President Joe Biden will land at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport Tuesday afternoon for his "Investing in America" tour.

What You Need To Know

  • President Joe Biden will visit Wolfspeed Tuesday

  • The trip is part of the president's "Investing in America" tour

  • Dr. John Edmond is a researcher and co-founder of Wolfspeed, which uses silicon carbide in semiconductors

Biden is making his first stop in his tour at Wolfspeed, a Durham-based company known for its microchip technology.

The president’s tour is seen as a promotion of his economic agenda.

The White House online briefing room describes Biden's visit as an overview of the tour — including how the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the American Rescue plan — as “unleashing a manufacturing boom” and “creating jobs that don’t require a four-year degree across the country."

If you ask Dr. John Edmond what this presidential visit means, he will tell you it legitimizes their work. 

“We have always been a company that prided ourselves in making things or putting people to work, which is huge for anybody,” Edmond said.

Edmond is one of the co-founders of the company. Edmond, who graduated from N.C. State, said they are keen on giving the state of North Carolina a good name.

A chemical compound, silicon carbide, has been at the center of their corporate ingredients from the start.

"Back then, the power of the material was known and what we decided to do was just try, try to commercialize it,” he said.

Making money off of silicon carbide took guts, vision and time for a group of six eager N.C. State graduate students in 1987.

"We were very naive. We thought that this was going to change the world. And we had to convince a lot of people,” he said.

Edmond, 62, said no company had found a good way to use silicon carbide effectively until his did.

Then Wolfspeed, formerly named Cree, started putting the chemical compound in LED lighting.

"There were a lot of naysayers in the beginning, but we believed in ourselves,” he said.

Now Wolfspeed has become one of the premier makers of semiconductor microchips. Its innovations are inside most electrical vehicles. Some of its clients include manufacturing parts for car companies like Mercedes-Benz and General Motors.

"Silicon carbide is much more efficient. That's the name of the game. Efficiency is everything,” Edmond said.

Solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy use silicon carbide.

Beyond the science of the technology is a man who has sown deep roots in the state.

“I love North Carolina. I mean, that's where, you know, most of our kids were born and that's where my family is,” he said.

Innovation was in his DNA from a young age. The ceramic engineering student grew up in western New York.

“I drove my parents crazy, you know, as one of eight kids, because I took apart everything as a kid and put it back together. Most of the time it was, it was right. But a lot of times it wasn't. But that's how you learn,” he said.

Edmond learned early in life to never give up on his dreams. More than 35 years later it is a dream that still continues.

"People ask me, what are you the most proud of being a founder of a company like this? And it's making people successful, giving them jobs, giving them the ability to buy a home with an income,” he said.

Thousands of people are employed by the company in this state, country and soon in Germany. The company recently announced a chip plant opening in Chatham County that will create at least 1,800 jobs. The new facility will be a multi-billion-dollar endeavor.