Eleutian Technology hires people in towns across northern Wyoming to teach English to Koreans of all ages using Skype, the free online calling and person-to-person video service. Two years old, Eleutian already is one of Wyomings fastest-growing businesses.

The company has close to 300 teachers hooked up to more than 15,000 students in Korea, and CEO Kent Holiday said hes just getting started.

“Our plan was never to be a company that had a few thousand subscribers,” Holiday said. “Its a $100 billion market just between Korea, Japan and China, and so we wanted to be the leader and we wanted to have millions of users.”

Holiday got the idea for the company after a short stint teaching English in Korea in the early 1990s. He went to work in Koreas telecommunications industry and eventually became a top executive of Korea Telecom.

All along, he kept in mind that language education someday would be possible online. He made his move in 2006, getting grief from friends about quitting his high-six-figures job. “I said `You know what? The times right,” he said.

Eleutian isnt the only company harnessing the Internet from the distant ranges of Wyoming. Whether its a Laramie man who sells high-end computers to day traders, or a Green River woman who writes software for mass transit systems, doing business in the least populated state no longer has to mean running the equivalent of a frontier outpost, said Jon Benson, CEO of the Wyoming Technology Business Center at the University of Wyoming.

“Broadband connectivity really has allowed people to do high-tech businesses from remote areas,” he said. “It allows companies to locate in a place like Wyoming and do business across the world.”

Eleutians teachers include Kathleen Hampton, whose home is remote even by Wyoming standards.

Hampton moved to Wyoming from New Jersey when she met her rancher husband during a trip out West 13 years ago. She teaches English online several nights a week after her 30-mile commute home from teaching kindergarten in Ten Sleep.

She teaches most Korean students one-on-one. Many are in college. A few are middle-aged business executives. Hampton also teaches groups that are in private schools called “hakwons,” which students attend after the regular school day.

“Theyre always fun because theyre always yelling out in the background,” Hampton said. “You get 14-year-old boys yelling out `I love you! because they learn these English expressions and try to use them.”

“When you put on those first headphones and youre talking to somebody, its nerve-racking to start with,” Hampton said. “But it doesnt take long. If youre a teacher and used to explaining things, it makes no difference.”

Growling at her students is one of her techniques. The idea is to get them to make an English-sounding “r.”

“Ill be growling at them and theres some of these 20-year-old boys who will laugh, and theyll growl right back at you. And their roommates are in the background laughing at you and they get right into it,” Hampton said. “And then you will have these quiet, little, studious people that will look at you and just wont do it.”

Tuition for Eleutians courses varies with factors like the size of the class and the business thats contracting Eleutians services. But like any outsourcing company, Eleutian competes aggressively on price. For instance, one weekly one-on-one Internet course from Eleutian costs $150 for a whole semester, while English tutors in Korea charge from $40 to $60 an hour, Holiday said.

Holiday had been planning to start Eleutian Technology in Utah. He picked Ten Sleep, where his in-laws live, after seeing fiber-optic cable being installed throughout town. Tri County Telephone, the telecom cooperative that serves the Ten Sleep area, upgraded from decades-old copper phone wiring to fiber in 2006 – a step that has still yet to fully happen in many urban areas. Chris Davidson, Tri Countys general manager, said the company wanted “to build a network for the future.”

Source: mahyc