n an otherwise dreary spring day in northwest Ohio, in the same Wood County business park that is home to operations from Honeywell and Toledo Technologies, First Solar’s outlook is … well … sunny. And its enthusiasm has spread throughout the Greater Toledo area, whose glass-industry heritage started building 150 years ago. At First Solar, though, the historic timeline is a bit shorter.
      "Since nine months ago, there have been amazing changes," says Todd Spangler, plant manager for the Perrysburg thin-film solar module manufacturing operation, which is expanding yet again at this prime spot in Perrysburg Township.
      ""Everything is different now. Come back and it will all be different again."
      Just the night before, the company had announced it would be launching a search for a new CEO, as the person who used to be CEO, president and chairman — Michael Ahearn — wished to bear fewer titles. He had already passed along the title of president to Bruce Sohn, from Intel.

Things are looking up for First Solar, which continues to expand its facilities and its payroll in northwest Ohio.

       "That was fine when we were a $100-million company," says Spangler of one person filling multiple executive roles, "but now that we’re a not-quite-$2-billion company it’s hard to do that."
      What would other companies do to feel such growing pains today? Well, first they’d have to have a vision. That’s what Ohio State graduate and "Glass Genius" Harold McMaster had as he looked up at the sun from his deck in Arizona back in the 1980s. The inventor, who died in 2003, was the first research physicist ever employed by Libbey Owens Ford Glass in Toledo, and also invented the McMaster rotary engine. The company got its start at a business incubator at the University of Toledo. Eventually it brought in investors such as John Walton of the Wal-Mart Waltons (through True North Partners), and became First Solar just as the new century was dawning.
      Next you’d have to make a product that was not only efficient itself, but was able to be manufactured efficiently and in large numbers. That’s what the company’s "Copy Smart" philosophy, based on a similar "copy exact" approach at Intel, has done: New techniques and methods are shared with each generation of growth at First Solar’s multiple locations, which now include Malaysia and Germany, in addition to the company headquarters in Arizona. But the center is in Ohio.
       "This is where the bulk of [U.S.] people and the operational headquarters is," says Spangler. "The development and manufacturing think tank is all in this building."
      The kaizen approach is geared toward gradual, continuous improvements, but breakthroughs occur nonetheless. One was achieved in late February, when First Solar announced that its fourth quarter numbers revealed it had brought down the cost of solar module manufacturing below the $1-per-watt price barrier, to 98 cents. That’s down from more than $6 a watt just a few short years ago.
      As that cost has gone down, First Solar structures have gone up.
      It started with an existing building that the company expanded for pilot production beginning in 2000, with full commercial operation beginning in late 2004. Since that time, manufacturing capacity has grown by 2,500 percent, to more than 500 megawatts in 2008. That includes the start-up of the Unit 2 plant in Perrysburg in 2006, when Spangler was recruited to the firm from his former post at Lutron in Lehigh Valley, Pa. The Unit 2 plant has two production lines, and the two main production plants, comprising 450,000 sq. ft., are connected by a long corridor called The Watt.
      Now the company is poised to double its annual global production capacity to 1 gigawatt in 2009, all the while chipping away at that per-watt cost figure. In fact, says Spangler, the cost as of late April was inching down toward 93 cents per watt.
      Spangler says the two-line setup at Unit 2 is now the baseline for the company’s Copy Smart philosophy, with that unit’s layout replicated at the company’s plants in Germany and Malaysia. Germany came online in 2007, and Malaysia’s four units have been steadily coming online beginning in 2008.
       "If there are upgrades, we do it to all of them," Spangler explains, whether it involves the process or the product. "You can’t leave it stagnant. This allows us to build that learning throughout the company. It allows an engineer sitting at a computer to have a camera watching what’s going on at another facility; or to be on the cell phone saying ‘Turn that screw a quarter turn to the left’ and the person in Germany is doing that.
       "This company has more collaboration than any company I’ve ever seen," he says.

      The collaboration extends to state and local economic developers, such as Tom Blaha, who’s been with the Wood County Economic Development Commission for 25 years and serves as its executive director. He says the Cedar Park property originally launched by the development arm of Rudolph Libbe has grown up around First Solar ever since the company’s attorney contacted his agency. Asked how the company contributes to the tax base, he says the company has abatements, "but they signed a separate sidebar agreement with the school district. Their impact will be tremendous. Most of the tax is based on real property tax, and some of those abatements will be rotating off pretty soon. And of course the impact through 700 jobs, and the 140 they’re adding, is fairly significant."
      Spangler says the company came to Wood County and the State of Ohio about a year ago looking for support for its latest expansion. It procured the land in May 2008 (including land across the railroad tracks), and welcomed a visit by Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher (then the head of the Ohio Dept. of Development) one week later. Construction soon began on a project that will take First Solar’s footprint to just shy of 1 million sq. ft. under roof. Among other measures, a state grant of $200,000 will pay for road, water and sewer upgrades to support the project.
      "More space allows for development to take place," says Spangler. "It’s a tremendous resource for us — we can’t seem to build fast enough." The new space also includes a new 60,000-sq.-ft. office building, which will feature a much-anticipated cafeteria for the still-young firm. That building will be commissioned in early 2010.
       Spangler emphasizes that, until two years ago, the Perrysburg complex was the company’s only production facility. It’s still primarily focused on production, he says, but now "we block off a portion of time and say, ‘That’s engineering time.’ "
      The company’s product line has always been geared toward large-scale solar power plants, though some initial residential end use is being tested through a partnership with Solar City. And while the company usually sells to a developer or utility, it also has launched its own development arm, First Solar Electric, which executes various facets of engineering and installation on projects.
       "They use the same philosophy we do to improve how those arrays go in," says Spangler, describing how "Copy Smart" is applied toward how the product is installed and how that installation connects to the utility’s infrastructure. He cites one example with the 10-MW El Dorado project that Sempra Energy installed near Boulder City, Nev., southeast of Las Vegas.
       "We had a natural gas plant that already had lines there, and we just tap into that," he says. "You have to be smart about where you’re putting these arrays, and one thing we don’t do is lines."
      Asked how the company’s own large-scale power needs are met, he says power is "one of our major raw materials," but that costs are a non-issue for the Perrysburg complex, which is served by FirstEnergy.
      As for talent needs, Northwest Ohio "has been a great place for us in terms of technical infrastructure, and because of the glass industry knowledge that’s here," says Spangler. "Speaking for myself, this probably wouldn’t have been the first place I’d put a pin on the map. But it’s a great place to raise a family, with great school systems, and safe, nice neighborhoods. Usually that’s what we get [from newly recruited employees]: ‘Wow, this is really a nice place.’ "
      Those employees come with backgrounds in mechanical and electrical engineering, material science and chemistry, often from foreign countries. They also come from a talent base that’s looking for employment, symbolized by the Chrysler machining plant across the street, which employs about 800 on a footprint that used to employ 2,800.
       "I’d be lying if I said the economy hasn’t helped us in terms of local talent," says Spangler, "with a lot of local folks out of the glass and auto industries."
      Some of that talent is also going to other solar-power start-ups in the Toledo area, such as Xunlight. Spangler says he sees a lot of potential for what Blaha calls "the Silicon Valley of Solar Energy," but many firms are at an early stage of development.
      U.S. support for solar energy could also be labeled as early stage, especially compared to where First Solar found its first success, in Germany. But the tide is turning.
       "Primarily due to their green initiatives, Germany traditionally had been our primary market, but that’s changed," says Spangler. "There’s a lot more activity in the U.S."
      It only figures to increase, driven by the engines of a) increasing affordability and efficiency, b) renewable portfolio standards at the state level, and c) new renewable power incentives being put in place by the federal government.
      At the February announcement of the company’s attaining the less-than-$1-per-watt production cost, Michael Ahearn said governments like Germany’s deserved part of the credit.
       "Without forward-looking government programs supporting solar electricity, we would not have been able to invest in the capacity expansion which gives us the scale to bring costs down," he said. "First Solar’s ongoing focus on cost reduction enables continued growth even as subsidies decline. In the meantime, those initial investments are paying off in a cleaner environment and in the creation of thousands of jobs with a clear future."
       "Everyone always said, ‘It’s just not there, it’s too costly, people will not make that sacrifice,’" says Spangler of past doubters of solar power. "Our goal is to make it so it’s not a sacrifice. Our goal is to not need renewable portfolio standards."
      Until that sunny day, however, Northwest Ohio is glad to have a renewable power portfolio of its own.