The Sunnyvale Sun

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British royal pays visit to Sunnyvale hi-tech company

By Stephen Baxter

England's Prince Edward, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II, visited Applied Materials Inc. on May 14 and spoke with members of the community service group City Year, which the Sunnyvale tech company helps support.

Applied Materials CEO Mike Splinter greeted the 43-year-old prince, who arrived with a motorcade and stepped out of a black Bentley. The company's staff gave him a tour of Applied, which has more than 4,000 employees.

The prince, clad in a dark suit and tie with tiny clouds, was on a seven-day tour of the United States to give the Duke of Edinburgh Award, at the Young Americans Challenge in Los Angeles. The award honors students age 14 to 25 who participate in community service, learn new skills and promote recreation.

The prince is interested in technology and alternative energy, and Applied executives showed him their new solar panel products. They also peeked through windows into a clean room, where technicians in white suits and goggles built silicon chips.

After the tour, finger sandwiches and lemonade were served at 20-minute outdoor reception for about 70 employees and guests.

"He was a friendly chap," said Sunnyvale Mayor Otto Lee, who attended the event. Lee, who grew up in British Hong Kong, said the closest he had been to royalty before was seeing Prince Charles' in his childhood stamp collection.

On May 14, the prince also stopped at San Jose-based Bell Microproducts Inc. and planned to have dinner at semiconductor billionaire Wilf Corrigan's house in Los Altos Hills. More than a dozen members of City Year, a wing of the AmeriCorps service group, also met the prince and explained their work in area schools. He asked the students, who all wore the signature yellow City Year jackets, about their experiences.

They chuckled when he asked, "Do you get any sort of training or is it just, right, here's a yellow jacket?"