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Thursday, September 25, 2008
Applied Materials adds former DOE exec to board
In the latest sign of its continued push beyond semiconductors and into solar, Applied Materials Inc. has named the Department of Energy’s former renewable energy czar to its board of directors.
Andrew “Andy” Karsner, who served as assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy in the Bush Administration, has deep ties to Texas and the energy industry. Before he was nominated for the DOE job by Bush in December 2005, he was a wind energy developer and manager of several international energy projects. He graduated from Rice University.
Applied gets its bread and butter from making equipment and tools for semiconductor companies such as Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., But in recent years, it also has branched out into making equipment for the solar industry and today gets about 10 percent of its revenues from the solar equipment business.
Applied is based in Santa Clara, Calif., but its global manufacturing center and much of its operations are in Austin.
