Posted on May 20, 2005

SuperPower Inc. officially launched its collaboration with Schenectady County Community College and Union College to develop the technical work force that SuperPower will need to produce second generation high temperature superconducting wire.

New York state Sen. Hugh Farley (R-Schenectady) secured $5 million in funding in the 2006 state Legislative Budget to purchase capital equipment and to complete facility upgrades.

The project is designed to train workers for specific jobs. SCCC will train workers in manufacturing the superconducting wires used for transmitting electricity. Union College, located in Schenectady, will build a clean lab and help create the equipment needed for conducting quality control on the wires.

SuperPower, based in Schenectady, expects to grow from 50 people to 150 by 2010.

Glenn Epstein, chairman and CEO of Latham-based Intermagnetics General Corp. (Nasdaq: IMGC), SuperPower's parent, called the program unique and innovative and would “provide practical experience and training for locally based students in engineering and technology who we envision will augment the highly skilled workforce required at SuperPower and other related high tech industries in the Capital Region.”

Farley said the most exciting aspect of the program is it puts “skills in the hands of people in our community. These skills will mean that 'Made in Schenectady' will be the global standard of quality for HTS wire.”

Superconductors are those materials that, when cooled to very low temperatures, can conduct electricity without losing energy. The wire SuperPower is developing is expected to carry about 140 times the current of conventional copper conductors of the same size.

The company said the new wire technology allows for lighter, smaller, and more environmentally friendly electrical equipment such as generators, motors, power cables and transformers.

SuperPower president Philip Pellegrino said the project includes: obtaining quality control equipment at all three institutions; renovation of existing lab space at SCCC and Union College; renovation of existing manufacturing space at SuperPower; and building of new lab space for expansion of course work in quality control processes at SCCC and Union College.

It also involves developing new curricula to provide the education and training needed by future employees who will manufacture the wire.

“The partnership reflects what is possible when business, education and government share a common goal,” he said.

Posted on May 20, 2005

  Christina E. Sorum, dean of faculty and vice president of academic affairs at Union College, was remembered Thursday as “a life force” who touched colleagues and family alike with her brilliance, generosity and compassion.
   A nationally recognized advocate of liberal arts education, Sorum, 61, died Monday at Ellis Hospital after a heart attack.
   Family, friends and colleagues remembered her 23-year career and her life during a memorial service at the Union College Memorial Chapel.
   “She was an amazing mother. She was my confidant, my comforter and my adviser,” said her only child, Eve Christina Sorum. “She was always quick to criticize herself and praise others.”
   Eve Sorum, who resides in Boston, recalled growing up in a home where her mother was a “dynamic, creative, strong woman who always had an interest in the world around her.”
   It was a household where “diagramming a sentence was a dinner game.” She said she suffered no ill effects “unless you count my becoming an English professor as a consequence.”
   Sorum said she and her mother had maintained daily contact, sharing their joys and sorrows. Their bond was as strong as any mother-daughter connection could be, and “it breaks my heart that my mother will never know any of the children I will have,” she said.
   College President Roger Hull began his recollection of Sorum with a simple statement: “I was Christina's colleague.”
   He and Sorum, who obtained her bachelor's and doctorate in Greek literature, shared a love of the classics and would often pepper their daily discussions with references to Greek or Roman authors.
“She did not live nearly long enough,” he said, paraphrasing a classic writer.
   Other friends, all of them Union College faculty members or administrators, said Sorum was a brilliant administrator who wanted only the best for the college.
   “She was the life force of Union College, vivacious and charming. She made people she was with feel special,” said Kimmo Rosenthal, dean for undergraduate education and professor of mathematics.
   Suzanne Benack, a psychology department professor, said Sorum had a unique capacity for delight.
   Whenever she thinks of Sorum, which is often, she said, “I see her laughing at something with her wonderful, rippling laugh. It was a laugh like clear sparkling water.”
   Benack said when she spoke with Sorum, “I felt like a more interesting person and that the world was a more wonderful place.”
   Sorum's husband, Paul, said she was a tireless advocate for liberal arts education, as especially practiced in private, residential colleges.
   “She, at least partially, had a hand in every major innovation at Union since the 1980s,” he said. “Despite her stresses as a dean, she was happy.”
   Sorum moved to Schenectady in 1982 to become chair of the classics department at Union College. She is credited with reviving the department and helping it earn a national reputation.
   She became the Frank Bailey Professor in 1992. In 1994, she became dean of arts and sciences and acting dean of faculty in 1999. She became dean of faculty and vice president of academic affairs in 2000.
   Sorum grew up in Jacksonville, Ill., and attended Wellesley College. She received her doctorate from Brown University.
   She served as a visiting instructor at Union in 1973-74 and then became an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, where she started a classics program in 1975.
   Besides her husband and daughter, she is survived by a brother, Jeff Elliott, of Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Posted on May 20, 2005

   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.

Posted on May 20, 2005

When Phillip Ardell, a 31-year-old Glenville resident first went back to college after being laid off from GE Power Systems in 2002, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do.

“I didn't know what was available,” said Ardell, who decided to go to Schenectady County Community College to earn a degree in electrical technology. “I wanted to try a new field.”

Ardell is now a technician at SuperPower Inc., a five-year-old company in Schenectady that makes superconducting electric cables. On Thursday, the company unveiled a new joint program with Union College and SCCC that would help prepare students like Ardell for working at high-tech companies like SuperPower.

Two months ago, the state Legislature pledged $5 million to SuperPower and the two schools to set up undergraduate programs to prepare students for such work. The money will be be used to build curriculum for new classes at both colleges, as well as to design and purchase quality-control equipment for the students to train on.

“We are becoming the high-tech Silicon Valley of the United States,” said state Sen. Hugh Farley, who was one of a half-dozen speakers who celebrated the program at SuperPower. “Schenectady has to be a part of it.”

SuperPower, a fully-owned subsidiary of Intermagnetics General Corp. in Latham, has been working on a superconducting cable that could transmit electricity with almost no noticeable loss of power through resistance. A normal copper cable loses about 7 percent of power through transmission.

The cable uses a ribbon-shaped wire designed by SuperPower, which is woven into a thick cable that itself is housed in a pipe filled with liquid nitrogen and chilled to 77 Kelvin (minus 321.07 Fahrenheit).

The company is in the midst of constructing a $26 million test site for the system in Albany, funded partially by state and federal grants. The company hopes to have a viable product by next spring. They envision a market for such cables in new underground power lines in urban areas and in heavy-duty transformers and other power equipment.

Officials say the company could triple its staff of 50 in the next five years. And finding qualified workers has been difficult. In some cases, the company has gone as far as Korea, China and India, said Philip Pellegrino, president of SuperPower.

“I'm sick and tired of seeing high-tech jobs go offshore,” he told a crowd of 50 politicians, college officials and SuperPower employees. “We need to keep these high-tech jobs in the United States, and we need to keep them in New York.”

The $5 million is to be divided three ways: $2.3 million to SuperPower; $1.7 million to Union College; and $1 million to Schenectady County Community College.

Both Union President Roger Hull and SCCC President Gabriel Basil spoke in favor of the new programs. Each school expects to have around 15 students enrolled in SuperPower-related classes and internships within the next year. Both colleges will offer new courses on the subject starting in September.

“This partnership is the type of thing that this community needs to see more of,” Hull said.

Posted on May 20, 2005

Through May 29
Wikoff Student Gallery, third floor, Nott Memorial
“Visions and Revisions: Recycled and Environmental Art” sponsored by the College's Environmental Club. Exhibit of 25 environmentally themed artistic works include sculpture, painting, photography, collage, and other mixed media.

Through spring term
Humanities Gallery
“Silk Spaces” by Arlene Baker.

Through spring term
Burns Arts Atrium Gallery
Senior art exhibits

Through spring term
Grant Hall (Admissions)
“Imaging China,” photography by Jeff Roffman and Annemarie Mica.