Across The River And ...

Into The Future
by
Jack Harding

Would you like to see 3000 new jobs in Vermont?  The recipe is quite straightforward, really; all you need is a visionary professor with a maniacal focus on bringing the world’s best technology center to the state; the coordinated support of the governmental, industrial and academic sectors; $5 billion dollars added gradually; and then ten years to let it all simmer.  This is what you’ll find down the road apiece from Bennington, in the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at the University of Albany. 

Where do we Vermonters get $5 billion you ask?  Well, we don’t.  We also don’t need to set our sights on 3000 jobs, (although that is what we will lose when IBM shuts down the Burlington facility.)  But let’s talk about that in a minute.

The so called “Nanotechnology Center” is the brainchild of Professor Alain Kaloyeros. You might think of him as the “maniac” behind this internationally recognized success story.  Ten years ago Dr. Kaloyeros, who proudly presides over a full campus of existing facilities, had three staff members beside himself.  Today there are nearly 3000 jobs on site, or planned to be filled, as the newest of a dozen buildings under construction becomes ready for occupancy in January 2009.   

Kaloyeros should be proud. There is, literally, no end in sight.

And we’re not just talking about office space. Have you ever seen a couple BILLION dollars of semiconductor equipment packed into a couple buildings?  I did a few weeks ago  when I toured the facilities and heard the tale of what one great leader, a friendly and cooperative state government, and a hand full of appreciative and respectful global companies could make into a reality.

It should be no surprise that Vermont’s largest employer, IBM, is making a large, long-term commitment to CNSE.  IBM dominates the Hudson Valley semiconductor industry and knows an opportunity when it sees one.  In fact, my guess is that IBM became excited years ago, when CNSE was still in its infancy.  That is what great vision yields; the participation of those people who can affect the realization of a plan for the future long before the funds are identified. (It creates the “We can do it” feeling so strikingly absent from Vermont’s leadership.)

In fact, several weeks ago at the Semico 2008 Tech Summit (a semiconductor conference held in Phooenix) I heard John Kelly, Sr. VP of R&D for IBM say, “[CNSE] is the epicenter of global semiconductor R&D”.  This isn’t too shabby for the financially depressed Albany/Troy/ Schenectady region that has been struggling for years to revitalize an economy depleted of manufacturing jobs and dominated by state employment….sound familiar?

So, back to li’l old Vermont…you’re right, we can’t get $5 billion dollars to change the world.  Actually, since we believe we can’t, and our Governor believes we can’t, and our Senators and Congressman believe we can’t, let’s just agree.  We can’t.  But, for the right idea, we could get $1 billion dollars over 10 years. We do have “manically focused” college professors, we have great universities, we have an eager trading partner in Canada, we have fantastic regional resources, including, now, the CNSE, and we have a technology-rich employer in IBM.  Most importantly, there is another compelling asset based upon something we don’t have --  a choice.

Vermont is 20 years behind and our elected officials are working half-time to catch up.  Thank goodness.  This means the legislature has less time to spend money we don’t have on ideas disproven so long ago that even Communist China bailed on them in the 90’s. In any case, we are blessed with the mind-clearing asset of nothing to lose. Let’s take a lesson from our regional brethren down the road and craft a vision for Vermont’s future beyond maple products.  Let’s join the best part of the clean, environmentally-friendly tech world and put down a bet. Albany did it.  We can too.

I met an old Vermonter once who told me the two best times to plant a tree are twenty years ago

… and today.

(Jack Harding, Vermont Tiger’s Chairman, has deep roots in the state.  He was raised in Burlington and maintains a home Southern Vermont, though his work is in California’s Silicon Valley where he is CEO of eSilicon, the company which he founded. Harding began his career in business at IBM. Prior to co-founding eSilicon, he served as president and CEO of Cadence Design Systems; during his tenure, Cadence was the world's largest supplier of electronics design software. Previously, Harding was president and CEO of Cooper & Chyan Technology, which was acquired by Cadence in 1997. Harding also served as Executive Vice President of Zycad Corporation.

Harding earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics and Chemistry from Drew University and has served as Vice Chairman of its Board of Trustees. He is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Development Strategies, a member -- and former Steering Committee member -- of the Council on Competitiveness, a Washington, D.C. based organization dedicated to the global competitiveness of the U.S.; and a former National Academies' Committee member for Software, Growth and the Future of the U.S. Economy. He is a frequent lecturer on innovation and entrepreneurship, and has served on many boards of public and private companies. His most recent appointment was to the 2007 board of directors for the Fabless Semiconductor Association.)

Comments

[Martin Harris]

Jack Harding writes a highly-readable commentary raising a lot of policy/governance questions, but they can all be answered by looking at his first sentence, which is a question: "would you like to see 3000 new jobs in Vermont?" to which the majority answer, from both voters and politicians, is basically "no".

Presently the Golden Dome (G-D) folks are pretending concern about jobs and housing, but the remedies they propose -- for example the recent housing proposal -- show the absence of seriousness. They don't want growth or capital investment; they want "sustainability" which is, maybe a little over-simplified, the absence of such trends. And they're getting exactly what they want -- a two-tier economy rapidly strengthening in the passive-income sector and nowhere else. It's actually a pretty large economic experiment -- can a state base its economy on transfer payments from elsewhere?-- and the answer is probably yes, if the G-D politicians are smart enough (they claim they're all brighter than average) to run it.