The Center for Economic Growth will be vastly expanding its role in increasing the skills of the Capital Region’s workforce through an apprenticeship program for the semiconductor manufacturing industry.
CEG has partnered with SEMI, the industry association representing the end-to-end electronics design and manufacturing industry, Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) and the Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY) to launch an apprenticeship program that will train more than 50 GlobalFoundries employees under SEMI’s Industry Approved Apprenticeship Program (IAAP) that trains them in skills required by the electronics industry.
As it has with other manufacturers, CEG will serve as a group sponsor of the SEMI IAAP for GlobalFoundries apprentices and SEMI Certs process, ensuring that the program meets the competency requirements of the industry. CEG will be responsible for apprentices as they undergo training, and it will manage vstate Department of Labor-required records and reporting and organize participants’ outside coursework so the program can be registered.
Apprentices from GlobalFoundries Fab 8 in Malta will be taking HVCC courses, which are the first to be certified under the SEMI Certs program. SEMI plans to scale up the program to support the talent pipelines at other sites.
“Amid the effort to manufacture more advanced electronics domestically, it is crucial for our region to be able to quickly skill up semiconductor industry workers, which apprenticeship programs like this are designed to deliver,” said CEG Senior Vice President Michael Lobsinger.
Officials said that by year’s end, HVCC expects to register approximately 50 apprentices and 100 by 2021. It will be a state-registered apprenticeship program, under which apprentices can receive tuition reimbursement for required technical training.
The U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) is providing funding for the program. The Capital Region’s Advanced Electronics Cluster employed 9,975 in 2019, including 3,635 semiconductor device manufacturing and 5,675 in R&D in physical, engineering and life sciences.
Since launching the Capital Region Manufacturing Intermediary Apprenticeship Program (MIAP) in 2018, CEG has succeeded in getting more than two dozen apprentices hired for several greater Capital Region manufacturers and software firms. Examples include: Beechnut, town of Florida, Montgomery county, 15 electromechanical technician apprentices; Electrometrics, Johnstown, two machinist apprentices; Espey Mfg. & Electronics Corp., Saratoga Springs: a CNC and a welder apprentice; Greno Industries, Scotia two CNC machinist apprentices; Plug Power, Colonie, two electromechanical technician apprentices.
In 2019, CEG expanded the Capital Region MIAP to include the state’s first software develop apprenticeship program. Partners for this program include SUNY Schenectady County Community College (SUNY Schenectady) and Albany Can Code, Inc.
Last spring they graduated three of the region’s first software developer apprentices from Jahnel Group in Schenectady, Troy Web Consulting in Troy and MVP Healthcare in Schenectady. CEG has continued expanding its apprenticeship programming for the Capital Region’s Software-IT Cluster to include a computer support technician apprentice for Tech II in Saratoga Springs and a data analyst apprentice for Velan Studios in Troy.
CEG is the Capital Region’s regional economic development organization, with over 265 investors in business, government, education, and the nonprofit sectors. CEG is a New York Empire State Development Division of Science, Technology and Innovation-designated Regional Technology Development Center and an affiliate of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)/Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).
For more information, visit www.ceg.org.
