Six of them will work in Idaho for Micron Technology, which helped design the new, two-year program at OCC. The others got jobs locally.
In addition, eight students in the program are working this summer as interns at Micron’s Boise headquarters.
“We’re pretty excited,” said Mike Grieb, the engineering technology professor who runs the OCC program.
OCC is also reaching into high schools, helping to launch a new semiconductor track this year at Corcoran High School, in Syracuse. Students in that program can start taking college classes in high school and ultimately get their associate’s degree at OCC — for free.
These are tiny steps toward meeting a massive challenge: Central New York needs to grow and import thousands of workers over the next generation to build a high-tech industry here. As the federal government hands out billions in subsidies to chipmakers to bring chip manufacturing back from Asia, it’s largely up to local communities to get workers ready to meet the moment.
Micron is the catalyst for that demand. The chipmaker is promising to create up to 9,000 jobsat a new factory complex north of Syracuse. About one-third of them would be technicians, people with two-year degrees like OCC is offering who learn the intricacies of creating the computer chips that power our phones and cars and military weapon systems.
But the need for engineers, logistics experts, equipment specialists, HVAC workers and others stretches far beyond the class catalog at OCC and even Micron’s own HR department. Other companies are expected to follow Micron into New York. That, along with a projected population surge, could add as many as 50,000 part-time and full-time workers to our economy.
That’s why New York state is pledging $200 million into the effort to create a training network, and the federal government is pumping hundreds of millions into regional training with a network of colleges in the Northeast and establishing the National Semiconductor Technology Center in Albany.
SU is projecting to spend millions by the time Micron’s first fabrication plant, or fab, opens in 2030. OCC is building a simulated clean room, scheduled to open in the fall.
But another key step to creating a new workforce starts with potential workers who are much younger. That’s because, in large part, about two-thirds of the workers expected to power this new industry will be home-grown, both Micron and outside experts say.
“We’re focusing on the four-year schools and two-year schools, but we’re not focusing on the high schools,” said Chris Suozzi, executive vice president of the Genesee County Economic Development Center, which has already placed 100 students in tech industries. “And that’s where things have to happen.”
That’s happening in Syracuse, where the school district just spent about $500,000 to buy equipment for the new Semiconductor Microchip Technology program.
The driving force behind this is Micron, which says it will start construction late this year on a complex of four massive chipmaking plants in the town of Clay. The development, which would span an area nearly three times as big as the New York State Fairgrounds, would be the largest private development in New York state history.
Micron says it would hire 9,000 people over the next 20 years, with average annual wages of over $100,000.
Micron’s planned complex is the result of the federal CHIPS Act, which allotted $39 billion for chip companies to build new plants in the U.S. Micron could receive $20 billion in taxpayer subsidies to build the first two fabrication plants, or fabs, in Clay.
Several of the world’s biggest chipmakers are also taking advantage of CHIPS funding, creating tens of thousands of jobs in an industry that has been outsourced to Asia for the past few decades. That means there are few experienced semiconductor factory engineers and technicians in the U.S., so the industry and communities have to essentially build from scratch a brand new workforce for the U.S.
The CHIPS Act provides funding for job training, too.
Local high school and college programs are a critical piece of that training, experts say. At least a third of the Micron jobs would be technicians, which would need associate’s degrees or apprenticeship programs, the company said.
Most of those jobs are likely to be filled by people already living in Central New York, said Michael Thompson, a Cornell University engineering professor who studies the semiconductor industry. He said companies generally don’t pay relocation expenses for that level of jobs, he said, and so tend to hire locally.
“The support people are going to be local,” Thompson said.
Micron says that 60 percent to 70 percent of its workers in Boise and in its only U.S. fab, in Manassas, Virginia, were local residents, and that the Clay complex would have a similar hiring pattern.
OCC moved quickly after Micron announced in 2022 it planned to build the country’s largest computer chipmaking plant in the town of Clay.
The college launched the new major in fall of 2023 and just granted its first batch of associate’s degrees. That could train students to become technicians at Micron, a job the company says could pay more than $60,000.
In the fall, a year later than expected, OCC plans to open a simulated clean room, which the college says will be paid for by Micron. Clean rooms are the vast spaces where machines convert pizza-sized silicon discs into tiny chips that each carry billions of transistors. Micron could build up to four cleanrooms, each the size of 10 football fields.
Major universities, including Syracuse and Cornell, are expanding their engineering programs and offerings to train students for work in the semiconductor industry.
SU’s engineering and computer science department has already hired a dozen professors and plans to add that many more as it increases enrollment by 50 percent.
Hiring that many professors is a challenge, too, said Mike Haynie, SU’s vice chancellor for strategic initiatives.
“If you think about the fact that this industry left this country 25, 30 years ago, it is a challenge to identify faculty members who have unique experience domestically,” Haynie said. “Most of the folks that are truly expert in the space are overseas.”
SU says it could spend more than $100 million over the next five years to expand the engineering college and boost the college’s programs in STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The university is also searching for a vice president to run an economic development office that would link students and professors with Micron and other tech businesses.
While college programs are needed to train workers, many workforce experts say the training process can even start in high school.
In Genesee County, more than 100 high school students have graduated ready to become technicians in the semiconductor and other industries.
“Kids are going right into the workplace and walking into a company’s apprenticeship program right where they’re learning on the job afterwards,” Suozzi said.
Key to the program was the purchase five years ago of what’s known as mechatronics equipment, which is “mechanical, electrical and information technology all rolled together,” Suozzi said. The equipment, which gives students hands-on learning, is housed at the Genesee Valley BOCES, in Batavia.
The mechatronics lab in Batavia is the only one of its kind in New York state, Suozzi said, but he’s encouraging other regions, including Central New York, to launch their own programs.
“You’ve got to have the right equipment in the high school that’s going to lead towards opportunities at Micron,” he said.
That’s what the Syracuse district has done, said Ryan Terpening, the coordinator of the new program at Corcoran. The district consulted with Micron to ensure the new equipment aligned with how Micron trains its own workers, he said.
“The equipment that they recommended for our curriculum is what they actually use at the factory to train some of the technicians,” Terpening said.
Corcoran’s semiconductor program is one of about 10 technical training avenues in the district’s long-standing P-TECH program, which stands for Pathways in Technology Early College High School.
The first cohort of Corcoran ninth-graders are taking introductory classes this year to prepare them for more technical courses they’ll take as sophomores. Students can take college-level courses to give them a leg up at OCC.
That group of students took a field trip earlier this year to Micron’s only chipmaking plant in the U.S., in Manassas, Virginia. Students met with Micron employees and got a tour of the fab.
The visit confirmed Mario Cruz’s decision to enroll in the course.
“The employees seem so nice, and it seems like such a cool job to work at,” said Cruz, 15. “I was like, OK, this is where I’m going to work someday.”
OCC has trained technology teachers in eight local districts, including Syracuse, to teach college-level courses modeled after OCC’s program. Last year, about 300 local students earned some college credits in the program, Grieb said.
“They’re using the same curriculum that we deliver in our classes up at the campus,” Grieb said.
The college is also building, with Micron’s help, a cleanroom simulator. The project has been delayed because it’s taking longer than expected to piece together and test the machines, or tools, that Micron has provided, Grieb said. It’s scheduled to open in the fall.
The task of training a workforce isn’t going to happen overnight, and it’s likely to go on for decades as Micron and the region grow.
“Workforce development’s a process,” Suozzi said. “It’s not a one-time event.”
Syracuse.com editor’s note: This is one of several stories highlighting the challenges and innovations in training and recruiting workers for Central New York’s growth economy. Advance Media New York will bring together the Upstate New York workforce development community in Syracuse June 10 for the inaugural NY Workforce Connect conference. Registration is open.
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