Obama Visit Highlights Manufacturer in New Energy Economy

 

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Emily Diamond-Falk, Environmental Defense Fund, 202-841-8605(c)

Obama Visit Highlights Manufacturer in New Energy Economy

(Washington— January 15, 2009) President-elect Barack Obama’s visit Friday to an Ohio company that makes screws and bolts for wind turbines will spotlight the manufacturing jobs that are the next frontier for U.S. industry, according to experts at Environmental Defense Fund which will cite the firm in a new nationwide survey of companies that are part of the new energy economy.

Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Company, a Bedford Heights, Ohio firm that employs 65 people, expects to double its sales and increase its workforce in the next two years despite the worst national and global economic conditions in decades.

“We expect to double our sales in the next two years,” said Dan Alvarez, product manager for Cardinal Fasteners. “That’s not going to come from our usual commercial sales for power generation, construction and heavy industry. Those guys aren’t growing. The biggest part of our growth is going to come from wind.”

The incoming Obama administration said the company is a model for its American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, a blueprint for saving or creating up to four million new American jobs and make the long-term investments to build a 21st century economy.

Environmental Defense Fund, a non-profit organization that partners with businesses, includes Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Company in a new nation-wide survey of hundreds of companies that are simultaneously growing the economy and contributing to limiting global warming pollution.

“Companies like Cardinal Fasteners show the concrete link between U.S. jobs and solutions to the climate crisis,” said Jackie Roberts, director of sustainable technology for Environmental Defense Fund. “These companies can help fix the climate problem and create more jobs to stimulate the economy at the same time.”

Officials of Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Company said products for wind turbines currently represent about 15 percent of the firm’s revenue, but said they expect that to expand to about 40 percent of its total revenue next year. Officials said the company hired 13 new employees this year and projects it could add up to 40 more people to its workforce next year.

“We just make screws and bolts — tower bolts, nacelle bolts, blade bolts — not nuts or anything else,” said Alvarez, 60, a native of northeastern Ohio who has been in the industrial fastener business for three decades. “But we think of ourselves as the Cadillac of bolts.”

Cardinal Fasteners vaulted into the wind turbine business several years ago, when a turbine manufacturer placed an emergency order for thousands of screws. The 25-year-old company now supplies some of the world’s largest turbine makers.

“Most wind companies are from Europe,” said Alvarez. “When they started building wind farms here they’d set up U.S. offices but bring everything over except the tower. After a while they started building plants to make the blades, but they’ve been slow to use the domestic supply chain for everything else.”

That is now changing, said Alvarez, adding that American firms like his are an increasingly important part of the global supply chain.

The company and its 95,000 square foot plant in the Cleveland suburbs is also a model for the transformation of the U.S. manufacturing industry, using steel melted and manufactured in America and employees trained on computer-driven threading and forging tools to produce products contributing to climate change solutions, EDF officials said.

“Usually if you see a president visiting a company it’s Caterpillar or Ford, some giant company,” said Alvarez. “It’s incredible he’s coming to see a little company like ours.”

Officials from EDF and Duke University, who recently released a report with labor co-sponsors show the value of supply chains and jobs associated with finding climate solutions, said hundreds of “green” companies like Cardinal Fasteners are the economic engine of the future.

“Until now, there was no tangible evidence of what these jobs are, how they are created and what it means for U.S. workers,” said Gary Gereffi, a Duke University professor of sociology and lead author of the report. “We don’t guess where the jobs are; we name them. Our report shows that clean technology jobs are also real economy jobs.”

A copy of the study, “Manufacturing Climate Solutions,” is available at http://www.cggc.duke.edu/environment/climatesolutions/. The survey of manufacturers and other companies that would benefit from new customers as the U.S. invests in climate solutions is scheduled for release in February. 

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