Visiting AMD chief stays coy
He visits Luther Forest and says decision likely will be made by year's end

By Chris Churchill
Albany Times Union, N.Y.
Aug. 28--MALTA -- Under a strong midday sun, about 20 Saratoga County officials and members of the media waited in a back parking lot at the Luther Forest Technology Campus.
Then a blue Chevy Tahoe pulled up, and out stepped the man everyone was waiting Wednesday to see: Hector de Jesus Ruiz, the 62-year-old chairman of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the company that may -- or may not -- build a $3.2 billion computer chip plant at the business park.
AMD hasn't committed to building the factory, which would be backed by $1.2 billion in state incentives. It's therefore not surprising that Ruiz, during a question-and-answer session with reporters, was peppered with questions on whether the company will do so. AMD faces a July 2009 deadline to commit to the project.
His answer: AMD is likely to make a decision by the end of the year, but only after a "repositioning" designed to return the money-losing company to economic health.
Part of that repositioning came earlier this week, when AMD sold a unit that produced chips for digital TVs to Broadcom Corp. for $192.8 million in cash.
"At the end of the day, when we finally make a decision here, we're going to be a very strong company," Ruiz said.
Ruiz came to Malta for a Luther Forest tour and, with former state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno at his side, was driven around the sprawling and mostly wooded campus.
He was shown the roadways being built within the park and an under-construction bypass that will take commuters directly to the site from Northway Exit 11. He also was shown some of the residential neighborhoods that surrounds the campus, and likely saw the ongoing installment of the $79 million water pipeline that would serve the AMD factory.
And he was eventually taken to the clear-cut site where stakes in the ground mark the outline of the proposed AMD plant -- and that's where Ruiz proclaimed delight at the surroundings.
"What a site," he said. "I can't imagine a more beautiful place to put a facility."
For a corporate executive, Ruiz has a colorful past. He was raised in a Mexican border town, where he worked as a shoeshine boy and played in a rock band called The Teenagers.
He got lucky when a Methodist missionary offered to pay for a year's tuition at the University of Texas, according to a profile published in the Austin American Statesman. Ruiz eventually earned a Ph.D in electrical engineering at Rice University.
At times Wednesday, Ruiz seemed bemused by the amount of attention he was receiving. And for all the hoopla, it's unclear how much of a role he will have in the Luther Forest decision.
That's because Ruiz was ousted last month from AMD's top job -- chief executive -- after the company reported its seventh consecutive losing quarter. He was replaced by Dirk Meyer, an AMD engineering executive.
On Wednesday, though, Ruiz said New Yorkers should not worry that the change will affect AMD's decision on Luther Forest because the succession had long been planned and Meyer was on board with the project.
At the conclusion of the visit, and with a visit to Saratoga Race Course next on the agenda, Ruiz was pressed by reporters to offer odds on whether AMD will build in Malta.
But he didn't take the bait.
"I'm not a good horseplayer," he said. Churchill can be reached at 454-5442 or by e-mail at cchurchill@timesunion.com.
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