Cleantech Innovation Center Completes Construction in Oroville
OROVILLE, Calif., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A celebration to mark the completion of construction of the Cleantech Innovation Center (CIC) in Oroville was held yesterday at the facility's recently-completed renovation of the building in the Oroville Airport Business Park. The newly refurbished 42,000-square-foot multi-use facility is home to a variety of enterprises aimed at growing a burgeoning green economy in the region, including groups promoting sustainable and alternative building and construction practices, a worker training facility and classrooms, and one of but a few High Altitude Wind Power research projects in the U.S. Adjacent to the Center, the Zero Energy Homes project will also be located -- an experiment in new house construction funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The keynote address at the ribbon-cutting ceremony held Monday morning was given by Barbara Halsey, executive director of the California Workforce Investment Board and Green Collar Jobs Council. "The Cleantech Innovation Center is a perfect example of what works today -- a locally-driven partnership between the public and private sectors combining regional initiative and gumption with state and federal funding sources," said Halsey. "In many ways, the CIC-Oroville is a role model project for enterprising communities around the state and country that want to reinvent themselves for the new economy."
The CIC-Oroville is a flagship initiative of the public-private BayTEC Alliance, and is the first of several Centers planned for the area north of Sacramento. With its training facilities intended to prepare workers for jobs in emerging industries such as green building, solar power and energy conservation, and its cutting-edge research focus on new forms of energy generation, the CIC is seen as a key part of the region's economic rebuilding strategy.
According to the Center for American Progress, America's emerging clean energy economy will create 1.7 million jobs and spur $150 billion in clean investments a year. The CIC represents a major step forward to prepare the Butte County region to win its fair share of jobs in the cleantech sector.
BayTEC Alliance board chairman Weldon Larson called the launch of the CIC a watershed moment in the region's clean energy revitalization. "The completion of the Cleantech Innovation Center is an important milestone on our community's path to renewal and reinvention," Larson said. "The citizens of Oroville can be proud of what we have accomplished together."
The CIC is located in the Oroville Airport Business Park in a once-shuttered and vacant manufacturing building that has now been given a new life. Bud Tracy, director/project coordinator of the CIC reflected on the wider significance of the building's eight-month transformation. "What was until recently an empty and unused facility, is now a symbol of our region's rebirth," said Tracy. "The new life given to this building represents the new hope our community can have for the future through collaboration."
The government and business leaders at the ceremony included Oroville Vice mayor Jamie Johansson, who also spoke; Diana Van Der Ploeg, president of Butte College; Katie Milo, Vice Provost for Research, California State University, Chico; Sharon Atteberry, City Administrator, Oroville; Dave Pittman, City Councilman, Oroville; Maureen Kurtz, Butte County Board of Supervisors; Drew Henry, Blueline Technologies; Jim Stephens, Northstar Engineering; and Rebekah Ahrendes, PG&E.
The BayTEC Alliance is a non-profit collaboration of individuals from the public sector, the private sector, academia and the community at large in the Butte County region. The group's objective is to unify regional action around a common set of initiatives and to create a worldwide awareness for the region's attractiveness as a place to build a business and to live, work and raise a family.
Contact: Virginia Walker, +1-530-342-1009, for BayTEC Alliance
