There's been a great deal of ink about Sematech, the international consortium of computer chip makers wanting to turn Albany into a major research hub. Sematech represents IBM, Intel, Motorola, HP, Texas Instruments, AMD, Philips and others, and will spend $193 million while the State will supply the remaining $210 million. What's all the fuss? The Capital District has been a cutting edge research center for years.
Isn't this the same region where Thomas Edison and Charles Steinmetz created an electric industry (GE) in Schenectady that "lit up the world," in 1892. Isn't it where technological innovation allowed American Locomotive (ALCO) to produce 75,000 train engines from early steam to electric with many of them still hauling around the world? It is the same GE where Irving Langmuir, Vince Schaefer and Bernie Vonnegut began Project Cirrus in the 1940's, and where Schaefer and Vonnegut invented cloud seeding for the first time while flying over Schenectady! Langmuir went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1932 for his studies on surface chemistry. Vince founded Albany's Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, along with Vonnegut and others. ASRC is a leading research lab in atmospheric sciences to this day.
GE's Ivar Giaever won the Nobel Prize in physics for his discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in solids in 1973. He's been at RPI since 1988. Of course RPI and its graduates have always produced innovation. The first science school in the country was also the birthplace of American Geology. Many of RPI's graduates made important contributions such as Eben Horsford (1818-1893) who invented baking soda, or Leffert L. Buck (1837-1909) who built at the time the longest and the highest bridges in the world. You wear Sanford Cluett's (18741968) inventions - sanforizing of shirts - or easily carry things thanks to his process that makes paper bags strong. He held over 200 patents. William Gurley (1821-1887) made engineering and surveyor products that are still envied - and used - all around the world. John L. Riddell, (1807 1865) invented the binocular microscope and magnifying glass.
One of the first American scientific observatories, Albany's Dudley Observatory (1852), produced a number of early discoveries and still operates out of Schenectady as an education center. Albany's William Bell Wait invented the New York Point System of Writing for the Blind in the 1870's. Joseph Henry, while teaching at the Albany Academy discovered mutual electromagnetic induction--the production of an electric current from a magnetic field--and electromagnetic self-induction. Henry constructed some of the most powerful electromagnets of his time, an oar separator, a prototype telegraph, and the first electric motor. He also is given credit for encouraging Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone and created the first series of weather observers in America. Thomas Elkins, an African American patented an improved refrigerator design in 1879. It also chilled human corpses. He wasn't from Albany, but Glenn Curtis used Albany as the base to make the long distance flying record from Albany to New York City in 1910.
Troy's John F. Winslow (1810-1892) and Alexander Holley (1832-1882), also RPI Grads, introduced into America the Bessemer steel making process in South Troy during the 19th century and revolutionized the iron industry. This was after Winslow's state of the art Albany Iron Works rolled the protective plates for the USS Monitor in a record 30 days. It was Henry Burden who's inventive genius allowed his company to make a horseshoe a second becoming the leading manufacturer of not only horseshoes but also one of the largest iron companies in America. Philo Penfield Stewart, inventor of the ultimate cooking stove and the Fuller & Warren Company made innovative heating stoves to keep people warm around the world, and of course the perfection in bell making in Troy by Hanks, Meneely, Jones, and Hitchcock, allowed Troy to become the bell making capital of the world. George M. Phelps (18201895) was a pioneer in communication technology and made great contributions in early telegraphy from making keys and telegraph printers and was Western Union's lead inventor. P. Thomas Carroll of the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway has rightfully proclaimed Troy as the "Silicon Valley of the 19th Century." Smithsonian historians have called Troy the "Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution."
During the early period of this country's development between 1790-1850, more than 400 patents were issued to Capital District inventors on a whole range of innovations. Instead of calling our area "Tech Valley," I think it's more appropriate to call it "Innovation Valley."
You see folks, innovation is nothing new to our area. I think the real question is why did it take Sematech so long to realize that?