Officials from Schott Solar, along with state and city officials held a cermonial ground-breaking Monday for the company's plannd solar technology plant in Albuquerque. The company plans to have a $100 million, 200,000 square-foot plant up and running with in a year, which will employ 350 people.

Long term plans call for the plant to quadruple in size and eventually employ up to 1500 people, with a local economic impact of more than $1 billion.

Schott Solar, a subsidiary of Mainz, Germany-based glass making giant Schott AG, will use the Albuquerque plant to produce solar panels. Plans call for Schott to eventually invest up to $500 million in the local facility and to eventually produce solar cells here.

Suppliers to Northrop Grumman will create up to 400 aerospace jobs in Albquerque as part of efforts to support a $35billion contract with the air force for military refueling planes. The new jobs will be created at Honeywell's Albuquerque facility; GE aircraft Engines, which has an Albuquerque plant; and 2 of GE's local suppliers, Sun Country Industries and Mach2 Machining.

Based on Department of Labor assumptions that one high tech job drives the creation of more that four support jobs, ranging from car dealers to coffee shops, the contract could ultimately cause the creation of up to 1800 local jobs. The contract will directly inject $40 million into the local economy per year.