For the purposes of introduction and education, the employees of GlobalWatt welcomed area business, education and political leaders to their facility at 1200 Leon Scott Friday for an evening of hors d’oeuvres and a lesson on solar technology.

"Choosing Saginaw turned out to be one of the best business decisions we've ever made," said Sanjeev Chitre, chief executive officer of San Jose, Calif.-based GlobalWatt.

He said the company is well on its way to being operational and that locating in Saginaw, rather than Corpus Christi, Texas, sped up the process by at least one to one and a half years.

"This was handed to us on a silver platter," Chitre said of the abandoned auto plant that GlobalWatt now calls home.

GlobalWatt selected Saginaw in December, after the state approved seven years of employment tax credits and a $10 million large brownfield Michigan business tax credit.

The company is in the process of adapting the 74,000-square-foot facility for its $177 million, 500-job solar module production plant.