Officials tout new high-tech tenant

The company will create 35 good-paying jobs over a three-year period.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- It's not often that the state's chief executive shows up for the announcement of a local company's expansion project, but Gov. Ed Rendell did just that.
Rendell and Dennis Yablonsky, secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development, were the guests of honor at LindenPointe Innovative Business Campus on Pa. Route 18 Tuesday for an announcement that Novocell Semiconductor Inc. will be the planned technical park's first industrial tenant.
Novocell is a high-tech operation that develops advanced memory technology and solutions for the semiconductor computer chip industry.
It has its headquarters in Pittsburgh and operations on Mercer-West Middlesex Road just outside of West Middlesex as well as a design center in Austin, Texas.
All of those operations will be combined into one new facility at LindenPointe by the end of the year, said D. Chris Keil, president and chief executive officer.
LindenPointe is a joint project of the city of Hermitage and KAKE Development Inc. of Hermitage.
Announcement
Rendell was on a tour of western Pennsylvania touting his recently passed $2.3 billion economic stimulus package and took the opportunity to show up for the Novocell announcement.
He outlined the stimulus package but left the Novocell announcement to Yablonsky.
Novocell is exactly the type of company the state is hoping to bring into Pennsylvania, Yablonsky told a group of about 100 community and business leaders gathered under a tent adjacent to the company's new home.
The company expects to add 35 jobs over a three-year period, he said.
Keil said Novocell has eight employees now and the new positions will pay between $50,000 and $125,000 a year.
Bringing that type of income to the area will help the community and foster additional business development in the region, Keil said, calling his company the "poster child" for economic development here.
The arrangement
Novocell won't own its building but will lease space from SEED, Subscribers Encouraging Economic Development, a local nonprofit development group committed to helping industrial development and job creation in the Shenango Valley area.
SEED is putting up the $1.2 million to construct a two-story, 8,000-square-foot building which will house Novocell and have room for a second company.
Keil said Novocell will invest about $2 million in locating at LindenPointe.
It's getting some government help, about $175,000 from the state's Ben Franklin Project and another $150,000 from the Penn-Northwest Development Corp., but is handling the rest of the cost on its own.
Keil said the company expects to have $5 million revenue in 2005 and $15 million in revenue within five years.
Rendell said this visit was the first of what he hopes will be many to announce other projects and state aid for the area.