Success Story: The 25th Anniversary of CEG’s Industry Attraction ‘Turning Point’

An invitation to CEG’s 2003 dessert reception at SEMICON West.

Twenty-five years ago this July marked a “turning point” in the Center for Economic Growth’s efforts to raise within the semiconductor industry the status of the Capital Region and attract to it a chip fab. It was in July 1999 when CEG broke from standard marketing practices to host a first-of-its-kind reception at SEMICON West in San Francisco. That marked the beginning of more than two decades of deploying ingenuity to familiarize the world with the R&D and manufacturing prowess of Albany/New York’s Capital Region.

Background

Just two years before that pivotal event, in 1997, CEG significantly changed its mission from improvement of the Capital Region’s gateway infrastructure, such as the Rensselaer train station and Albany International Airport, to development of high-technology manufacturing. In November 1997, IBM announced a $700 million investment – then the largest of its kind in the state by industry – to build a 300mm chip fab in East Fishkill. Late that year, the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce (now the Capital Region Chamber), while Wallace Altes was its president, also coined the phrase “Tech Valley” to describe the 19-county eastern New York region.

SEMICON WEST

The next year, in 1998, the chamber officially launched the Tech Valley branding campaign, and CEG that July attended its first SEMICON West event. The Capital Region’s first SEMICON West contingent included CEG President and CEO Kelly Lovell and Executive Vice President Jeffrey Lawrence; Saratoga Economic Development Corp. President Kenneth Green; Albany Nanotech Director of Business Development Lamar Hill; and National Grid Economic Development Specialist Linda Hill, according to Lovell, now Kelly Waters, the managing director of the Waters Group Global in St. Louis.

CEG’s David Rooney (left), Brian Hannafin (Center) and Kelly Lovell (right) at the NY Loves Nanotech booth at SEMICON West, circa 2005.

“At the very first SEMICON we attended in 1998, we had a small booth off in a corner,” said Waters. “We were there to learn about the industry and gather intel. We met people by walking the floor, reading name badges, and being aggressive about stopping people to introduce ourselves. Lamar and I were walking the show when we saw the facilities manager for Intel, Mike Edwards. We stopped him and introduced ourselves. That resulted in getting a meeting with him and his team at their Chandler facility.”

INAUGURAL RECEPTION

The following July, in 1999, CEG returned to SEMICON West, marking the organization’s first year with a prominent presence there, including hosting its inaugural dessert reception, which has grown into a must-attend event of the conference. The Capital Region contingent brought New York State wine and apples as gifts for the reception’s guests. As Waters (then Lovell) later reported to the Board of Supervisors of Washington County, “We had over a hundred companies stop by our little hotel suite. We didn’t do a lot of advertising, because we had a very small budget relative to other places. But we felt very gratified by that first flooring. And the buzz – the industry buzz – is already starting to happen.”

CEG’s NY Loves Nanotech booth at SEMICON West, circa 2005.

That industry “buzz” about the Capital Region is why Waters calls that initial dessert reception “a turning point for us.” However, she noted that CEG’s industry attraction efforts were then at a nascent stage. “We just recognized very early that we didn’t have the budget that the other, more established, regions had so we had to be different. Rather than spending $20,000 to $25,000 on a big pavilion at the trade show, we decided to focus on the dessert reception. There weren’t any other after-hours hospitality suites, so we saw an opportunity to occupy that space and bring people together in a different way.”

The NY Loves Nanotech team at the SEMICON West booth in 2013.

INDUSTRY ATTRACTION

For more than 20 years, CEG organized the SEMICON West annual dessert reception with the help of industry partners and sponsors.¹ The only year with no reception was during the pandemic in 2020, though CEG did virtually participate in SEMICON West that July. The effort has grown statewide in recent years with significant support from New York State and the New York State Economic Development Council (NYS EDC). NYS EDC now organizes New York’s presence at SEMICON West under the New York State of Opportunity umbrella, and it continues to host the dessert reception under the NY Loves Nanotech moniker. This year’s event was held on July 10. CEG continues to promote the region to attract investment, sending representatives to SEMICON West, with this year’s contingent including Senior Strategic Advisor David Rooney and Director of Economic Development John Taylor.

“Upstate New York has had a continuous expanding role at SEMICON West, and, in fact, it has had the largest participation by a region from North America. Our hospitality ‘dessert reception’ has become a must-attend,” said Lamar Hill, now the co-executive director of NY Design. “I have attended 32 SEMICON West meetings, and over the last couple of years it has become clear that New York is driven by the premier advanced electronics collaborative R&D center in North America: NY CREATES. Regional organizations, including the Center for Economic Growth, have established New York as the primary mind-share source for the global nano electronics industry. And with strong support from Governor Hochul and Empire State Development, along with the federal government, New York has become a primary advanced electronics region in the world.”

In the year following the initial SEMICON West desert reception, in 2000, CEG organized the Capital Region Semiconductor Task Force and co-sponsored the first Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) annual dinner. “Because we were being talked about, we decided to ramp up the exposure by sponsoring the dinner,” Waters said. “We were one of many sponsors and the event wasn’t as unique, so it wasn’t as impactful as the dessert reception. But it was important to do because the CEOs of all the manufacturing companies were there. It reinforced that we were a legitimate player to be taken seriously.”

The New York State pavilion at SEMICON West, July 2024.

From 2001 to 2005, CEG hosted the Albany Symposium, which showcased the Capital Region’s manufacturing, R&D and other assets for International Sematech and other industry leaders, such as the SIA. Twenty years ago, at SEMICON Europa in Munich, Germany in April 2004, CEG debuted its “I Love NY Nanotech” branding campaign. It was Lamar Hill who coined the “I Love NY Nanotech” phrase, which NYS EDC continues to promote, now as “New York Loves Nanotech” to attract semiconductor industry investments throughout the state.

FAB 8

In 2006, “Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced plan for chip fab in the Luther Forest Technology Park in Malta. Construction on what is now GlobalFoundries’ Fab 8 started in 2009, and the fab reached full-scale production in 2015. GlobalFoundries is now planning a $12.5 billion expansion with a second fab in Saratoga County. Over the course of those years, state, federal and industry partners invested more than $20 billion in the Albany Nanotech Complex, with an additional $10 billion in the pipeline for a planned high NA EUV lithography center. Those investments have made the Albany Nanotech Complex a leading contender to be designated a National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC). Both projects promise to create 1,000 jobs.

Those jobs could come on top of the thousands of R&D and manufacturing jobs that the semiconductor industry has created in the Capital Region since the first SEMICON West desert reception 25 years ago. Between 2001 and 2022, the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metropolitan statistical area’s semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing industry has gone from having 268 jobs to 3,200, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s QWI Explorer.

R&D assets, such as NY CREATES’ Albany Nanotech Complex and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have also played a major role in attracting a fab to the region. Between 2010 and 2022, university R&D spending increased by 45.4 percent to $693.6 million. As of 2021, the Albany-Schenectady-Troy MSA was one of 59 metros where businesses annually spend more than $1 billion on R&D, according to data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

“SEMICON West has historically showcased our assets, our capabilities and our team from all across the state,” said Rooney. “In the early years we needed to change perceptions about New York, and we did that through signature events like SEMICON West. The industry has deep roots in the Empire State, from talent to technology, and New York has celebrated that heritage and highlighted our strengths at SEMICON West to a new generation of leaders and innovators over the years. The industry knows that New York is in it for the long haul as a committed partner. We have the results to back it up and the desire to see it grow. We’re not done yet.”

See CEG’s 2024 Capital  Region Advanced Electronics R&D and Manufacturing Cluster Profile

Notes

¹At various times during the past 25 years, regional NY Loves Nanotech economic development partners have included but are not limited to Rensselaer County IDA, SEDC, Warren County EDC, Greene County IDA, Arsenal Business & Technology Partnership, BBL Development Group and Fulton County. Statewide economic development partners have included but are not limited to Empire State Development, NY CREATES, NYS EDC, Genesee County, GRE, Marcy Nanocenter (Mohawk Valley EDGE), Invest Buffalo Niagara, Onondaga County and CenterState CEO. National Grid has long served as the initiative’s underwriter.

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