Vice President Joe Biden visits us in Chicago
It’s amazing that when Vice President Biden has so many places he could visit to highlight the use of ARRA funds in creating our future economy, he picks Serious Materials.
This morning, he appeared at our most recently acquired window factory outside of Chicago. We also met Mayor Daley and both Illinois Senators, Dick Durbin and Roland Burris.
See an initial set of photos here.
Read the full Press Release here.
It is a great honor to host Vice President Biden, because he understands both the immediate impact energy-saving windows can have on cutting carbon emissions as well as on American job creation. There is no faster, greater return on both energy and cost savings than the opportunity we have right now to retrofit, weatherize, and build with the most energy-saving building materials available today. We will, and we must, continue to build for the future. We must create the very kind of jobs that will be of lasting benefit for generations to come and will reverse the destabilizing trends in our energy-starved world.
We like to think that this visit means more than just that we make great windows which also insulate, but because Kevin Surace, our CEO, is really exerting leadership and collaboration to use the economic crisis for social good.
Kevin thinks we can move the country to sustainable building practices relatively quickly using the ARRA retrofit funds, and that’s why we bought the former Republic Windows & Doors and former Kensington factory as well. After all, when you consider both the manufacturing processes and the buildings themselves, the built environment is responsible for 52% of greenhouse gas emissions.
It was a very inspirational event for all of us – certainly there were tears in all of Serious Materials Marketing’s eyes (and I’m sure in those of others as well!).