and buyers of outsourced labor.

Trend watchers have found that industrial activity in low-wage countries eventually increases living standards, thereby increasing wages.

"As the world invariably equalizes itself in wages, we'll see more work coming over to the U.S.," Shocklee said, but added that he was uncertain if wages would ever fully equalize.

"Innovation and quality of work will become a bigger slice of the equation," he said.

So Randy traded in his pressed shirt-and-tie commute to Nashville for a lunch-break in shorts commute to pick up his son from school. There's no necktie in sight.

"He used to drive back to Nashville three times per week," said Misty, who works as a nurse practitioner at the Women's Clinic Shoals. "So now he can stay here."

Randy's colleagues work out of their homes in Tuscaloosa, Greenville, S.C., and Dallas. Since 2005, Randy has entered the central office three times for training.

The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals predicted inshoring as its No. 1 trend for 2009. The industry group noted that increased government spending on telecommuting-friendly infrastructures "could lead to more domestic outsourcing, particularly for construction, real estate and technology.

"Outsourcing destinations such as India and China will be challenged by the closer-to-home locations," the group predicted.

That close-to-home perk comes with a balancing act between getting work done in a non-office setting.

Randy could work vacation mornings while his two sons sleep or work from a hospital waiting room when his son became sick recently.

Randy, however, emphasized: "I don't put work before my children."

For example, he uses a lunch break to pick up 8-year-old Avery from school.

His work focuses on streamlining and automating internal services for life insurance agents.

One project included writing a Web site interface where agents who field calls can enter data, hit submit and have a letter sent to the client in less than a minute. The process used to take up to five minutes.

With Internet and phone, Randy can stay in communication with dispersed workers.

On an IBM Thinkpad with 18 programs open at once, Randy sent a question to Connie Paiva-Monk, a business analyst in Dallas.

Minutes later, with time to send a mini-correspondence to another colleague, Paiva-Monk had responded.

If an issue becomes complicated, all he has to do is pick up the phone and call.

Mixing domestic and professional lives can pose challenges, but regular work meetings hold him accountable on projects, he said.

On a recent Wednesday, Misty's day off, she and 3-year-old Carson gathered in the kitchen where Randy typically works in a nearby nook.

Carson wanted to make bouncy balls and his mother helped mix the crystals and hot water into molds that would gel into toys. The process generated a noisy ruckus.

"That totally doesn't bother me - I need the background noise while I'm working," Randy said.

Trevor Stokes can be reached at 740-5728 or trevor.stokes@TimesDaily.com.