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Business leaders join Tech Valley High School alliance

The Business Review ( Albany ) - by Richard A. D'Errico

Friday, January 18, 2008

Throughout the summer, two local business leaders have been putting together a team of business people that could help Tech Valley High School make connections with the so-called real world.

On Tuesday, that list of business leaders was released.

Kevin Leyden, an IBM executive, said one thing was clear: that list couldn't be top heavy with academics.

"It's business leaders we need as opposed to academic leaders," Leyden said, "not to get too heavy on academics."

Leyden is co-chair of the Tech Valley High School Business Alliance with Amy Johnson, president of Capstone Inc. in Latham.

The group has met twice and a third meeting is scheduled for Jan. 29. The focus will be on Tech Valley High School 's next step.

Tech Valley High is the region's newest high school, located in the Pitney Bowes MapInfo's building in the Rensselaer Technology Park in North Greenbush . The school is a joint venture of the Capital Region BOCES and Questar III, the BOCES district based in Rensselaer County .

The school has 40 students and plans call for the school to add 48 freshmen in each of the following three years and eventually grow to no more than 400 students.

Leyden said the school is a priority for IBM.

"We had realized we had a real shortage of qualified resources in the U.S. , not just New York ," Leyden said. IBM believes the school was worth supporting and has helped in its set up. IBM made recommendations--such as providing the students laptops rather than desktop computers--and IBM gave the school a break on technology costs.

For Leyden it's also personal.

"I'm a teacher," he said. "I'm certified to teach social studies and remedial reading. I haven't done that in 20 or 30 years." And when he started to look at the educational system again, "I realized nothing had changed much in 20 some odd years."

Tech Valley High is hoping to change that, at least in the Albany , N.Y. , area. The alliance will play a role in that. The alliance is made up of:

Edward Baker, dean of continuing education, Schenectady County Community College; Clinton Ballinger, CEO of Evident Technologies; Paul Burton, president of DynaBil Industries; John Corey, president of Clever Fellows Innovation Consortium Inc./ Qdrive; Robert Geer, assistant vice president for academic affairs at Albany NanoTech; Douglas Hamlin, president and CEO of VersaTrans Solutions Inc.; LaMar Hill, president and CEO of International Alliance of Nanotechnology Regions; Linda Hillman, president of the Rensselaer County Chamber of Commerce; Christine Horne, manager, public affairs, General Electric; Carolyn Jones, publisher, The Business Review; Craig Keefer, vice president of M&T Bank; Jeff Lawrence, senior vice president at the Center for Economic Growth Inc.; Kyle Litz, scientist/ lab manager at Applied NanoWorks Inc.; Drew Matonak, president of Hudson Valley Community College; Ann Moynihan, president of Documentation Strategies Inc.; Ed Nadeau, business agent, Plumbers & Steamfitters Local No. 7; Ryan O'Donnell, CEO of BullEx Digital Safety; Susan Philips, dean of the school education at the University at Albany; Suzanne Pollard, economic development specialist at Empire State Development Corp.; Ken Romanski, executive vice president at CMA Consulting Services; William Rozich, director, 300M Operations, IBM; Tobi Saulnier, CEO of 1st Playable Productions; Tymm Schumaker, senior materials engineer at Lockheed Martin Corporation/ Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory; Charles Steiner, president of the Chamber of Schenectady County; Lyn Taylor, president of the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce; John Tobin, architect, Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture & Engineering P.C.; Elizabeth Worthington, vice president of organizational development at Mohawk Fine Papers Inc.