He Wants To Hire U.S. Workers

By MICHAEL SASSO The Tampa Tribune

Published: Dec 11, 2007

LARGO - Tom Beckwith knows the usual rap about offshore outsourcing.

It costs American jobs, critics say, while it underpays foreign workers.

But Beckwith, chief executive of Largo-based Beckwith Electric Co., insists it's not that simple. This summer, Beckwith reluctantly hired a company in India to run tests on the computer software that operates his high-tech products. Beckwith manufactures devices that protect and control power plants.

He wanted to fill the jobs from within the United States, or if necessary, to bring workers into the country on work visas. But after struggling to find qualified workers domestically and failing to win any H1-B visas - which allow highly skilled foreigners into the country - he said he had little choice but to outsource.

His story shows some of the competitive disadvantages facing Florida and American high-tech companies, which must scramble to find workers with the skills they require.

"We need the expertise, and we just can't find them in the U.S.," Beckwith said.

Most people have never heard of Beckwith Electric, but the company likes to say that almost everyone is affected by its products. It claims that the electricity in 75 percent of U.S. households is somehow controlled by Beckwith Electric, whether its devices are in the nearby power plant or the neighborhood transformer. It employs about 140 people and has annual revenue of about $20 million.

Among other products, it sells devices that regulate the voltage output of electrical transformers to companies such as Progress Energy and TECO Energy.

But designing the guts of these devices - a maze of circuits - doesn't come easy, and the company requires teams of electrical and software engineers who earn salaries of $80,000 to $150,000 a year, Beckwith said.

Over the past 20 years, the company has had some success in getting employees from overseas, bringing at least seven employees into the country on H1-B visas. But things have slowed down dramatically in the past three years because of competition for scarce H1-B visas.

Despite applying, Beckwith failed to win any work visas for prospective employees in 2005 or 2006. The company was able to bring in one engineer from Colombia this year, but it's facing the loss of three engineers next year who may have to leave the country when their student visas expire. It will apply for H1-B visas for all three in April.

Critics say the H1-B visa program gives companies a way to bring foreigners into the country at lower wages than they would have to pay Americans for the same jobs.

However, Bill Flynn, an immigration lawyer at the Fowler White law firm in Tampa, called the current cap on H1-B visas - 85,000 per year - "a joke." Last year, there were more than 200,000 applications for those spots, he said.

"Every immigration lawyer on the planet has a folder-full of H1-B applications for frustrated clients that can't get them," he said.

Beckwith said he has hired U.S. residents for many of his engineering spots. But, today's power systems engineering - a specialty within electrical engineering - is out of favor among American college students, and many universities have stopped teaching it, said Murty Yalla, the India-born president of Beckwith Electric.

George Heydt, a professor of power engineering at Arizona State University, confirmed that there is a growing gap between America's needs for engineers capable of designing electrical power systems and the number of students getting degrees in the field. "Some universities have canceled programs in this area because they feel that research funding is hard to obtain," Heydt said in an e-mail.

Growing tired of waiting, Beckwith decided in the summer to outsource work overseas. The Indian company he hired was able to instantly provide him with six electrical or software engineers who can test the software that runs Beckwith Electric's complex electrical products. Finding that kind of team here in the United States might have taken a year or more, Yalla said.

Illustrating the problem, the nonprofit Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation recently issued a study on Florida's economy. Among its findings: Florida ranks 48th in the nation in the number of scientists and engineers with doctorate degrees per 1,000 workers. In 2003, the last year which figures were available, only 1.9 of every 1,000 workers was a scientist or engineer holding a doctorate.

Beckwith acknowledges that the Indian workers come cheaper than their U.S. counterparts. The outsourcing firm is charging Beckwith about $15 per man-hour, whereas Beckwith pays his own workers about $45 an hour in pay and benefits. But he insists that it was the lack of available talent, not wages, which caused him to outsource overseas.

India is "a long way away, it takes a lot of coordination and I'd rather have it done in the U.S.," Beckwith said.

Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at msasso@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7865.