Sun to lay off 301 in state

Colorado cuts follow in wake of 2005 acquisition of StorageTek

Roger Fillion, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 4, 2006 at midnight

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BROOMFIELD - When Mike Key prepared his three daughters for the news that he was losing his job at Sun Microsystems Inc., the software developer's 9-year-old asked an emotional question.

"My daughter asked me why they were laying off all the best people," said the 33-year-old Loveland resident, clearly touched by the earnest query.

"She drew me to tears on that."

Key was among 301 Colorado employees of Sun who were notified Thursday they would be let go on Oct. 2 from the Silicon Valley company, which last summer purchased homegrown data-storage company Storage Technology Corp. for $4.1 billion.

The cuts - disclosed in a filing to Colorado labor regulators - amount to about 8 percent of the company's Colorado work force.

The company's in-state work force has shrunk dramatically since the deal last summer to roughly 3,800 workers vs. a combined work force of about 4,700 at the time the transaction closed.

Nationwide, Sun notified more than 1,000 workers Thursday they were being laid off in the second round of large-scale job cuts since June.

Sun spokeswoman Stephanie Hess said in an e-mail the layoffs "cross all levels, including vice presidents and directors."

The cuts are part of a previously announced plan by Sun to shed up to 5,000 employees, or 13 percent, of its global work force.

CEO Jonathan Schwartz is selling off assets - including the 440-acre StorageTek campus in Louisville - and eliminating workers to make the company profitable.

In Colorado, the company has officially earmarked more than 400 employees for dismissal since June. And it said in a government filing Thursday that more cuts would come in the fall, sometime between Sept. 25 and Oct. 6.

During a gathering of Sun employees at the Gordon Biersch brewpub next to FlatIron Crossing mall, Key said he wasn't bitter about losing his job after eight years on Sun's payroll.

"None of us blame Sun," Key said. "They had to do what they had to do."

A few dozen Sun employees were gathered at the brewpub to commiserate the news over drinks and food. The eatery was one of at least three restaurants at the mall that threw an early happy hour for Sun workers who walked in with their layoff papers.

Employees who'd been cut said they weren't surprised, given that Sun has made clear that cuts were coming.

These employees also said pink slips and company failures are a fact of life in the rough-and-tumble high-tech industry.

"This is my third layoff," said 31-year-old Michael Zappe. "It's the tech industry. People get laid off all the time."

The software engineer wasn't planning to rush out and look for another job, confident that he would be able to land more high-tech work.

For now, Zappe planned to dig into two of his favorite topics by performing some research into issues related to physics and mathematics.

What's more, the Arvada resident is getting married in October and has a wedding to plan.

"It works out perfectly. I've got a lot to do," joked Zappe.

Zappe's laid-back attitude comes at a time when tech hiring appears to be showing some strength nationwide, despite large-scale cuts here by such companies as Sun and Seagate Technology.

The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. reported last month that nationwide tech-sector job-cut announcements fell to the lowest quarterly level in nearly six years during the second quarter.

The firm said high-tech job cuts totaled 29,226, down 26 percent from the previous quarter.

Among the unemployed, savvy workers who can transform "information" into "knowledge" that a company can capitalize on will have the inside track, said Samuel Conn, a faculty member in Regis University's computer information technology department.

He said local tech companies are demanding such "knowledge workers" more and more.

"At the height of the dot-com boom I was getting about 30 to 40 calls a week from companies looking for trained workers," Conn said in a news release issued by Regis.

"Then of course, the calls stopped. However, recently I have started getting calls again."

In Colorado, Sun's latest layoffs were concentrated at the company's Broomfield and Louisville campuses, with a handful of workers also being let go from facilities in Colorado Springs, Lone Tree and Longmont.

At the brewpub, Key was already talking with some laid-off colleagues about the possibility of doing some "independent" work.

But he also wants a little time to mull over his future.

"It's time for a break to figure out what's next," he said.

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fillionr@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2467

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