Jan. 16, 2001--
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ The president of Micron Technologies Inc. told state officials Tuesday he wants a revised state energy policy, more money for technical education and tax exemptions for computer manufacturers.
Steve Appleton, the computer memory maker's chairman, CEO and president, said measures being considered by the state could help the state's high-tech industry.
Those measures include pursuing an energy policy that would ensure reliable, low-cost electricity. "If you lose power ... essentially it can shut down our operations," Appleton said.
Appleton also said the manufacturer sales tax exemption should be expanded to include replacement parts with a useful life of less than three years. The current exemption threshhold is three years or more.
Appleton also supported Gov. Mike Leavitt's plan to push for an increase in the number of engineering students in the state. And technology education, such as the state's Custom Fit Training program which gives Utah companies money to train employees in high-paying, specialized fields, should remain a high priority, he said.
Micron needs electrical engineers for the wafer testing taking place in Lehi, chemical engineers for wafer fabrication and mechanical engineers for manufacturing.
"One of the reasons we located here is the universities' ability to graduate technical talent," Appleton said.
The Boise-based company's products include dynamic random access memory, the main memory chips in PCs; flash memory, popular in cell phones and electronic organizers because it holds data when machines are turned off; and memory chips used in networking switches and routers.
Boise-based Micron began construction of a new plant in Lehi in 1995, but a market dip forced the company to slow construction.
Appleton estimated the complex is now about 40 percent complete. The company has begun testing operations and expects to have abut 800 employees, 95 percent of them from Utah, by the end of the month.
"We'll look and see how the market does to see what comes online for production in 2002," Appleton said.
(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
