What is Siplon’s strategy?

By Mark Frost, Chronicle Editor

What are the Warren County Economic Development Corporation and its president Jim Siplon doing about AngioDynamics’ decision to close its operations in Glens Falls and Queensbury, eliminating 350 jobs. That’s the question Zander and I went in with Friday afternoon when we interviewed Jim at EDC offices on South St.

Given that AngioDynamics said its shutdown won’t happen for 18 months, my thought was and is: What can we do to change their minds, how can we save these jobs? We’ve already lost 300 with the closing of Essity Tissue and 85 with Lehigh Cement’s exit. On Friday, as Jim noted, Quad (formerly Quad Graphics) said it’s closing its magazine printing plant in Saratoga, 435 jobs lost.

The State is looking at closing several prisons. Great Meadow is said to be on the list.

But in my quest to change the mind of AngioDynamics, Jim said I’m asking the wrong question.

He said Angio has “been trying to modify their whole company strategy for a number of years…a big shift into being a more nimble technology company, they communicated it pretty clearly.”

Has EDC spoken to them since the announcement? “Talked is not the right word — we’ve exchanged communications, we’ve shared with them that we’re ready to help in any way we can,” Jim said.

The Chronicle asked, what about calling the Governor, or reaching out to the companies, to try to figure out a way to keep them here?

“That would be a terrible mistake,” Jim said. “Our job is not to try to convince some business of what they should do. Our job is to ensure that this place is as healthy as it can be.”

As to manufacturing, he said “it is inevitable that those jobs will continue to consolidate…I think that all manufacturing is under those pressures.”

He noted that manufacturing in Warren County is down to the 5th largest employment sector and fading.

But Jim said we aren’t lacking for jobs. “Today, right now, we still have 1,000 open jobs in Warren County” including, he said, 200 at Glens Falls Hospital alone.

He said. “How do we position the people to be able to step into those jobs? And how do we find more people to be able to fill those jobs? That’s a big part of this.”

Jim says the real problem is that our population, our workforce, is old. He said Angio cited it as a factor — an older workforce without a younger one to succeed it.

Jim says our urgent need is to get younger; we need to attract young people to live here. He says the key is developing affordable housing for them. He said that “when Brookfield relocated here, the 50 jobs that were created — almost 60% of them are not living in Warren County. That’s not because they didn’t want to, they wanted to live in Queensbury. They couldn’t find a house. So they bought a house in Clifton Park.” I said: Clifton Park? Jim said, “I just made that up. I mean, they didn’t buy a house here — that’s the reality.”

But he also acknowledged some other realities. Warren County has very little land that lends itself to building a lot more homes. Above Queensbury, Jim noted, you’re into the Adirondack Park and the Blue Line. Tiny Glens Falls is all but filled.

So where do we go from here? What’s the vision? And is Jim Siplon the person who has it?

More questions that I think we need to address.

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