[caption id="" align="alignright" width="408"] Claudia Cosoreanu, a General Electric manager who has relocated to the Capital Region from Toronto, Canada, poses a photo at GE Global Research Center Friday, Sept. 4, 2015, in Niskayuna, N.Y. Cosoreanu is the liaison between the research laboratory and GE's oil and gas business. (Will Waldron/Times Union)[/caption]

Willis Whitney was a pioneer.

Just about every week, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor took the train from Boston to Schenectady, where he worked at General Electric Co. to develop an improved filament for its electric light bulb.

Eventually, Whitney left Boston to relocate to Schenectady. In 1900 he helped found what eventually became GE's corporate research and development arm.

Today, the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna is the headquarters for the company's worldwide network of corporate research laboratories.

It's a major magnet for talented people who move to the Capital Region to work.

Other large companies have joined GE in recruiting both locally and worldwide. They include SUNY Polytechnic Institute and the technology companies it hosts at its $20 billion installation on Fuller Road in Albany, and GlobalFoundries, the $15 billion semiconductor production and research and development facility at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta.

SUNY Poly and GlobalFoundries each have 3,000 employees, most with advanced degrees.

There are other technology companies with local operations as well, including W. & L.E. Gurley, Transfinder, Siemens, Superpower, Bechtel, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, AngioDynamics, Schenectady International and Environment One.

Dozens of startups and smaller companies also operate throughout the region, many spun off from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Union and Siena colleges and the University at Albany.

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