While outsourcing may be a dirty word to some people, David Colangelo and Jim Wetzel argue that moving work offshore actually creates jobs stateside.

And they can point to their own jobs as examples.

For the past four years, the two Tampa Bay area men have been consultants doing product development and manufacturing, primarily through factories in China. Among the products handled by their Safety Harbor company, CSD Worldwide, are rollers for automated car washers and trays for mail-sorting machines, as well as novelty consumer products such as mini dehumidifiers and three kinds of lottery ticket scratchers.

Colangelo and Wetzel are like many U.S. entrepreneurs who have turned manufacturing contacts in the Far East and a knack for salesmanship into a business as contract manufacturers. Companies such as CSD act as middlemen, easing the way offshore for both hopeful inventors and established businesses looking for a cheaper way to produce goods.

Colangelo, 41, developed his Asian contacts as co-owner of Sun Time Enterprises, a novelty watch company in Clearwater that went bankrupt in 2001 after 10 years in business. CSD’s Chinese partner lives in the south China city of Shenzhen and works with engineers and factories throughout the country; Colangelo and Wetzel typically travel to China once a year.

The movement of manufacturing to China is nothing new, but it is gaining momentum. In a complaint filed last week with the World Trade Organization, the AFL-CIO claimed 727,000 U.S. factory jobs have been lost as a result of the relocation of work to lower-cost Chinese factories. And in 2003, China posted a record $124-billion trade surplus with the United States as Americans snapped up everything from inexpensive imported DVDs to dolls to desks.

The recent surge in relocation of call centers and software programming to India and China has only heightened pressure on U.S. politicians to take action against sending work offshore. But Wetzel and Colangelo argue that such efforts would be futile.

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