Hoosick Falls Middle School wins Viewers’ Choice Award for video with Saint-Gobain Tape Solutions
(March 20, 2025) – Hoosick Falls Middle School emerged as the winner of New York State’s first “What’s So Cool About ManufacturingTM” (WSCM) video competition in the Viewers’ Choice Award category. At the Student Video Awards ceremony at Proctors GE Theater yesterday, the Center for Economic Growth (CEG), the organizer of WSCM Capital Region, NY, announced the video that the Hoosick Falls team produced in collaboration with Saint-Gobain Tape Solutions received the most online votes from the general public. More than 22,000 votes were cast between March 5 and 8.
View the videos produced by student teams here.
Fifty-two students from seven Capital Region schools participated in CEG’s inaugural WSCM Capital Region, NY, which encourages middle school students to engage with local manufacturers and produce real-world, project-based videos that highlight “What’s So Cool About ManufacturingTM.” In addition to the Viewers’ Choice Award, awards in three other categories were announced after being selected by a bench of local judges.
Other Student Video Award winners included:
Award
School
Manufacturer
Career Pathways Award
KIPP Albany Community Charter Middle
Centrotherm
Outstanding Creativity
Shaker Middle School
Aquatic Development Group
Outstanding Overall Program
Central Park Middle School
Environment One Corp
Other schools that participated in WSCM Capital Region NY included: North Albany Middle School (Plug Power) Stephen & Harriet Meyers Middle School (Atlas Copco Comptec), Mount Pleasant Middle School (P1 Industries).The judges included: Ben Verschueren, Executive Director of Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR); Proctors CEPO Philip Morris; CDPHD Chief Growth Officer Nick Kraft; and CEG Chief Economic Development Officer Katie Newcombe.
Last October, CEG launched WSCM Capital Region, NY to raise parents’ and students’ awareness about high-paying careers within the Capital Region’s manufacturing sector and to dispel misconceptions they may have about such work. It is one of several initiatives that CEG is spearheading to help address the growing demand for skilled workers among local manufacturers.
Since last fall, CEG and its WSCM Capital Region, NY partners have been providing the seven student teams with video production training and equipment – at no cost to schools. Earlier this winter, the teams visited to interview employees and film cool manufacturing footage. The teams then edited their videos, which were posted online for the public voting campaign. eMediaWorks provided the teams with production support, and additional support came from by Sahl Communications and EmpowerStar Enterprises.
CDPHP provided a Leadership-Level sponsorship along with NSH USA and Regeneron at the Champion Level for WSCM Capital Region, NY. The Manufacturers Resource Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania helped CEG bring the “What’s So Cool About ManufacturingTM initiative to upstate New York.
“We set out tasking Capital Region students with showing what’s so cool about manufacturing, and they topped that: they showed what’s awesome about manufacturing,” said Don Wiesenforth, the senior vice president and director of Manufacturing Solutions, the Capital Region Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) center. “Congratulations to all the students and teachers who participated in our inaugural video contest and thanks to all the manufacturers who opened their doors and let their employees talk about the cool things they do every day in the Capital Region. And we are grateful for CDPHP’s sponsorship of this initiative as well as for the Manufacturers Resource Center’s support in bringing it to New York State.”
“The What’s So Cool About ManufacturingTM Program received a quick positive response from our operations team who overwhelmingly voted to support the program because we have a long history of supporting community involvement projects. The fact that it was local kids from the middle school made the program sound like a lot of fun, and their enthusiasm for the project did not disappoint us. The kids showed fantastic enthusiasm and creativity as they interviewed the Saint-Gobain team, and the final project was truly impressive. Our team enjoyed answering their questions and telling interesting stories about our most impactful products, and we could tell from the final video that the kids were listening,” said Richard Austin, the worldwide market manager for Saint-Gobain Tape Solutions in Hoosick Falls.
“My students had never told a story through documentary filmmaking before, and this first experience for them working this way was a total joy. Toward the end of our day shooting at Environmental One, one of the students told me that he could spend the rest of the day finding things to shoot. Another student discovered he was a terrific interviewer. Another student discovered his ability to direct; coaching his classmates on how best to deliver their on-camera lines. The students I worked with are all Guyanese-Americans, and they saw that the working folks on the factory floor were mostly Guyanese-Americans from their community. In fact, one of the kids has an uncle who works there,” said Benjamin Coccio, a teacher at Central Park Middle School.
About CEG
The Center for Economic Growth (CEG) accelerates economic opportunity in Albany/NY’s Capital Region by developing and implementing strategies to attract, expand and create businesses and jobs. As the regional economic development organization, affiliated with the Capital Region Chamber, CEG is a catalyst that works with partners and stakeholders to shape a vibrant, thriving future.
CEG houses the region’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Center, Manufacturing Solutions, which provides strategic guidance to small-to-middle sized companies in manufacturing and technology sectors. www.ceg.org.
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