Plug Power, the Latham fuel cell manufacturer, cut 22 full-time jobs, most of them apparently at its headquarters in Latham.
The job cuts took place last week, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Plug Power, which makes its fuel cells to fit in lift trucks used in warehouses and distribution centers, had been quickly moving toward profitability until a series of problems with suppliers delayed sales of some of its products. It is unclear if those recent problems was the ultimate reason why the company had to shed workforce.
The cuts have impacted the company’s marketing and public relations department, although it was immediately unclear if any assembly jobs were cut.
The company says severance payments and related restructuring measures will cost it $600,000 that will be paid over the “next few months,” according to the SEC filing.
The job cuts will save the company between $3 million to $4 million annually.
Plug Power’s one product is the GenDrive fuel cell. The company has been through several job reductions over the past several years in order to get its expenses in line with revenues.
A group of state residents who advocate for high-speed passenger rail in New York state has set up a Facebook page as they seek additional support for their effort.
State and federal officials have been pushing for faster speeds for Amtrak trains, and a week ago Amtrak entered into an historic lease agreement with CSX Transportation to take control of a 90-plus mile stretch of track from Poughkeepsie to Schenectady. That move has cleared the way for federal and state funding to improve signals, add a track between Albany and Schenectady, improve road crossings, and begin work that could lead to the replacement of the Livingston Avenue bridge over the Hudson River at Albany, among other projects.
A new train station for Schenectady also is in the works.
West of Schenectady, efforts to speed Amtrak trains face hurdles, among them the growing number of freight trains using the route. South of the Capital Region, that traffic travels on the west side of the Hudson River while the line Amtrak now leases is on the east side.
For now, some advocates are suggesting boosting top Amtrak speeds to 90 mph from 79 mph currently.
Amtrak said it carried a record 737,537 passengers during the Thanksgiving travel period, up 1.9 percent from the previous record set last year. Ticket revenues climbed to $56.1 million, up 8.4 percent from last year.
And Nov. 21, the day before Thanksgiving, was Amtrak’s busiest in history, the railroad said, as it carried 140,691 people that day.
The passenger railroad said it accomplished this despite superstorm Sandy, which snarled rail traffic for nearly a week at the beginning of November.
“Amtrak is a key element of the regional response to Sandy and it was critical for us to restore service and operate our full and expanded schedule to connect families for the holiday — and with the help of our commuter partners we did it,” said Joe Boardman, Amtrak’s president and CEO.
Appearing on Fred Dicker’s radio show this morning, Gov. Andrew Cuomo addressed stories that have run in the Times Union that Apple is behind plans for a mega-sized computer chip factory being considered for the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta and another site in Oneida County.
Dicker, whose show runs on AM 1300, asked Cuomo if recent stories about Apple being behind plans for the chip fab are true.
“Well, we’re shopping a lot of different companies at any given time,” Cuomo told Dicker. “Apple has a lot of competition, obviously, for their location. I don’t think that they’re anywhere yet in the decision-making.”
A pair of Times Union stories that ran last week surmised that the undisclosed company searching for a site for a chip fab could be a major supplier to Apple for its popular iPhone and iPad devices.
Samsung currently makes those chips at its Austin, Texas fab, but industry analysts have said that Apple is looking to make a switch and that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. could be the likely winner of the business, although Intel too has made a case. Apple recently won a $1 billion judgement against Samsung in federal court in California over allegations that the South Korean firm stole Apple’s design for its own mobile devices. Apple has grown wary of having such a close relationship with Samsung over the dispute. (more…)
Albany Molecular Research Inc. said Thursday it has extended a commercial supply relationship with GE Healthcare for an intermediate material used in diagnostic imaging agents.
Production will continue at AMRI’s large-scale manufacturing plant in Rensselaer. The contract, which extends through the end of 2016, replaces an existing contract that took effect in 2005.
The dollar value of the deal wasn’t disclosed. But officials said it was important.
“The extension of this key long-term agreement provides a consistent and high quality revenue source for the business unit through 2016,” said Thomas D’Ambra, AMRI’s president and CEO.
The Capital Region Economic Development Council will hold a public meeting at 4 p.m. Monday at the East Campus Athletic Village gymnasium next to the RPI Field House off Burdett Avenue in Troy. The meeting, which will include updates from various workgroups, will be co-chaired by RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson and Albany Medical Center President and CEO James Barba.
Interested citizens will have an opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback to the council during the public portion of the meeting.
The council is one of 10 statewide formed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to provide proposals for state economic development funding.
The most recent consumer confidence survey released Friday by Siena College shows while state residents overall continue to feel better about the nation’s economic direction, politics continue to widely divide perception
“Despite Sandy’s widespread effects and the current threat of all of us being thrown over the fiscal cliff, consumer sentiment was up slightly this month reaching its highest point since the summer of 2007,” according to Dr. Doug Lonnstrom, professor of statistics and finance at Siena College and SRI Founding Director.
Not surprisingly, Democrats and Republicans “moved in opposite directions following the election. New York Democrats have an overall sentiment reading nearly forty points higher than that of members of the GOP and as they look to the future, Democrats show a reading nearly double that of the Republicans.
“Every group of New Yorkers has now reached or exceeded the confidence breakeven point at which optimism equals pessimism except for Republicans, upstaters and low income residents. With future confidence at eighty statewide and over one hundred among Democrats, many New Yorkers are now more willing to spend than they have been for a very long time.”
Superstorm Sandy, which disrupted train travel along the Northeast and Empire Corridors, cost Amtrak $60 million in lost revenues, Amtrak President and CEO Joseph Boardman told a Senate hearing Thursday.
Boardman is seeking $336 million in federal funding — $276 million of which would be used to improve the system’s resilience in the New York area and to build additional capacity under Amtrak’s Gateway Program, and $60 million to cover lost revenues.
The Gateway Program includes two new rail tunnels under the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey.
Boardman said that previous capital improvement to the tunnels linking Manhattan and Long Island enabled them to return to service more quickly after Sandy flooded two of them.
From Amtrak’s press release:
For example, fire and life safety improvements made to the tunnels provided better access points for quicker inspection for assessment of damage, pumps were connected to new standpipe systems to help remove the flood waters and an expanded ventilation system assisted in a speedier drying out of the tunnels. In addition, federal funds in recent years were used to clean and clear the right-of-way of trees that could topple in strong winds and get tangled in the overhead wires as well as for the repair of culverts and ditches to improve drainage and reduce the potential for track washouts.
The storm disrupted service not only along the busy Northeast Corridor but also on the Empire Corridor, particularly between New York and Albany.
Amtrak has since leased the tracks between Poughkeepsie and Schenectady from owner CSX. Some repairs are still needed along the route, and CSX will cover the costs of returning the tracks to pre-Sandy condition, said Edgar E. Courtemanch, Hudson Line project manager for Amtrak.
