Onshore: The Macon Company That Promised to Revitalize Rural America
Updated: Oct 4
Millions in government incentives, hundreds of projected jobs, a $2.7 million federal loan and a corporate airplane. Macon Moonline Investigates is opening the files on one of Macon’s most interesting business stories.
For more than two decades, Onshore Outsourcing has been part of the Macon landscape.
The company was founded here in 2005 with an ambitious mission: bring technology jobs normally outsourced overseas back to rural America, train people who might otherwise never have entered the technology industry, and use that workforce to serve some of the largest corporations in the country. It was an attractive idea that attracted government support.
Macon Moonline Investigates has begun examining the history of Onshore Outsourcing, also identified in government records as Onshore Technology Services, Inc. This will not be a one-article investigation. There are too many years, too many programs and too many unanswered questions for that. But some of the numbers we have already uncovered deserve a closer look.
A Missouri Department of Economic Development report for the Missouri Quality Jobs Program lists a July 2013 project for “Onshore Technology Services, Inc. - "NOI 3” in Macon. The designation “NOI 3 ” raises another question we intend to pursue: what were Onshore's first two "Notices of Intent", what projects were associated with them, what public assistance was authorized or received, what commitments accompanied that assistance and what ultimately happened.
The report shows 600 projected jobs, a projected investment of $1.5 million and total listed program benefits of $1,578,450. Six hundred jobs is a substantial number in a community the size of Macon.
As of this morning, The Macon Area Chamber of Commerce website still listed "Onshore Outsourcing" at 902 N. Missouri Street in Macon. Other online listings pointed me to the same place. So rather than sit behind a computer wondering what was there, I drove to the address listed.
I finally found 902 N. Missouri Street, but I did not find Onshore Outsourcing.
There was no Onshore sign on the building. There were very few cars in the parking lot. What I did find over the front entrance was a large Macon Tigers emblem. The building now belongs to the Macon County R-I School District.
I called the Macon County R-I Central Office and explained that I was researching the history of Onshore and that the address still being published for the company had led me to what appeared to be a school building. The district employee confirmed that Onshore is no longer there. She told me that Onshore had the property for a period of time and that, to her understanding, the school district purchased it from the company a few years ago. That answered the question of who was at 902 N. Missouri.
It didn't answer the question of where Onshore went. So I called Onshore.
The local Macon telephone number currently published by the company eventually connected me with a man named Chris Fennessey ( through the sales option ). He identified himself as the company's vice president of sales. Fennessey confirmed that Onshore once owned the Macon property and used the facility to train IT workers. He said that around the time of COVID the company sold the property back to the community. I then asked him directly whether Onshore still had a physical company location in Macon. The answer was no.
Fennessey told me the company still has approximately 20 people employed in Macon, but there is no longer a physical Onshore office here. He said Onshore continues to hire in Macon as well as at operations in Georgia and Rochester, New York. That is where the numbers begin to get interesting.
A Missouri economic-development report once projected 600 jobs connected with an Onshore project in Macon. In 2020, Onshore would report 353 jobs in connection with its application for a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan. Today, a company vice president tells me approximately 20 Onshore employees remain in Macon and the company no longer maintains a physical office here. Those numbers cannot simply be stacked beside one another and treated as proof that 580 jobs disappeared. They come from different programs, different years and potentially different ways of counting employees. Before drawing conclusions, we need to determine exactly what Onshore committed to do under each economic-development program, how many jobs were actually created, how long those jobs remained and what public benefits were received in return.
But the difference certainly gives us something worth investigating.
I also called the Macon Area Chamber of Commerce Friday morning and spoke with Sharon Scott about the Onshore address still appearing on the Chamber's website.
Scott initially appeared unaware that the listing was currently still listed on the Chamber Website. She said the Chamber would remove the old address from the website. Websites get old. Business listings don't always get updated. Once I brought it to the Chamber's attention, Scott agreed to correct it.
The much more interesting question is what happened between the Onshore envisioned in those earlier economic-development records and the Onshore that exists in Macon today.
Then there is the airplane.
In 2015, King Air Magazine published an extensive profile of Onshore founder and CEO Shane Mayes and the company's 1981 King Air B200. According to that account, the aircraft had flown approximately 300 hours during its first 14 months in Onshore's ownership. Mayes described the airplane as an essential part of the company's business model, allowing employees based in rural Missouri to reach major corporate customers quickly. There is nothing inherently unusual or improper about a successful company owning an airplane. For a business whose customers are scattered across the country, an aircraft can be a legitimate business tool. But the same article provides another glimpse into how the aircraft was used.
The magazine reported that Mayes took friends aboard the company King Air to Arlington, Texas, for the final concert of George Strait's The Cowboy Rides Away tour. Again, those facts alone establish no wrongdoing.
They do, however, become relevant when examining the larger history of a company that benefited from government economic-development programs intended to produce jobs and economic activity in rural Missouri.
In 2020, federal Paycheck Protection Program records show that Onshore Technology Services received a PPP loan of approximately $2.71 million through Macon's MA Bank on April 7, 2020. The company reported 353 jobs associated with the loan and reported the proceeds as being used for payroll. Approximately $2.742 million, including accrued interest, was subsequently forgiven in June 2021. That deserves an important clarification. I have heard the story locally described as MA Bank having “forgiven” more than $2.5 million that Onshore owed the bank. Based upon the records I have located so far, that description is misleading.
This was a federal PPP loan originated through MA Bank. The forgiveness was part of the federal Paycheck Protection Program administered through the Small Business Administration.
The available records show the loan was forgiven after the company qualified for forgiveness under that program. If evidence emerges of some separate conventional bank loan or debt forgiveness, we will investigate that independently. At this point, I have found no documentation establishing it.
That distinction is important because this investigation is going to be built around records, not rumors.
And now we have another piece of Onshore's history to examine: the building itself.
How did Onshore acquire the property at 902 N. Missouri Street? What did the company pay for it? Was government or economic-development money involved in acquiring, renovating or operating the facility? What training programs were conducted there and who paid for them? What did the Macon County R-I School District eventually pay Onshore for the property?
How much government assistance did Onshore receive during its years in Macon? What tax incentives, training assistance or other economic-development benefits were provided? What were the employment commitments attached to those programs? How many of the projected jobs were actually created? How long were they maintained? Were there additional local concessions involving the City of Macon, Macon County, the school district or local economic-development organizations?
What became of the enormous employment growth once envisioned for the company?
There is another side of this story that may prove equally important. I want to hear from the people who actually worked there.
If you are a current or former Onshore employee and have firsthand knowledge of the company's employment practices, training programs, layoffs, wages, working conditions or use of public economic-development programs, I am interested in hearing from you.
That does not mean every allegation will be published. It means I want to know where to look.
Your privacy, identity and personal information will not be exposed. Contact me directly and submit any corroborating documentation you may have to rondom956@gmail.com.
Documents are particularly valuable: employment agreements, training agreements, correspondence, benefit information, termination notices, company communications or other records that can help establish what actually happened. People with favorable experiences are equally welcome to contact me.
Onshore's own description of its history says its mission has been to “revitalize rural America” and help people move beyond difficult circumstances toward a better life. That is a significant promise.
For Macon, it is a history worth examining.
This is Part One.
Over the coming weeks and months, Macon Moonline Investigates will begin reconstructing that history using government records, corporate records, archived news reports, property records and firsthand accounts from people who were there. Some of what we find may confirm the success story that has been told about Onshore for years. Some of it may raise additional questions.
Either way, we will follow the records.
Regards Maconites,
R. Dominique — Editor
