By Barrie Barber | The Saginaw News

Snow didn’t stop Vice President Joseph Biden from learning about solar energy during a tour of Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. today.

Dow Corning Corp. Stephanie A. Burns and Hemlock site manager James Cross led the vice president on his trip through the Thomas Township headquarters, including a venture into the outdoors to see a solar array display while Michigan lived up to its reputation as a winter wonderland.

“The most important message we shared with the vice president today is that green jobs are real, and that the United States can be a leading innovator and manufacturer of solar related products and materials,” Burns said in a statement.

Dow Corning is a part owner in the venture. The Thomas Township site, which employs 1,800 workers, produces high purity polycrystalline silicon, the rock-like material used to manufacture solar panels and semiconductors for the electronics industry.

HSC has announced $2.5 billion in expansions at the plant in the last five years, and has started construction on a $1 billion manufacturing site in Clarksville, Tenn.

Vice President Joseph Biden also  joined Saginaw City Manager Darnell Earley and Saginaw Future President JoAnn T. Crary  for a private discussion with Morley Cos. President and CEO Paul Furlo and Citizen's Bank officials David Green and Thomas Zernick at Fuzzy's diner in Saginaw.

U.S. Small Business Administration chief Karen Mills also sat the table while patrons wandered in and out of the diner on Court Street. The entourage in the middle of the restaurant caught the attention of gawking passerbys, some of whom had their photo taken with Biden.

Terri Martinez, 44, lives across the street from Fuzzy's. She was in the restaurant having lunch with her husband, Joe, when Biden arrived unexpectedly.

“It was wonderful to see,” she said. “Great for the morale of the city of Saginaw.”

Many students from the nearby Michigan Lutheran Seminary school snapped photos while people stopped on the street and gawked as the long motorcade rolled in.

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