A newspaper report says the world’s second-largest solar panel manufacturer is considering building a factory in Mesa that would bring about 600 new jobs.

The report by The Arizona Republic said Tempe-based First Solar Inc. declined to confirm Mesa had been chosen. But the paper cited sources that said the panel maker is preparing to announce a deal while still working on terms.

First Solar has solar-panel factories in Perrysburg, Ohio, Germany and Malaysia, with additional plants planned in France, Vietnam and possibly China.

The company announced in October that it planned to build two new manufacturing plants, one in the U.S. and the other in Vietnam.

First Solar spokesman Ted Meyer on Friday declined to confirm that the company is zeroing in on Mesa.

Mesa officials and members of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, the region’s lead economic-development group, declined to comment.

If the company is close to sealing a deal, an announcement likely will not come until after Thursday, when publicly traded First Solar reports its fourth-quarter earnings. Public companies have to be careful when they publicize developments that can move stock prices because of federal securities rules.

Roc Arnett, president of the East Valley Partnership, an economic-development group that promotes Mesa, Tempe, Chandler and other southeast Valley communities, said there are a number of vacant industrial spaces in the region that could house such a manufacturing plant. They include spots near Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in southeast Mesa, Chandler Municipal Airport in Chandler and the Falcon Field Airport in Mesa.

“If something like this does happen, you just know they are going to be the kind of good corporate citizens that Intel and Boeing have been for many years in the southeast Valley,” he said.

Intel announced on Friday that it plans to build a new $5 billion factory that will create thousands of construction and manufacturing jobs in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. The company already has a huge factory there that employs nearly 10,000 people.

First Solar, founded in 1999, has grown to become the world’s second-largest solar manufacturer after Suntech Power Holdings Corp. of China. It has been searching for months for a U.S. site to build a 238-megawatt factory to open in 2012.

Solar-manufacturing plants are compared by the amount of megawatts produced by the panels they make, not by the number of panels.

First Solar has projected it will produce solar panels totaling 2,742 megawatts in 2012. The new U.S. factory would represent about 9 percent of its total manufacturing capacity that year. One megawatt can generate enough energy for about 250 homes at once in direct sunlight.

Jordan Rose, an attorney who represents several renewable-energy companies in Arizona, said most manufacturing has been done overseas because of lower production and labor costs there. Now that panels are getting cheaper to build because of increased manufacturing efficiencies, production can be moved back to the U.S.

First Solar’s main competitor, Suntech Power Holdings, opened a small factory recently in Goodyear and plans to make 50 megawatts of solar panels a year and employ 150 people.

Editor’s note: Toledo Free Press will follow the Blank family of Millbury for the next year as they rebuild their lives after the June 5 tornado destroyed their Main Street home.

Ed and Julie Blank are planning to honor the one-year anniversary of the June 5 tornado with their friends and neighbors.
The idea is to host a June 4 block party that will carry into June 5, which will mark one year since the tornado. The damage was some of the worst on Main Street in Millbury where the Blanks and their neighbors lost their homes.
But the most heartbreaking loss was the death of three of the four members of the Walters family, who lived next door to the Blanks.

“I am not really sure how it will go,” Julie said. “I don’t know what to envision for the block party, but I am sure there will be lots of people. I am sure it will be emotional.”
Ed said he wants to secure vendors who are willing to donate food and beverages to the block party. He said he also wants to block off the street and bring in some bands.
While Ed agrees that the party will be somber, the party will also be joyful because of those who survived and returned to rebuild.
He wants the public to know that the neighborhood is coming back to life.
Ed and Julie decided to rebuild in the same spot because of their love for the community.
“There is no better place. We wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Ed said.
The Blanks made their triumphant return to the neighborhood one week before Christmas. More neighbors have since returned.
Julie ended up in the hospital with heart damage after the tornado. The condition was fittingly called broken heart syndrome. Ed said the trauma of the devastation caused the condition, but what got Julie the most was how giving and helpful everyone was immediately after the tornado.
“People were walking up and handing us money out of their pockets,” he said.
Ed said the block party will be a chance for everyone to get together and celebrate making it one year. By then, he expects more of the neighborhood to be rebuilt.
The block party will also be a time to thank everyone for their support. To help with the block party, call Ed at (419) 508-9693.
“It is going to be a major celebration,” Ed said.

The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed sweeping legislation early Feb. 19 to cut $61 billion from hundreds of federal programs and shelter coal companies, oil refiners and farmers from new government regulations.

By a 235-189 vote, largely along party lines, the House sent the bill to the Senate, where it faces longer odds, and defied a veto threat from President Barack Obama.

Passage of the legislation was the most striking victory to date for the 87 freshman Republicans elected last November on a promise to attack the deficit and reduce the reach of government. Three Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the measure.

The differences betwen the two parties are wide and won’t be resolved soon. That confronts lawmakers with the need for a temporary spending bill when the current one expires March 4.

Democrats say House Speaker John Boehner’s insistence that any temporary measure carry deep spending cuts amounts to an ultimatum that could threaten a government shutdown. Such an impasse played to the advantage of Democratic President Bill Clinton in his battles with Republicans in 1995-1996.

The Obama administration upped the ante on Friday, warning that workers who distribute Social Security benefits for retirees might face furloughs if the Republican cuts go through.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, attending a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Paris, expressed hope that over the long term, Democrats and Republicans would find a way to cut spending and reduce long-term deficits. But he said the House-passed measure “would undermine and damage our capacity to create jobs and expand the economy.”

The $1.2 trillion bill covers every Cabinet agency through the Sept. 30 end of the budget year, imposing severe spending cuts aimed at domestic programs and foreign aid, including aid for schools, nutrition programs, environmental protection, and heating and housing subsidies for the poor.

“The American people have spoken. They demand that Washington stop its out-of-control spending now, not some time in the future,” declared freshman Republican congressman Tim Huelskamp.

The measure already faced a rough ride in the Democratic-controlled Senate, even before the Republican amendments adopted Thursday, Friday and early Saturday morning pushed the bill further and further to the right on health care and environmental policy. Senate Democrats promise higher spending levels and are poised to defend Obama’s health care bill, environmental policies and new efforts to overhaul regulation of the financial services industry.

Changes rammed through the House on Friday and Saturday would shield greenhouse-gas polluters and privately owned colleges from federal regulators, block a plan to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, and bar the government from shutting down mountaintop mines it believes will cause too much water pollution, siding with business groups over environmental activists and federal regulators in almost every instance.

Across four long days of freewheeling debate, Republicans left their conservative stamp in other ways.

They took several swipes at the year-old health care reform law, including voting for a ban on federal funding for its implementation. At the behest of anti-abortion lawmakers, they called for an end to federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides contraception and other birth control services.

The Environmental Protection Agency took hits from Republicans eager to defend business and industry from agency rules they say threaten job creation and the economy. The EPA’s budget was slashed by almost one-third, and then its regulatory powers were handcuffed in a series of votes.

Republicans awarded the Pentagon an increase of less than 2 percent, but domestic agencies would bear slashing cuts of about 12 percent. Such reductions would feel almost twice as deep since they would be spread over the final seven months of the budget year.

EPA foes prevailed in halting the agency from using its powers to try to curb greenhouse gases. The EPA has taken steps to regulate global warming pollution from vehicles and the largest factories and industrial plants and is expected to soon roll out rules that target refineries and power plants.

Republicans recoiled, however, from some of the most politically difficult cuts to grants to local police and fire departments, special education and economic development.

About the only victory scored by Obama during the week came on a vote Wednesday to cancel $450 million for a costly alternative engine for the Pentagon’s next-generation F-35 warplane, which in part would be built at a factory in Speaker Boehner’s Ohio district. Its cancellation was a top priority of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and passed with the votes of many Republican conservatives who opposed the $3 billion program.

Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the measure and Obama has threatened a veto if it reaches his desk, citing sweeping cuts that he says would endanger the fragile economic recovery.

“The bill will destroy 800,000 American jobs,” said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, citing a study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “It will increase class sizes and take teachers out of the classrooms … It will jeopardize homeless veterans, make our communities less secure, threaten America’s innovation.”

The 359-page bill was shaped beginning to end by the first-term Republicans, many of them elected with backing from the ultraconservative tea party movement.

They rejected an initial draft advanced by the leadership, saying it did not cut deeply enough.

The revised bill added more reductions, and cut $100 billion from Obama’s request for the current year.

On a flight home, reading a computer magazine, I came upon a small news item on that last page. The item reported that Bill Nye, the “science guy” was giving a lecture at the University of Southern California. During the lecture, he fainted. Quoting from the article, “Unsure if this was a part of the presentation or not, students began tweeting that Nye was on the ground instead of rushing to his aid.” (Laptop February, 2011). The article went on to report that Nye, recovered, then, collapsed again over the podium. This time students did seek help by dialing 911 on their phones.

Given the creative flamboyance of Mr. Nye’s personality — I used to watch his show with my daughter when she was in elementary school, I guess I could cut the students in that room some slack for their alleged insensitivity. But it does seem odd to me that his collapse prompted many to twitter their thoughts as opposed to coming to his aid.

There is a history of stories like this, dating back to 1964 when a 29 year old woman who lived in Queens was stalked and attacked multiple times over the course of forty-five minutes while 38 of her neighbors did little to come to her aid. The common excuse was given was fear of involvement. Fear is a debilitating thing. But this doesn’t explain the unwillingness to call the police from the safety of their own home.

Clearly, fear wasn’t a factor in Bill Nye’s case. Neither was apathy, after all, many of the students cared enough about the event to twitter their friends… They just didn’t care enough to go to his aid until he collapsed a second time. It is as if they found Mr. Nye’s plight more a curiosity than a concern.

Much is being written today about how social our nation is becoming. This is a good thing. Our young are “networkers” where their parents often were John Wayne go-it-alone types at work. Today employers want to hire “team players” and people who can get along with each other. The old “top down” management model with the strictly defined boxes on the flow chart is giving way to more democratic give and take of ideas. This builds community and productivity in our work places. People have to learn to take each other seriously, regardless of their position in the company or organization. We have to develop concern for each other.

Yet at the same time, this new social way of living and working together has its trivial side. Eat a toasted cheese sandwich for lunch and it becomes subject for conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The boss does something that angers you and there is e-mail, the quick and ready way to vent your frustration. The Black Eyed Peas performed at the half time show during the Super Bowl, and e-mail boxes become inundated with amusing and belittling comments from those were not impressed. All of this is fun, but the immediacy of it all can skew our vision. The people we write about easily become mere curiosities. Once the distance between concern and curiosity has been crossed, it is not so far fetched to find ourselves where those students were. One day, a guy faints and instead of rushing to his aid, we pull out our iPhones and our droids and tweet our friends –”guess what I just saw …”

We live in a culture obsessed with celebrity and fame. We are amused by a collection of so-called reality shows on television that trivializes and exploits the complexities of human interaction and relationship for entertainment purposes. We have technology that works far faster than the internal filtering systems we employ to protect us from ourselves. It is becoming a challenge for us to see in our neighbor an authentic needs that my require our attention. It has become so much easier to see in them a curiosity to muse about.

Eric McGlade is a United Methodist pastor living in Bowling Green, Ohio.

On Feb. 18, an already long season got longer for the Rockets when they found out that freshman guard Reese Holliday would be out for the remainder of the season due to a stress fracture in his foot. Without Holliday’s team-leading 6.6 rebounds per contest and only five scholarship players at its’ disposal, Toledo got outrebounded 36-22 and fell 75-58 to Eastern Illinois in Savage Arena Feb. 19 in its’ ESPNU Sears BracketBuster contest.

“I thought without Reese, we physically just got pushed and just got out-toughed a little bit,” Toledo head coach Tod Kowalczyk said. “We got beat to some offensive rebounds, particularly in the first half. They played a pretty good 2-3 zone, but we don’t have anybody that can consistently step up and help [Griffin].”

One player who did step up was junior guard Jay Shunnar, who finished with a team-high 16 points and hit three of his five three-point attempts.

“I thought Jay was good tonight,” Kowalczyk said. “Jay needs to do it every day. He needs to be more consistent.”

Shunnar was one of two walk-ons who started for the Rockets (4-23, 1-11 Mid-American Conference) against the Panthers (9-18, 4-12 Ohio Valley Conference), the other being freshman forward Jess Chadwell, who had four points in 20 minutes of play.

“We started two walk-ons tonight,” Kowalczyk said. “Find another team in the country that started walk-ons tonight. Seriously, go look. Guarantee you there’s not another team in the country that started two walk-ons.”

Senior forward Justin Anyijong also finished with double figures in scoring for Toledo with 12 points.

“With our offensive flow, we try to balance our inside-out [game], and with Reese, he was playing a big part [and] averaging a lot of minutes,” Anyijong said of the shorthanded Rockets. “That’s kind of hard to fill in there.”

In the first half, the Panthers opened up an early 9-2 lead by the 17:21 mark. Toledo responded with a 10-4 run to make it 13-12 with 12:38 remaining after freshman forward Delino Dear’s layup. Eastern Illinois then outscored the Rockets 15-8 and held a 28-20 advantage with 1:52 left before the half, but a layup from Shunnar and a trey from Anyijong made it 28-25 by the 1:04 mark.

Sophomore guard Malcolm Griffin drove the lane and found an open Shunnar for the three-pointer on the left wing to make it 30-28 with 24 seconds remaining before halftime, but Jeremy Granger answered with an uncontested, running trey to beat the buzzer and give the Panthers a 33-28 lead at the break. Toledo shot 45 percent from the field in the first half and had just four turnovers, but Eastern Illinois scored seven points off those miscues and outscored the Rockets 12-8 in the paint. The Panthers also held an 18-8 advantage on the boards. Only one of Toledo’s first half rebounds was on the offensive glass.

“He brings that grit, that toughness to the team that we need,” Shunnar said of Holliday. “Something he does that helps us the most is he keeps possessions alive. Guys miss a shot, Reese is usually there to get that offensive rebound, and we need those possessions. That’s something that we were missing tonight.”

Those struggles continued in the second half, where Eastern Illinois’ lead grew to as many as 18 as it cruised to the 17-point victory. The Panthers outscored the Rockets 30-16 in the paint and had 20 points off Toledo’s 11 turnovers. Eastern Illinois never trailed in the contest and had four players reach double figures in scoring, led by Granger’s 20 points.

“Our guys played hard,” Kowalczyk said. “We’re just not a very good team right now. We’re down to five scholarship guys. We’re asking some guys to step up and play roles that maybe they’re not capable of playing right now, but it’s a good experience for them and I think it will help us for the future.”

The Rockets will be in action again on Feb. 23 when they head to Kalamazoo, Mich. to take on Western Michigan (15-10, 7-4 MAC) at 7 p.m.

The cover for this edition features football legend Linda Jefferson, who’s traded gridiron glory for classroom achievement. Program fights harmful “student mobility”. New leadership chosen for Destination Toledo (see page 8). Architect to remove “crosses” from TPS elementary school. There are special “Health Zone” and “Parenting” sections. Vicki L. Kroll interviews the Holmes Brothers, who will headline Monroe County’s Black History Month Blues Series on Feb. 26. The issue also features Michael S. Miller’s column on “cross purposes”.

Pop Goes the Podcast Episode 3: Time Warpin’ is online for those looking for more from Jeff McGinnis.

Pop Goes the Podcast episodes are available online with the audio from this latest episode below.

I sometimes wonder how much different our country would look if everyone in it were to acknowledge and follow a small number of golden rules. How much better could our families, schools, businesses and governments be if we all agreed to keep just a few simple things in mind as we lived our day-to-day lives?
The best system we have for instilling such values on a personal level and creating a principled populace is good parenting. It may sound like an oversimplification, but what kind of positive impact could one focused and dedicated generation of parents have on the next generation and generations to come? We need not agree on everything or present ourselves in the same manner. We need only adopt a handful of ideals and vow to diligently introduce them to reality.
Honesty is the best policy
When I was little, my mom explained people with Down syndrome and similar conditions to me as a gift of pure love. Many such individuals not only seem to exude a kind of love not often seen in the rest of us, but also possess the unique ability to extract such genuine love from those around them. As our society struggles to unlock the autism mystery, I can’t help but think there may be a similar lesson to be learned from its sudden prominence at this moment in time. If we can at least temporarily forget about the social awkwardness that might frustrate and unnerve the rest of us, maybe we could take a moment to appreciate that a part of autism also sets an example of pure honesty for a world that isn’t all that familiar with it. In a world swollen with inhibition, nuance and deceit, perhaps we are due for a lesson in sincerity.
We do not currently live in an honest world. Vast amounts of our personal and public lives are wasted by beating around the bush and/or attempting to take advantage of others. Relationships are strained, problems go unsolved and lives are put in danger or taken altogether by our inability or refusal to live honest lives. Yet, parents have the power to lead children into honest lives by living honestly themselves. Parents who do not lie, cheat or steal, and demand the same of their offspring, produce children who are much less likely to do such things as they begin to lead their own lives.
All for one, one for all
While accepting his 2010 Emmy for his role of Cameron Tucker on “Modern Family,” Eric Stonestreet proudly stated, “I would not be here without my parents. I am the product of supportive parents.” It is such a simple, yet important sentiment.
A family’s most basic obligation is to serve as a system of support and interdependence for its members. The system is no doubt important on a personal level as we go through life, but the lesson we take away about raising one another up on a grander scale is just as essential, if not more so. The support system we develop as parents in a family unit is often the model our children will eventually use as a support system to raise up the greater good in the world at large.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
A favorite personal family story from my childhood was about how my brother once proclaimed that the original Golden Rule, the one that has weaved itself in and out of history in civilization after civilization for the past few millennia, was “Keep your hands to yourself.” While it may have been a sensible guess from the mind of an elementary-school boy who had been told such a thing time and time again, the actual Golden Rule is more along the lines of treating others as you would want to be treated (keeping your hands to yourself not excluded). Fairness is a tricky, yet vital component of an honorable existence and an honorable society. Putting ourselves in the shoes of individuals receiving our words and actions is, based on its success and longevity, the fairest way to be fair. The Golden Rule has earned its golden status by setting a meaningful precedent for years on end.
Honesty, interdependence and fairness are by no means novel ideas. Putting them into practice, however, has fluctuated throughout history and continues to do so today.
If we could, through great parenting, make these basic principles the rules of the vast majority rather than exceptions by a shrinking minority, how many of our problems would just go away?

Shannon and her husband Michael are raising three children in Sylvania. E-mail her at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Editor’s Note: Reporter Brian Malkowski will spend shifts at various Toledo workplaces to offer insight into the people who work some of the area’s toughest jobs.

About a year ago, ProMedica’s Flower Hospital wanted to initiate a plan to reduce patient wait times in its emergency room and with just a few minor changes it has done so. When patients checked in they used to wait on average an hour before they were given a bed; now that wait is less than 30 minutes. Flower’s ER sees nearly 30,000 patients a year. With this much volume in a nonstop chaotic environment, in which areas did the hospital find room for improvement?

Dr. Mattin

Before I started my day in the ER I sat down with Flower’s ER director, Sherry Watson. Wearing white pants, a white coat and a smile from ear to ear, she could not wait to talk about the changes made in the ER. She started by acknowledging that her team makes it happen every day whether she’s there or not. The first major change the ER made is that when patients checks in, they are immediately sent to one of 25 ER beds. In the past they were sent to triage, which basically prioritized the severity of the emergency. Getting a patient directly to a room and triaged is saving the patient at least 30 minutes. Second, the doctors used to take notes in each room and document each case themselves in between seeing other patients. Now a scribe has been added to follow each doctor, saving at least 90 to 120 minutes each eight-hour shift. This allows doctors another two hours of seeing more patients instead of punching computer keys.
Dr. Mattin
I saw these changes in action as I was given the opportunity to follow Dr. Michael Mattin during his shift on the floor. Dr. Mattin’s shift might start at 2 p.m., but his day starts at home with his wife, raising their four boys. On his way to work, he usually finds himself on the cell phone talking to one of his EPNO (Emergency Physicians of Northwest Ohio) co-members about a case or a question another physician may have.
Once he arrives, it’s just like a scene out of the TV show “ER.” His day starts and ends in what is called a fish bowl, a glass-enclosed area filled with computers, monitors, ringing telephones and various colors of scrubs-wearing staff performing different objectives. He gets the rundown from the doctor he is relieving by looking at the tracking board, a monitor filled with all the patients in every room. It tells him the status of the patient: seen, needs to be seen, waiting on something, etc. The software looks something like a setup wizard. A patient can be diagnosed, admitted, prescribed a script, or discharged simply by a click of the mouse.
Wearing slacks and a button-down shirt, Dr. Mattin prefers to forgo the white coat worn by most doctors. He also prefers walking into a patient’s room shaking hands and having a seat next to the patient, creating a friendly encounter versus hovering over the patient.
Each of his colleagues are greeted the same, no matter how awkward the interruption. Dr. Mattin remains calm as he assists in numerous questions while moving from room to room. I counted, in a three-minute period, as seven different people asking him questions as he gets snack and talks on the phone with another doctor. No breaks and no lunch were taken during his shift, so sneaking in two pieces of pizza and a 20-ounce Mountain Dew took creativity.
The number of patients seen and the severity of their conditions in an eight-hour ER shift can never be predicted. From a simple cut on a finger to a heart attack, each case is treated as an emergency. People in the waiting room might think someone is wasting space in an ER for a simple cut on the hand, but what one needs to remember is that someone with a simple cut or someone having a heart attack have something serious in common: their anxiety level. The hospital respects this.
Elizabeth Solely, a 72-year-old woman, had been experiencing back pain and after X-rays are taken, Dr. Mattin discovered a compression fracture in one of her vertebra. Upset as she is admitted to the hospital and not going home to her cats that evening, Solely stays overnight for a kyphoplasty, a spinal procedure where bone cement is injected through a small hole in the skin after the vertebra is repositioned using a balloon. Now that the vertebra was restored to a more normal position and feeling pain relief almost instantly. After spending less than 32 hours in the hospital, she was discharged and sent home.
A male patient with a swollen neck due to cancer is in pain and refusing an IV. To make matters worse, he was there by himself and does not speak English. The hospital uses MARTTI, a mobile real-time interpreter. For around $2 a minute, the hospital has access to 150 languages, including sign language. Before, the hospital had to hope there was someone nearby to translate and has then trust what they were translating. Now they just wheel in MARTTI. Dr. Mattin dials in and has the interpreter explain to the patient that because of the severity of his condition he would be admitted to the hospital.
The ER is not where 8-year-old Raziah wants to be. She was sent by her doctor for X-rays. Raziah is all smiles while sitting upright in her ER room talking to the doctor, answering questions. After X-rays are taken by the doctor and a popsicle taken by Raziah, she is discharged.
The most interesting case of the day is the 40-year-old man experiencing chest problems. In the past two months the man has lost 40 pounds. With his immediate family by his side, he answers the doctor’s questions with slurred speech. After X-rays find an unexplainable chest mass, the man is admitted for nerve tests. Testing finds a very rare case of myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disorder caused by an abnormal immune response. The patient came in that day not able to swallow and fearing some sort of cancer. After a special treatment from the hospital known as plasmapheresis, the patient is back to baseline before being discharged.
An ER doctor must be swift, caring and very patient. Dealing with constant interruptions while moving from room to room is very difficult and time consuming. A doctor must use time management skills to see each patient while consulting with team members. Dr. Mattin did all of these things just before he turned his floor over to the next doctor. After a quick rundown on the tracking board, Dr. Mattin headed home to his family.

Casting about for innovative job-creation ideas, President Barack Obama named one of his critics to an advisory council responsible for finding new ways to promote economic growth and bring jobs to the U.S.

Paul S. Otellini

Obama named Intel Corp. CEO Paul S. Otellini to the jobs and competitiveness council during a visit to the company’s semiconductor manufacturing facility in Hillsboro, Ore., on Feb. 18. Otellini appeared with Obama on the tour and spoke to Intel employees at other Intel locations, via webcast, before introducing the President.

During his speech, Obama said that the winners of science fairs deserve all the praise of the winners of the Super Bowl and since his Chicago Bears lost, he’s reserving all of his praise this year for science fair winners.

“For decades, Intel has led the world in developing new technologies. But even as global competition has intensified, this company has invested, built and hired in America,” Obama said. “Three-quarters of Intel’s products are made by American workers. And as the company expands operations in Oregon and builds a new plant in Arizona, it plans to hire another 4,000 people this year.”

As recently as September, Otellini complained that administration policies had created too much uncertainty for businesses and had failed to spark job growth or boost consumer confidence in the economy.

The president was on the West Coast promoting his agenda to make the U.S. more competitive globally.

Besides touring the semiconductor facility, Obama learned about programs the company has to encourage studies in science, technology, engineering and math, and get people the skills they need to compete for new high-tech jobs. He also was speaking about education’s role in fostering job creation and innovation.

Continuing his outreach to business leaders, Obama earlier traveled to the San Francisco Bay area Feb. 17 for dinner with a dozen top innovators, including Eric Schmidt of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Steve Jobs of Apple, who is on his third medical leave as concern about his health mounts. Also present were the chief executives of Yahoo!, Oracle, NetFlix and Twitter, and the president of Stanford University.

President Barack Obama

Obama is pushing for new spending on innovation, education, high-speed rail, faster Internet service and other programs that he says will better position the U.S. to compete against other nations.

But Republicans are pushing back, arguing that government spending without restraint is actually hindering job creation. They want to slash the budget. The Republican-controlled House was also nearing a vote on whether to do just that by cutting $61 billion from government spending this year.

“We’re broke,” says House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, about the country’s finances.

As that money fight raged in Washington, Obama left town Feb. 18 on the latest in a series of weekly trips he’s been taking to promote the competitiveness agenda he outlined in his State of the Union address.

With unemployment holding at 9 percent, a seal of approval from Silicon Valley’s leading innovators could bolster Obama’s sales pitch.

At the Woodside, Calif., home of venture capitalist John Doerr, Obama and the innovators brainstormed ideas. White House spokesman Jay Carney said afterward that Obama wants to keep exchanging ideas with the group “so we can work as partners to promote growth and create good jobs in the United States.”

Over dinner, Obama discussed his proposals to spend on research and development and to expand incentives for companies to grow and hire, Carney said. The president also talked about his goal of doubling exports within five years to help support and create new jobs, his plans for spending on education and a new initiative to assist small businesses and start-up companies, he said.

The group also discussed ways to encourage people to study science, technology, engineering and math and to pursue careers in those fields, he said.

Despite Otellini’s criticism of Obama, Intel is partnering with the administration on education.

Last year, Intel announced a 10-year, $200 million commitment to promote math and science education. It also is one of four companies that are working to help meet Obama’s goal of getting the U.S. to first place in science and math education in a decade.

“Intel understands how important these partnerships can be — Their company’s success depends on a pipeline of skilled people ready to fill high-wage, high-tech jobs,” Obama said. “Intel often pays for workers to continue their education at nearby Portland State University. As a result, one out of every 15 of Intel’s Oregon employees has a degree from Portland State.”

Associated Press contributed to this report