He didn't think so at the time, but Phillip Ardell now says being laid off in 2002 from GE Energy as a machinist was the “best thing that ever happened to me.”
Ardell went back to school and earned an associate degree in electrical technology from Schenectady County Community College last year.
On Thursday, he was happily mixing with about 75 government, academic and business officials as SuperPower Inc. celebrated a $5 million state-funded project to train technicians to develop a more efficient electric wire.
Now 31, the Niskayuna resident was wearing the powder-blue smock of a SuperPower senior energy technician.
Ardell and fellow SCCC student George Schwab are examples of what SCCC and Union College administrators hope will be the fruit of new courses, lab equipment and faculty collaboration with SuperPower over the next three years.
Schwab, 54, is about to start work as a SuperPower quality control technician. With a chemistry degree from Union College, Schwab said he's studying part time in SCCC's computer information systems program after his purchasing job with a small Schenectady company was cut.
SuperPower President Philip J. Pellegrino said the grant is “setting the stage so we can add jobs right here in the city of Schenectady.”
The company has received about $21 million in aid from city, state and federal sources over the past four years to renovate its Duane Avenue research and manufacturing plant, Pellegrino said. That includes about $1.5 million in street and parking improvements through the city.
SuperPower's parent, Intermagnetics General Corp., also invested more than $65 million in SuperPower's high-temperature superconducting wire project, said Mickael K. Burke, IGC's chief financial officer.
The three-year grant, announced March 31, provides $2.3 million to SuperPower, $1.7 million to Union College and $1 million to SCCC. The partners must add about $1.25 million.
Paying for equipment to train students and interns would have taken 10 years using college funds, said SCCC President Gabriel Basil. The legislation was spearheaded by state Sen. Hugh T. Farley, R Schenectady. Farley called it the kind of “marriage” of private industry, government and education that could revitalize the regional electric industries.
Schenectady Mayor Brian U. Stratton said it “continues reinforcing this city's role in the energy industry of Tech Valley.”
A $26 million federally supported demonstration project involving SuperPower's wire is under construction on the in Albany.