Press release
Education Programs and New Technology Jobs Set Stage for Presidential Visit
MALTA, NY - September 21, 2009 - Today GLOBALFOUNDRIES welcomed President Barack Obama to upstate New York to address students, faculty, staff and representatives from the region's growing technology industry at Hudson Valley Community College.
"Today's visit by the White House highlights the success of the Capital Region's private-public, education, and high-tech economic development initiatives," said Hector Ruiz, chairman of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "We are working with many of the region's top educational institutions, including Hudson Valley Community College, the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, to build on this success. Working together, we can implement a new partnership model for government, education and business institutions to create a modern economic engine to increase opportunities for our business and the entire community."
In his address at Hudson Valley Community College today, President Obama said, "What we have here in this community are talented people, entrepreneurs, world-class learning institutions. The ingredients are right here for growth and success and a better future. These young people are testimony to it. You are proving that right here in the Hudson Valley. Students here are training full time while working part time at GE Energy in Schenectady, becoming a new generation of American leaders in a new generation of American manufacturing. IBM is partnered with the University at Albany; their partnership in nanotechnology is helping students train in the industries in which America has the potential to lead. Rensselaer is partnering not only with this institution but with businesses throughout the Tech Valley. And early next year, Hudson Valley Community College's state-of-the-art TEC-SMART training facility is set to open side-by-side with GLOBALFOUNDRIES coming state-of-the-art semiconductor plant."
In July, GLOBALFOUNDRIES broke ground on the construction of Fab 2, the company's new 300mm semiconductor manufacturing facility at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County, NY. When fully operational, the fab is expected to create approximately 1,400 new technology jobs.
The majority of these new jobs will be wafer fab and maintenance technicians, a specialized and highly skilled career field. Many of the qualified candidates for these new positions are expected to come from the area's innovative education programs, such as Hudson Valley Community College's TEC-SMART campus currently under construction in Malta, New York.
"As President Obama stated today, the building blocks of innovation are education, infrastructure, and research and the ability of new industries to thrive depends on workers with the knowledge and the know-how to contribute in those fields," said Andrew J. Matonak, president, Hudson Valley Community College. "Through innovative programs like, TEC-SMART, we are helping to bring together education, infrastructure and research to prepare people for new technology jobs like those being created by GLOBALFOUNDRIES."
"Hudson Valley's TEC-SMART facility, being built next to our new Fab 2, will be a premier resource for clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing education," said Norm Armour, vice president and general manager of Fab 2, GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "We're looking forward to TEC-SMART holding their first classes in January and we are working closely with HVCC as they develop their education program and facilities, including the campus' new clean room and semiconductor manufacturing training center to train hundreds of workers for new technology jobs in this region."
When completed, Fab 2 is expected to be the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility in the world and capable of producing a range of critical semiconductor products that serve as the foundation of devices powering today's digital economy. The new jobs at Fab 2 represent an estimated annual payroll of more than $88 million. In addition, the project is expected to create approximately 5,000 new indirect jobs in the region with a sustained estimated total annual payroll of $290 million per year for all jobs.
