As it turns out, the Capital Region was on a hunt for attracting a computer chip factory from not only Advanced Micro Devices, but also Intel and Samsung, former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno reveals in own new memoir.
In the book written by Bruno, 'Keep Swinging,' published in November by Post Hill Press, Bruno revealed that in 2005 - a year before AMD announced it would build a $3.2 billion computer chip factory at Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County, officials from the Center for Economic Growth in Albany 'had been talking' with archrivals Intel and AMD.
Timesunion reported that Samsung, the South Korea electronics and semiconductor giant had also been pursued by Charles Gargano, Gov.George Pataki's top economic development official.
While this was going on in September 2005, Pataki and Gargano were on a trade mission to China and Japan.
"Before Pataki left I suggested that he add South Korea to his itinerary and talk to some of the Samsung principals at their headquarters in Seoul," Bruno says in the book.
"My recollection is that either my staff or someone at the Center for Economic Growth set up an appointment for him. I spoke to the governor shortly after he landed in Albany, and he told me he didn't stop in South Korea."
"Intel's attitude was that if we were talking to AMD, they wouldn't talk to us," Bruno says.
"My response was, 'Fine, then I'm not going to talk to you.'"
Topix reported that perhaps the most enlightening is a behind-the-scenes description that Bruno gives of a call had with Hector Ruiz, AMD CEO, in May 2006, a month before AMD agreed to build at Luther Forest in what later became the chip fab that would be constructed by AMD spinoff Global Foundries.
On May 15, 2006, Bruno was the keynote speaker at the New York State Investors Conference being held at the Albany Marriott on Wolf Road. Bruno made a vast difference at the conference by announcing that self had just gotten off the phone with the CEO of a major company that wanted to invest billions of dollars in the Capital Region economy.