Why Not Youngstown? Canton To Open Wind Research Facility

[irishbobcat]

The Timken Co. and Stark State College plan to open a wind turbine research and development center near the Akron Canton Airport next year that will also offer certification training to students.

The $11.8 million project will be adjacent to the airport on 15 acres of land the college recently purchased for a new Stark State Emerging Technologies Airport Campus.

The school and the company announced the agreement to build the center late last year but offered few details on what services would be offered.

Timken spokeswoman Lorrie Paul Crum said the center will focus on testing bearings from Timken and its competitors to figure out how to better maintain systems already being used in turbines.

"This center will be capable of collecting data and doing very specific technical analysis on the performance of these bearings," Crum said from California where she and other Timken officials are at a conference discussing the future of the wind power industry.

Timken has been making bearing systems for turbines for several years. Crum said the new center will help it better serve the companies that bought those systems and help wind farm manager better predict how long different components will last.


View full sizeStark State College President John O'Donnell said the school had been working with the Akron Canton Airport and economic development groups in Stark County that to create a new high-tech campus that focused on emerging technologies. Timken and the school have worked together on several training programs over the years, so when the company heard about the program, it sounded like a good fit for the bearing testing center that it was considering.

"They're creating a new industry with new products," O'Donnell said. "The byproduct for our students and our state is new industries and new high-skill, high-tech jobs."

Crum said Timken expects to invest more than $6 million into the project. Ohio's Third Frontier, a program that invests in startups and university projects, is investing $2.1 million. The state Air Quality Development Authority is offering $1.5 million in low-interest loans. The school expects to fund the rest of the new center.

O'Donnell said that while the new facility will primarily be a research and development facility for Timken, "we will have classrooms and seminar rooms available for the training of Stark State College students and other partners."

He added that the new center will be patterned on an existing fuel cell R&D facility that Stark State runs in partnership with Rolls Royce.

"We have a record of corporate and university partnerships," O'Donnell said.