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[February 16, 2006]

GE seeks businesses to help with dredging

(Post-Star, The (Glen Falls, NY) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 15--Local businesses looking for work on the Hudson River dredging project can now announce their interest with the click of a mouse.

General Electric Co. announced Tuesday the launch of www.hudsonworks.net and an accompanying dredging project business opportunities open house set for Feb. 28. The Web site will allow businesses to log their information into a database and scan a list of services and materials GE "may need" for the project, set to begin in 2007 and continue for at least eight years.

Desired products and services included everything from asphalt to grease to "local accommodations."

The site went live this past Monday, said GE spokesman Mark Behan. As of Tuesday, a total of 22 businesses had already created profiles on the site, which is password-secured to prevent businesses from getting a look at their competition, Behan said.

Local businesses and union representatives knew nothing of the Web site or scheduled open house Tuesday, but were pleasantly surprised to learn of both.

GE's willingness to employ local people and businesses during the dredging project has for years been a subject of debate, with local business and political leaders criticizing the company for its evasiveness when asked about its intentions when it came to putting local people on the mammoth job.

GE will perform the first phase and transitional work for the second phase for the $700 million project, which aims to remove PCBs from a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson River bed from Fort Edward to Troy. GE capacitor plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls dispersed the contamination over a more-than-40-year period from the 1930s to 1977.

Phil Tucker, the local business representative for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 9, was pleased to get word of GE's announcement Tuesday.

"That's a big turnaround," he said.

Tucker was heavily involved with the Local Jobs for Local People Coalition that three years ago held a rally at the Glens Falls Civic Center to urge GE to hire locally for the project.

"At that time, GE just kind of closed the door to us," he said. "There is definitely local interest in doing the work here. We were concerned that GE would be tight-lipped and then we'd see out-of-state contracts and out-of-state license plates."

Todd Shimkus, executive director of the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce, said he knew about GE's plans to launch the Web site for "a little while" because the company had contacted him about sharing the site with chamber members. He said the chamber will market the opportunity to its members and help businesses with no Internet access apply.

GE will also exhibit the Web site at the Washington County business show Thursday at B&B on The Green in Kingsbury, he said.

Dan McGraw, regional director for the International Union of Operating Engineers, said local contractors and engineering firms are chomping at the bit to get work on the project because of its unusually long duration.

"When you look at projects in the upstate New York area, it would be one of the larger projects," McGraw said. "Construction is seasonal and sporadic, so whenever they have the change to work long-term ... it's certainly got the membership excited to go to work with long hours and steady employment."

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