August 24, 2009 Computer chip plant's arrival keeping area firms busy
By DREW KERR
dkerr@poststar.com
The production floor at Stone Bridge Iron & Steel where 60-foot-long I-beams are cut, drilled, welded and painted is anything but quiet.
The noise, though, comes with some degree of consolation: Its a signal that business hasnt faltered.
Fortunately for those working there, the work space isnt likely to go silent anytime soon.
The Northumberland-based company recently bested seven other bidders to win a contract to fabricate around 4,000 tons of steel for the soon-to-be-under-construction GlobalFoundries computer chip factory in Malta.
The job, company president Brian Carmer said, will account for up to 20 percent of the work Stone Bridge does this year, keeping his employees extra busy from September through January.
And with private jobs drying up, the work couldnt have come at a better time, the Wilton resident said.
"It definitely takes some pressure off the estimating department," Carmer said during a recent visit to the manufacturers headquarters.
Stone Bridge, which is modernizing its plant in part to accommodate GlobalFoundries steel order, isnt the only business beginning to feel the impacts of the computer chip makers arrival in Saratoga County.
The Delaney Group of Gloversville was charged with clearing parts of GlobalFoundries 223-acre site at the Luther Forest Technology Campus earlier this summer; Unistress of Pittsfield, Mass., has been hired to supply roughly $8 million worth of pre-cast concrete components beams, columns and flooring slabs according to the company.
Bonded Concrete, which has offices across the Capital Region, including one in Wilton, has also been tasked with providing around 90,000 cubic yards of concrete for the main fab and adjacent central utility building.
Brendan Clemente, the companys operations manager, said the project represents about 30 percent of the overall work the business will do this year something that has helped "soften the blow" leveled by the recession.
To complete the job, 15 employees will be on-site full time as early as next week and remain there through July 2010, he said.
"This is what we call a mega-job," Clemente said. "If we do this job and we do it well, Im sure it will be great for our future."
Local laborers are also getting in on the action.
Larry Bulman, the business manager for the South Glens Falls-based Local 773, said the first union members from his group will be on site this week to lay underground pipes before the foundation is laid.
There will be just eight to 10 workers involved in this initial stage, but by spring typically the trades slowest season hundreds of the unions members are likely to be working at the site, Bulman said.
"This is just the beginning stages," he said, adding that several ancillary businesses have also contacted him recently in hopes of finding workers who could help them build in the area.
Without the project, Bulman estimated that as many as 20 to 30 percent of the unions membership would be out of work next year as public projects dry up amidst municipal budget cuts.
"Being a realist, I would have to say, honestly, that we would probably have very high unemployment numbers in 2010 without this work," he said.
State Sen. Roy McDonald, R-Saratoga, who urged the company to hire and buy local whenever possible, said hes been pleased with the companys hiring practices to date.
Maintaining that local focus, he said, will be important to justifying the $1.2 billion incentive package offered by the state to lure the company to New York.
"Theyre showing a lot of good faith," McDonald said. "Were not going to go out and follow who theyre hiring, but as this goes forward, to see them hire more local companies with more local employees will be gratifying."
