Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, speaks with local community leaders at Michigan Technological University Monday during her tour of the Upper Peninsula. She also visited Calumet Electronics and Tech’s Keweenaw Research Center.

HOUGHTON — U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow visited several Copper Country sites Monday as part of an Upper Peninsula tour.

Stabenow, D-Lansing, toured Calumet Electronics and Michigan Technological University’s Keweenaw Research Center Monday before meeting with local community leaders at the Memorial Union Building.

Bringing high-tech manufacturing back to the U.S. has been a goal for Stabenow, who co-sponsored the Creating Helpful Incentives for the Production of Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act signed into law last year.

Stabenow said Calumet Electronics is looking at funding through the CHIPS Act, and could also be eligible for other new programs that will be coming out soon.

Calumet Electronics’ circuit boards, which are being used by clients like NASA and the Department of Defense, are a key example of the kind of manufacturing Stabenow wants to see more of in the U.S., she said.

“They don’t make the chip, but they take them and put together everything that it takes to use them into a circuit board,” she said. “And so what they do is a critical part of the vision we have for bringing back all of these jobs. So it’s not just chip manufacturing. It’s how do you take the chip and make sure it can get into a car or a truck, or a satellite, or somebody’s phone?”

After Monday’s session with community leaders, Stabenow was excited about MTEC SmartZone CEO David Rowe’s idea to design a high-tech innovation center locally. He said the centers would help companies transition from the research lab to industrial scale by experimenting with manufacturing techniques.

“I’d love to help make that happen,” Stabenow said.

She said she also plans to do everything she can to help Hancock work with the U.S. Department of Education to be able to find new uses for Finlandia University properties.

Classroom equipment and other goods were auctioned off this summer. But sale of the buildings and other property, including Quincy Green, is being held up due to DOE liens.

Jay Gage, regional manager for Stabenow in the U.P., said he’d reached out to O’Keefe & Associates, the receiver of the properties. He had also put in an inquiry with the DOE, which had not responded yet.

Hancock City Manager Mary Babcock said Monday representatives from U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman’s office will be on-site next week touring the buildings. She said there has also been conversation about the Veterans Administration repurposing the Jutila Center, a former hospital site, as a veterans home.

This is the final term for Stabenow, who announced earlier this year she will not run again in 2024.

Over the next year, Stabenow said, her biggest priority will be passage of the next farm bill, which needs to be reauthorized every five years.

Stabenow, who chairs the Senate’s Agriculture Committee, said this iteration of the bill has been the hardest one yet to negotiate. Of 535 members of Congress, 260 hadn’t been in office when the previous bill was put together, she said.

“It’s rural broadband, it’s rural hospitals and childcare, it’s rural businesses, it’s agriculture, farmers, nutrition programs,” she said. “But we’ve got a lot of folks right now that don’t understand it.”

Stabenow said she’s been working on outreach through meetings and one-page releases called “Farm Bill 101”; this week’s covers what agricultural research means for members and the jobs in their district. She’s also talking to farmers and others with an interest in their bill asking them to contact their members of Congress.

For Stabenow’s U.P. tour, she’s checking in with many of the people and projects she’s worked on over the years. Those include Michigan Tech, health care, and business development projects she’s helped get started. The tour also includes another of her priorities — the Soo Locks, where a new lock is in the third phase of construction

“I’m doing everything I can to get as much locked in as possible, before I retire in a year and a half,” she said.

Stabenow will continue her tour in Marquette Tuesday.