Are You Ready To Shift Your Paradigm?
Randy Wolken, President & CEO

We are comfortable with our current worldviews. They are often called our paradigm. It means that we see the world we live in a certain way. Our worldview, or paradigm, informs our daily schedules and personal road maps that have served us well. Why change now? Because change is coming whether we want to recognize it or not. Our communities are moving rapidly to a very different future. Are you ready to shift your mental paradigm and alter the maps that have guided your success for years? Now is the time to actively prepare for our future world.

Consider how successful you would be if you lived in Phoenix but were using a map of Syracuse to get around. Would you get to your desired destination? This is what is happening to our communities. The landscape is rapidly changing. By the first quarter of 2026, Micron will be producing memory chips here in Central New York for the rest of the world. Its first $20 billion chip fab factory and related jobs will be fully operational. Starting by the end of this year, and throughout the next decade, thousands of construction workers will be hired and will begin working at the site in Clay, NY. Daily, five to seven thousand workers will be working diligently to construct the first of what we believe will be as many as four chip fabs resulting in $100 billion in investments – from Micron alone! In the next few decades, 50,000 jobs will be created, and we will likely see 250,000 people move into Central New York and the Mohawk Valley.

Are you beginning to see what is happening here in three short years? What does this mean for all of us? Let me start to outline what needs to change in your paradigm – or worldview. We used to live in a community of scarcity. Now it will offer abundance. As a result, we need more of just about everything. We need to collaborate to create all these outcomes; if we do it well, many people will benefit.

What else is changing in our worldview – or paradigm? Events used to happen slowly here. That will no longer be the case. In fact, everything will happen very fast—much of it in three short years. This means fast-moving investment and wealth creation for decades. Why? Because you do not move chip fabs to other countries. They stay and produce year after year. We must rapidly scale so many aspects of our community to accommodate all this change.

Another aspect of our worldview – or paradigm – is an increase in new neighbors, colleagues, and friends from all over the country and world. This is a change from many people leaving our community year after year. And, the sustainable jobs produced are for them, us, our children, and our children’s children. This is exciting for those who want our children to stay here or return to our communities.

In one small article, I cannot fully communicate how much change is coming to our communities in Central and Upstate New York within the next decade – and beyond. However, I did want to give you a small taste of what will happen. We all need to adjust to how we see the world. I encourage you to understand what will happen so you can prepare yourself and others for it. The better prepared we are for what is coming, the better we can respond to each challenge with solutions that benefit everyone already here and all those families and individuals who are coming here soon.

You can count on MACNY to be a leader in understanding the new community we are creating while helping our existing member companies thrive – not just survive. For nearly 110 years, MACNY has helped individuals in manufacturing prosper. Given the great companies here and coming, we will certainly be doing it for the next century. Please reach out to me if you would like to talk about the future of our community and the paradigm shifts necessary to be successful. Like in the past, we will be successful together!