THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 29, 1996 TAG: 9605290003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 66 lines
Gov. George F. Allen calls Virginia ``the Silicon Dominion'' because of the clustering of information-technology companies in the state.
That characterization gained further substance the other day when Motorola Inc. and Germany-based Siemens A.G. announced intention to construct a $1.5 billion semiconductor plant in suburban Richmond. Semiconductors are the tiny ``brains'' essential to computers, cellular telephones, microwave ovens, automobile electronics, sophisticated weaponry. . . .
The prospective Motorola-Siemens semiconductor plant was the third planned major chip-manufacturing venture in the commonwealth to be announced within 13 months.
First, Motorola announced it would build a $3 billion plant in Goochland County close to Richmond. Then IBM and Japan-based Toshiba announced they would invest $1.2 billion in a chip-making plant at Manassas in Northern Virginia.
But a few months ago, Motorola, in response to a cyclical slowdown in the semiconductor market, postponed construction of its projected $3 billion facility. That was a major disappointment, but state officials remain optimistic. Motorola has already done some work to prepare the Goochland site for the plant and that work continues.
``By any economic-development measure,'' asserted a jubilant Robert T. Skunda, state secretary of commerce and trade, ``Virginia is hot.''
True. The delayed Motorola plant could employ up to 5,000 workers. The IBM-Toshiba plant, 4,000. The Motorola-Siemens plant, 1,500.
Each prospective plant will be a magnet for suppliers of goods and services and for enterprises using computer chips. Skunda estimates Motorola-Siemens will generate 3,000 jobs in Virginia atop the 1,500 at the plant.
During the decades of the Cold War, Northern Virginia became a mecca for information-technology companies doing business with the Pentagon and other components of the federal goliath. Meanwhile, telecommunications technology was transforming warfare, commerce and lives around the globe. Virginia - which so often seemed to be stuck in the past - quietly became a state whose fate is inextricably bound to technologies of present and future, as are the economies of California, Oregon, Arizona and Texas.
Virginians need not doubt that the Old Dominion is a player in the information-technology scene, and a well-equipped player at that: The Center for Innovative Technology in Northern Virginia works with colleges to turn scientific breakthroughs in academe into moneymaking enterprises. Old Dominion University's Entrepreneurial Center is lending its expertise to the start-up of new businesses and the improvement or expansion of existing businesses. Commercial uses of technology developed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists, engineers and technicians are being found by enterprisers in Virginia and elsewhere. The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (formerly the Continuous Electronic Beam Accelerator Facility) on the Peninsula, where world-class-physics research takes place, is an increasingly powerful stimulant to economic development in Hampton Roads.
Virginia truly is on a roll, recruiting cutting-edge industries without giving away the store. The state's financial inducements to lure computer-chip manufacturers are tied to production - so state outlays will accompany performance.
Incentives in the form of training and education at state institutions to ensure a skilled work force for the information-technology age will further strengthen Richmond's hand in negotiations to bring other computer-chip manufacturers to Virginia. An extensive network of community colleges, four-year colleges, graduate schools and technical schools position Virginia for an important role in the information-technology age.
Welcome the latest Motorola announcement. Expect more such good news. by CNB