Who Are We?

As a student at American River College in Sacramento in 1979 I chose my major "Computer Electronics" largely on news that Hewlett-Packard was breaking ground in nearby Roseville. The projection at the time was that there would be 20,000 employees at the site by year 2000.

I worked as a co-op at HP Roseville in 1989 while completing my BS degree in computer science, working on firmware for the Vectra PC replacement. At the time the R&D and much of the production of HP personal computers was done within the U.S. I felt I wanted to spend my career at HP.

When I graduated in 1990 there were no openings at the Roseville site. But I did work there again 1997 to 2000 on the firmware for the Superdome server. HP was still a nice place to work at the time. There were over 6000 people at the site. Already this was less than the 20,000 that had been projected 20 years prior - in part because NAFTA and other trade agreements provided incentives for U.S. corporations to set up overseas.

In 2000 I left on "would rehire" status to work for a dot-com startup. My supervisor told me that my experience would bring value to HP if I should return.

In 2001 the dot-com failed. I applied for many jobs at HP over the subsequent years, but never even received an acknowledgement. Meanwhile I saw that the Roseville site was sponsoring many H-1b workers. Over the next few years, under Carly's watch, I was contacted by many employees who were being laid off. Many informed me that their projects were being transferred to India or China. By the time Carly departed at least 2000 jobs had been lost just at the Roseville facility.

Those 20,000 jobs that were projected in 1979 were created. But, like IBM and Intel and Microsoft and dozens of other U.S. companies - these jobs are fueling the economic boom in China and India.

Note: The image is a joke - relax. Is it any more offensive than ordering the extermination of the careers of 10,000 Americans as you fly around in your Gulfstream private jet?