Commerce secretary visits Hillsboro, weighs state bid for federal dollars

Published 9:56 am Thursday, April 6, 2023

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who visited Oregon this week, was careful not to say too much about the state’s pending bid for a share of billions in federal dollars available to expand domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, the most advanced of which are now made in Asia.

Raimondo leads the Cabinet department that will say where $52 billion goes that Congress made available last year for advanced manufacturing under the CHIPS and Science Act — and also much of the $200 billion available for scientific research.

On her quick stop Wednesday, April 5, Raimondo had breakfast with technology executives and government officials in Hillsboro. Then she spoke with a few students in the mechatronics program at Willow Creek Center at Portland Community College — Oregon’s largest institution of higher education by enrollment — and took part in a roundtable discussion with officials, educators and a few workers.

She told reporters afterward that factors other than state financial incentives and sites available for manufacturing will be given weight.

“Not every state has world-class community colleges already working with industry,” she said. “It’s competitive, of course. But what you have here is exceptional. The states that will be successful will be the ones that have a state plan for companies to train people.”

During the roundtable discussion, Raimondo said those training programs should attract people who have not been considered part of semiconductors or other advanced manufacturing — women, people of color, veterans, and those who are the first in their families to attend college, regardless of their economic or immigration status.

Oregon seeks more

Oregon already employs about 15% (40,300) of the U.S. semiconductor workforce, trailing only California and Texas. Intel, based in California, is Oregon’s largest private employer with 22,000 workers and four plants in Hillsboro and Aloha, and its newest research-and-development plant opened a year ago in a campus named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who died March 24 at age 94. The cluster of businesses that has emerged around Intel has given the area the nickname of Silicon Forest.

“But we need to step up and continue to be a national and global leader in making sure we get to the next stage of growth in the semiconductor industry,” Gov. Tina Kotek said during the roundtable. “We cannot make things, or discover new things, without people… As governor, I am fully committed to making sure we have the workforce we need.”

On Thursday, the Oregon House signed off on a $210 million package of support for chipmakers, a bipartisan bill that also gives Kotek authority to bypass land-use laws and designate rural lands for industrial development. The Senate approved Senate Bill 4 last week.

The bill will provide state aid for companies seeking shares of the federal money, developing industrial sites and matching money for universities planning research. It is one of the early legislative priorities of Kotek, who proposed the money in her two-year budget. Lawmakers are considering renewing or adding tax breaks, but in separate legislation.

“Based on what I have seen here today, I think you will be extremely competitive,” Raimondo said. “What you have here is 15% of all the workforce in the industry is here in Oregon, the leading companies are here in Oregon, a governor and congressional delegation are getting behind it. There is a lot to like – and I can’t wait to see your application. Put in an application, and I think you have so many resources.”

Pressed further, she said of her meeting with the business executives: “The way they are thinking about job training, investments in technology and infrastructure, the governor’s commitment to making permits streamlined – you are doing everything right. We just have to partner with you to help you be successful.”

Hillsboro Mayor Steve Calloway said this afterward: “There were some amazing business leaders who were visionaries. The kids here are so inspirational. The program showed that we have a track record of success. We are the Silicon Forest, and the forest does not grow overnight. It takes years and years. But we have a mature high-tech industry that is perfectly positioned to grow and move forward and to lead the country.”

The Democratic leaders of the joint committee that came up with what is Oregon’s CHIPS Act are Sen. Janeen Sollman of Hillsboro and Rep. Janelle Bynum of Clackamas, both of whom were on the roundtable. Sollman is a graduate of Forest Grove High School – “We didn’t have these classes when I was in school” – and Bynum obtained a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

Raimondo also heard from the presidents of Portland and Mount Hood community colleges, the presidents of Oregon State University and Oregon Institute of Technology, and the dean of engineering at Portland State University about their programs and students.

Gov. Kotek also said she wants Oregon to bid separately for some of the $10 billion available from the Commerce Department to create up to 20 new hubs of technological innovation. Excluded are current hubs such as Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area; Austin, Texas; New York City and Boston.

“We want Oregon to have one of the national semiconductor technology centers — and some of the other research initiatives that are in the CHIPS and Science Act,” Kotek said. “We know that we are well-positioned to be a research hub for the country. We are going to do everything to make that happen.”

‘We have to do it’

Raimondo was state treasurer and governor of Rhode Island before she was named commerce secretary by President Joe Biden. Her agency’s new responsibilities under the CHIPS and Science Act gives her wide latitude to reshape the American economy, unlike any commerce secretary in the past century in an agency that had been regarded as a bureaucratic backwater.

“There is no doubt about it. It is daunting,” Raimondo told reporters. “It’s the biggest, most exciting and most important industrial strategy since the Second World War. It’s huge, but we’re up to the challenge. We have to do it.

“Let me say this: We didn’t get here overnight – and we are not going to get out overnight,” she added. “It has been a slow 40 years of taking our eyes off the manufacturing ball. But we are making investments of the size and scale we never have before in manufacturing. Senator Wyden is a huge champion in the Senate for this. We need to recommit ourselves to making things in America – advanced manufacturing in America. You cannot underestimate the magnitude of this investment.”

As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which writes tax legislation, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden shaped the CHIPS and Science Act. As the legislation came together, Wyden pressed Raimondo for a visit to Oregon – and he said her interest was not based solely on state incentives or availability of industrial land for new semiconductor fabrication plants.

He said:

“She said: I want to come and see the students, because I want to talk about how we are going to grow the workforce to take advantage of all that research and development and manufacturing. And she said: Let’s make sure that workforce is more inclusive than it has been in the past. She wants people of all levels of experience to have a chance to be part of what we know is going to be fundamental to growth and innovation in America, which is technology and microelectronics.”

As a member of two House committees – Education and Labor, and Science, Space and Technology – Rep. Suzanne Bonamici attached several scientific research programs to the legislation to make it a “science” act. Bonamici represents a district that includes many of the companies in the Silicon Forest.

“We have a skilled semiconductor workforce in Washington County. But it has tremendous potential to grow,” she said. “We know there are a lot of good-paying jobs in this industry, and not all of them require a four-year or advanced degree.”

Different perspectives

Three panelists offered their perspectives:

• Audrey Darus said her interest in high school woodshop led her to Oregon State University, and then her current internship at Thermal Fisher Scientific in Hillsboro, which specializes in electron microscopy. “Being able to get into research opportunities at Oregon State has exposed me to that field,” she said. “I’m happy to be where I am and happy for the future.”

• Gerry Fernandez took a roundabout way to his current job at Ampere Computing in Portland. He emigrated from Argentina to the United States as a child, and played music after graduation from high school in El Paso, Texas, before his parents goaded him into getting a degree at the University of Texas at Austin. He worked for Intel in Oregon for nearly two decades before going to Ampere. “It was an interesting opportunity for me to start at a small company after having been at a big company for many years, and build the next thing.”

• Dreng Esplien is president of Local 36 (for Oregon and southwest Washington) of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers, part of the Building and Construction Trades Council of the AFL-CIO labor federation. His presence underscored that many of the new jobs created under the CHIPS and Science Act – and the Infrastructure Investment and Job Act that Biden signed in late 2021 – do not require four-year or advanced degrees, but entail apprenticeships. “There is an alternate path that is as viable as a college education,” he said. “You can be trained in a skill that no one can ever take away from you – and it is a family-wage job.”