GlobalFoundries to work with schools on high-tech training

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

GlobalFoundries will be part of a new state program to give high school students college-level training for high-skill jobs, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Wednesday.

GlobalFoundries, which has built a massive computer chip plant in Saratoga County that employs 2,100 people, will be working with local schools to train high school students for both manufacturing and clean technologies jobs, according to Cuomo’s office.

Across the state, such other businesses as IBM, Bombardier and Lockheed Martin will be involved in the training program, as well as several industry councils.

About 6,000 high school students across the state are expected to receive training through the program, dubbed Pathways in Technology Early College High School.

A clean technologies training program will involve a regional high school consortium led by the Ballston Spa Central School District, with training through Hudson Valley Community College. The business partners are GlobalFoundries, Cisco and TRC Engineering Services.

The program would build on an existing partnership in which high school students coordinated through Ballston Spa High School train at HVCC’s TEC-SMART clean energy training facility, located near the GlobalFoundries plant in Malta.

Another partnership, focused on manufacturing job training, would involve GlobalFoundries in partnership with the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES and SUNY Adirondack.

Statewide, the governor announced 16 BOCES or school districts will enter public-private partnerships to provide early college classes to high school students, training them for high-skill jobs in technology, manufacturing and health care.

“Students will earn an associate degree at no cost to their families and will be first in line for jobs with participating companies when they graduate,” the governor’s office said in a news release.

The 2013-14 state budget included $4 million requested by Cuomo for the P-TECH program, with additional funding expected to come through the state Department of Education.

In the other partnership announced for the Capital Region, the Center for Economic Growth, GE Health Care and Regeneron will be working together in advanced manufacturing training with the Questar III BOCES, which serves Rensselaer County.

In the Mohawk Valley, Cuomo’s office stated that 16 regional companies will be working with an educational consortium that will include Fulton-Montgomery Community College and schools in the Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES area.

Cuomo’s office said the selected programs are expected to spend 2013-14 recruiting students and training teachers and enroll the first classes in the fall of 2014.

“These public-private partnerships are a model for success for our students, our employers and our regional economies,” Cuomo said.