Orange County pitches biotech, semiconductor investment at national summit
Orange County is trying to turn summit meetings in Maryland into concrete wins at home, from advanced-manufacturing sites to higher-paying jobs and a broader tax base.
Orange County pitched itself to investors at the SelectUSA Investment Summit in National Harbor, Maryland, betting that a stronger place in the national competition for manufacturing and technology projects can eventually mean more jobs, more taxable property and more construction in the Hudson Valley. Conor Eckert, president and CEO of the Orange County Partnership, used the forum at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center to court companies and site selectors looking for U.S. locations, with the county focusing on biotech, semiconductors, microelectronics supply chains and packaging.
The summit matters because the U.S. Department of Commerce says SelectUSA is the country’s highest-profile event for foreign direct investment. Since it began, the summit has generated more than $256 billion in new investment projects and supported more than 130,000 jobs. The most recent gathering drew more than 5,500 participants, including economic development officials from 54 states and territories and more than 2,700 business investors from more than 100 countries and markets. For Orange County, that makes the event less of a travel stop than a sales floor.
The pitch centers on location and industrial adjacency. Orange County officials have described the county as a strategic bridge between New York City and Albany, and the partnership has pointed to nearby semiconductor-related assets including IBM, GlobalFoundries, ASML, Onsemi, the planned Micron fab and the Albany Nanotech Center. Eckert and other local leaders have argued that those links give Orange County a place in a broader Northeast supply chain, especially for advanced manufacturing firms that want access to research, suppliers and skilled labor.
The county has also tried to prove that its pitch is not just talk. Early this month, the partnership hosted a SelectUSA delegation of more than 20 Taiwanese companies visiting the United States, part of a broader effort to build relationships with leaders in Taiwan’s semiconductor and industrial sectors. Orange County is also pointing to the 116-acre Aden Brook Business Park in Montgomery, designed for advanced manufacturing uses including life sciences, microelectronics and clean tech, as well as a separate $25 million FAST NY award for a rail-served business park in Maybrook. Those projects are the measurable test of the recruitment strategy: if the county can convert summit meetings into site selections, residents could see new construction, better-paying industrial jobs and a larger tax base.
That push comes as Orange County itself grows. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the county’s population at 417,669 on July 1, 2025, up from 401,310 in the 2020 census. The question for county officials is whether that growth becomes the foundation for more advanced industry, or whether the summit circuit stays a marketing exercise with few local returns.
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