Nestled into second-floor offices above downtown’s Westside Java coffeehouse, overlooking California Street to the west, a high-tech enclave hums along on 20 or so employees running quality-assurance tests on software for other companies.

Shasta QA is a cozy cubicles-and-computers environment, with murmuring voices and the soft snick-snick-snick of keyboard work.

Donald O’Connell, 40, of Palo Cedro, is the computer science professional who launched this “tech-nerd oasis” – his words — in 2002.  He was a Silicon Valley refugee who wanted a better place to live and raise a family.

He’d walked away from his job as director of engineering for quality assurance at the very high-octane company Commerce One (#1 IPO of 1999), cashing out while the cashing-out was extremely good, and left the mad pace of the Silicon Valley.

“People thought I was insane,” he says. “You could make $50,000 to $300,000 a month. It’s hard to think about leaving that kind of money. But it was 70-hour workweeks. I once went 45 days without a day off — and they were 12-hour days. That’s what was insane.

“Oh, it was fun when we were younger. Ten years ago it was fun. But it was crazy times. I definitely thought we were selling our souls.”

He and wife Michelle moved to the north state with the specific intention of raising their family in a different environment.

“In the Bay area, no one’s raising their kids. Everybody’s a two-income family with long commutes,” he says. “We knew we wanted a large family and to raise the kids in a small town, with good values.”

They could have afforded to go anywhere, but they picked here –- “Very small-town country living was for us.”

The O’Connells have five children, ages 13, 9, 7, 7, and 3. “We’re finally out of diapers. For a while, we had three in diapers at once.”

About eight years ago, when he began to think about working again, he realized it wasn’t going to be easy.

“Up here, there was very little opportunity for someone with my background,” he said. “Nobody valued what I did for a living. I got the overwhelming feeling I was supposed to do it myself –- make my own thing.”

He made up his mind: “I was willing and able to create jobs.”

Seven years later Shasta QA had grown to 30+ employees with offices in Redding and Chico.

This year it was nominated as one of the best companies to work for in Shasta County. In April it  was recognized as 2009 Business of the Year by Viva Downtown Redding and the Downtown Redding Business Association.

“We would like to thank Viva Downtown and the DRBA for this special recognition,” O’Connell noted at the time. “Shasta QA continues to be dedicated to creating quality technical jobs in the Redding area, and we are thrilled to see that Redding can compete in this global economy. We continue to utilize our rural based American location to provide top quality services at competitive rates.”

Recently the company cut back to 22 people because of changes in the incoming workload.

“Nobody escapes the economy,” O’Connell says ruefully. “Clients can’t always afford to move their projects forward. We contract and expand to fit the need.”

He says when the market comes back, so will employees.

Living Small

How does a modest-sized company in an isolated rural area compete for high-tech projects and talented people to carry them out?

“The humbleness of the staff – and of Shasta County – is what makes it work,” he says. “Small-town virtues are what I mean by humble.”

Humble yet skilled -– they have computer science degrees and/or technical experience that make them highly employable pretty much anywhere.  But they don’t necessarily want to live “just anywhere.”

“Here we’ve got lakes, we walk on trails, all this abundant outdoor living is what we enjoy. If some of our staff weren’t living humble lives, it wouldn’t work for them. But here in the north state, we appreciate the little things.”

Average pay is in the low 30s a year, he said. The atmosphere is relaxed. An observer in the coffeehouse downstairs would see a steady stream of people going outside for a break, coming back in, getting a coffee, and playing Foosball or lifting weights in the game room (games are good for stress relief, hand-eye coordination, posture and vision realignment, repetitive stress syndrome).

“A lot of software developers, if they can’t make $60,000 or $70,000, they’ll go to the Bay area. Nobody moved here to work for QA. We have Bay Area refugees, some from Intel and HP, etc., but they moved here for lifestyle choices first.

“All our contributors have a north state commitment before we have a QA commitment.”

Let’s ask a couple of people how they feel about their jobs.

Ron Lute, a senior quality assurance manager:  “I’ve been at Shasta QA a little over four years now. It has been a great company to work for. It’s been a little tough this year but we have some talented people here and we will survive. In the 28 years that I’ve worked in the computer/technology I’ve never worked for a company/boss that was more honest, fair and generous than Don. It’s a pleasure to work at Shasta QA.”

Ingrid Stearns, software engineer:  “I have been at Shasta QA for almost two years now. The two things I like about it the most, are:
“1. The owner of the company, Don, has a very strong sense of moral and ethical integrity and strives to foster that in his employees, and in his management staff in the decisions they make on behalf of the company.
“2. The opportunity to interact with clients in the tech world — who are for the most part made up of groups of brilliant, intelligent, motivated people — while still living in an area where one does not have to deal with traffic congestion and can get out into nature within minutes.”

In Chico, Wendy Porter, vice president of operations: “It has been a great pleasure to work for Shasta QA over the last year. Discovering this high tech company in the North State and contributing to its vision of increasing North State tech jobs and reversing the off-shoring trends has been a highlight of my career. The integrity of our business model and the people that make up Shasta QA make this job a gift. I know that our staff comes to work each day feeling like we are fighting the good fight!”

(Two former employees said the same kinds of things. Not bad. )

ARRR, matey

Notice the running pirate theme on the doors?

What’s that about?

“Pirates are risk-takers, they’re scrappy,” O’Connell says, smiling.  “They’re humble as long as there’s rum, food and adventure.”

(He’s quick to clarify, it’s about camaradarie and morale, not the pirates who rape and pillage — “It’s Disney pirates, all Disney.”)

“Some days are calm and some days we batten the hatches.  Everybody is important. Everybody must be a contributor.  On a pirate ship, you’re either contributing or you’re eating our food and slowing us down.”

In which case, they don’t make people walk the plank but rather just drop them off on a nearby island.

“At Shasta QA, as on a pirate ship, anybody can shout ‘Danger!’ or challenge the captain.  Anyone can question assumptions.  We feel respect for one another, and for the people who haven’t found us yet.  When it’s time to run hard, we’ve got to be able to run. We depend on one another.”

“OurSourcing”

Shasta QA has trademarked the term “OurSourcing” as a reference to outsourcing to U.S. resources to meet objectives of U.S. companies, as opposed to sending the work to India or China, which is common because of dramatically lower costs.

“OurSourcing offers strategic advantages you lose doing that,” he says. “Successful communication comes with shared reference points, shared business norms, shared time zones and shared cultural styles.  Successful communication helps move product out there. Software and technology move quickly. Time-to-market costs are meaningful.

“Cultural differences in communication can result in misunderstandings, slowed development and mistakes,” he said. “Many cultures do not encourage risk-takers or innovators, people who can and do think for themselves.

“American companies need the American John Wayne way - everybody has to be able to challenge, to be straightforward and say it as it is.

“From the Bay area, it’s hard to compete with India and China because they can out-humble us.  But from the rural north state, we know what’s important, we appreciate the little things, we know how to have the best — and provide the best — of both worlds.

“The American personality is a better fit for the necessary communication style.”

Notice he doesn’t limit it to American heritage. Indeed, his employees represent a refreshing diversity of skin color, nationality, age and gender.

“You don’t have to be born here to have what it takes,” he says. “Ellis Island was filled with humble risk-takers.”

What’s next?

O‘Connell is grooming his leadership team to take larger roles.  He has given over his picture-window office to others.

“The main goal is to scale myself out of a job.” He wants to work on a new project, AuraSpect.  All he’ll say about it is, “The idea is to create software that contributes to people’s lives.”  Other than that, he’s in full stealth mode.

Meantime, he’s happy building a talented group of individuals to do excellent work.

“We’re creating jobs and we’re competing with overseas trends,” he says. “We’re not a luxury liner, just a little, humble company.”

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