Metaphorically speaking, the sun is brighter here than for the future of Tucson-based Global Solar Energy, which announced at a press conference arranged by Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities (TREO), that it plans to stay here and grow here.

For Tucson, the decision results in a “two-fer,” as TREO officials put it. Within the next 18 months, the company says it will spend $75 million renovating a building formerly used by Imation, 8500 S. Rita Road, to accommodate a 12-fold expansion. Earlier this year, that same building was targeted for renovation by Glass Fiber, which instead has decided to sell the building to Global Solar and build an entirely new facility on property it owns at the same site near the University of Arizona’s Science and Technology Park.

Michael Gering, president of Global Solar Energy, said his company is the only one in the U.S. currently producing Copper Indium Gallium deSelenide (CIGS) thin-film solar products that are made into lightweight portable solar panel chargers used in a variety of military, commercial and consumer applications.

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He said the company will hire another 50 employees as part of the expansion. A few of those will be professional-managerial positions paying $70,000 to $110,000 a year with benefits. The remaining positions, Gering said, would pay about $35,000 a year.

Global Solar started in Tucson in 1996 as a subsidiary of UniSource Energy, which sold it in April this year for $16 million. An anonymous European venture capital investor now owns 81 percent of the company and the remainder is owned by Solon AG, a German producer of photovoltaic modules.

“One of the first things they told me when they bought the company is that they wanted to expand,” Gering said, which he immediately set out to do.

Once word got out, other communities pushed hard to woo Global Solar out of Tucson. In introducing Gering, Joe Snell, president and CEO of TREO, said “this is one that didn’t get away to New York, Michigan or New Mexico.” Other TREO officials said the incentives some of those other communities were offering were pretty impressive.

But in the end, Gering said the company decided to stay because of the people in the community, the quality of life here and “to me, to desert our workers was impossible.”

Sharon Bronson, chair of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, said “this is how we want to grow.”

Snell said 80 percent of the Tucson’s future job growth will come from expansion of local businesses, such as Global Solar.

“Can’t you just feel it? There’s something special happening here,” Snell said, adding he sees Tucson’s economic development future is brighter than it has ever been.

E-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Contact David Hatfield by e-mail at dhatfield@azbiz.com or call (520) 295-4237.

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