December 21, 2005
Government up close
WJH students follow governor as she tours Traverse City facility
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
How about body-heat-gathering T-shirts that run iPods, cars that recycle their own heat for power and industries run without fossil fuels?
These and other future applications of high-tech thermoelectrics were center stage for an hour Thursday during a visit by Governor Jennifer Granholm to Tellurex Corporation in Traverse City. Along for the ride were eight students from Traverse City West Junior High, invited to attend by the Governor as part of an outreach to state students during her travels.
Invited with just a few days notice, ninth graders were chosen in part for their interest in math and science.
"This is a peak into the future," said Granholm, who also touted her new $2 billion high-tech job creation package. "Do you guys know what nanotechnology is? It's really, really small. There's a magazine out there called Small Times and Michigan is number five in the country in terms of nanotechnology."
Contemplating some sort of career related to technology or engineering, Shawn Lowe found the experience educational and exciting.
"It's cool, I like this kind of stuff," said the ninth grade student. "I'm big into the auto industry and this makes it more real."
Joe Williams had a succinct reaction to the afternoon's events: "It was grand."
Granholm exhorted the students to pursue higher education and asked Chuck Cauchy, president of Tellurex, to give them guidance for a high-tech career.
"Physics and chemistry as well as math, that's very important," said Cauchy. "Statistics in college as well and one of the things we really like is a foreign language skill."
In addition to talking about future applications of their groundbreaking thermoelectric technology, Cauchy and other staff described their manufacturing process and demonstrated current applications. These included a hot and cold beverage bins for cars, portable creamer coolers for coffee shops and green cooling technology for cars.
He also touched on how the technology could be applied to transportation and heating as well as military uses. He noted that the company is collaborating with the Army and Navy on some applications.
"When somebody else creates the heat, we harvest it," summarized Clyde McKenzie, CEO of Tellurex, of thermoelectrics' potential.
Cauchy also addressed the raw excitement of being on the cutting edge and making new discoveries, terming science a creative art.
"You think of science and math as numbers and memorization but it's really fun and really exciting, thinking up applications," he told the students. "Science is a very creative outlet, it's like art."
During their visit, students also witnessed Granholm signing into law a compromise bill on shipping wine out of state. She explained the issue briefly to the students, talked about what she was signing and why plus how the state legislature passed the bills. Members of area wineries and State Senator Michelle McManus witnessed the event.
The Governor's office planned the Tellurex excursion with just a few days notice to the company, which is in the midst of a move and consolidation of two facilities. The two local public junior high schools also hustled to grab the opportunity.
"They actually called me and asked if I would like to send some freshmen and I said, 'Definitely!'¡" said Pam Alfieri, principal of West Junior High. "She said she wanted some that were interested in science, technology and business."
The short timeframe to plan the visit, choose eight students and obtain permission slips went awry at East Junior High. Calling it a sad mix-up, principal Glenn Soloweij said that the governor's aid told the school the event was Friday, not Thursday, so his students missed out.
But the cloud of disappointment may have a silver lining.
"The aid [later] told us that the next time that the governor was in town, she would stop by East," said Soloweij.