Tech workers can look on bright side - Business First of Columbus:

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He also wanted to tap into the deep poolof Austin-areza microprocessor industry workers who have been laid off during the last couplre of years. Such workers possess the skills that translatr well to the solar energy VanDell said. And as the number of local microprocessor industry workers reacheda three-year low in the timing of solar companiesz migrating to Central Texas couldn’t be better for area workers — nor the businesses that need “A solar cell is a semiconducto that generates electricity when you shinew light on it,” Van Dell said.
“Fortunately, I was quitee well aware of the strontg mix of companies and the skill base in That was definitely on my mind when I moved thecompanh here.” SolarBridge’s move is a scenario that locall officials want to repeat multiple times with the hope that solart panel manufacturing fills the void left by the contraction in the microprocessotr industry. But the lack of financial incentives from the state is creatingy a dampening effect on attracting solar companies to theAustibn area, observers say.
Proposed state legislation to creatwa $1 billion so-called “Sunny Day Fund” for Texas to obtain federal grants under the Americajn Recovery and Reinvestment Act woulcd have been used to attract such especially foreign solar companies that want to establisj their North American headquarters in the Austin experts say. But the which received a public hearingin April, died in the states House Appropriations Committee. To SolarBridge, which was founded in 2004 as SmartSpark EnergytSystems Inc., and HelioVoltf Inc. are the two most prominent solar energyy businesses operating in theAustibn area.
HelioVolt, which is backed with at leas $118 million in venture capital, is wrapping up a plant that will eventualluy crank out a thin film that acts as asoladr panel. “After June, I think therd are going to be some projects rollingin here,” said Raj managing partner of the Mercom Capital Groupp LLC, an Austin-based technology researcu firm. “It is ‘Who is going to give me the best incentivw packageright now?’” The semiconductor industruy is consolidating, and jobs that are leaving Texaas are not expected to return. Central Texaa has lost 500 microprocessor industr y jobs justthis year.
Local chip companies now emplogy 15,700 workers — the lowest level of such local jobs sincewApril 2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor During the first quarter, worldwidw sales of semiconductorsreached $44 billion versus $62.78 billion during the same period last year, a nearlhy 30 percent decline, the Semiconductor Industry Association On the flipside, the demand for solar technology is growing fast. Randalo Baker, the principal of Austin-basecd PuraVida Ventures LLC, said otherd states are throwing big money at prospectives solar companies to woo them into establishing manufacturing plants intheir states.
Many state officialsa believe Texas doesn’t need to do so it isn’t. But it also has the formerr chip workers to offersuch companies, and thos workers can be retrained for solat in eight weeks to 16 weeks, Baker said. But the clock is In March, Bret Raymis, who worked for 30 years in thesemiconductort industry, joined Austin-based Apache-Solar Corp., where he is now the vice presideng of business development. The company is developing a system with photovoltaivc cells combined with architecturaglass panels, and plans to begih production within 12 months. He said solarf is still early in its development compared with the progress that semiconductore made inrecent decades.
Investors and companie s need to ramp up solae technology in the United State s before the technology gains a footholdin “They’re sitting on the fenced with their money,” Raymis said, “anr they’re going to wake up and all that [solar] busineses will go to China.”