The following post is from Sara Letourneau, Labor Climate Project Director for the BlueGreen Alliance.

Well, the weather was a bit drab on the second day of our Save American Jobs tour in Dayton, Ohio, but our event went very well and our spirits are high. Local leaders including Sierra Club’s Neil Waggoner, IUE-CWA Local 755 President James Winship, and Ohio Interfaith Power and Light Advocacy Chair Robert Downs, joined Steelworkers Lee Geisse and Ryan Motel at the headquarters of IUE-CWA Local 755 in Dayton to hold Speaker John Boehner’s feet to the fire to get the Production Tax Credit for wind power renewed. You can see the news release here. 

After our press event, we started on our way to Kalamazoo, Michigan where we’ll be holding an event later this morning. On the way, we found something pretty cool. We drove by the Blue Creek Wind Farm near Van Wert, Ohio that had Gamesa wind turbines — the kind Ryan and Lee help make parts for made in Pennsylvania — so we decided to take a photo of the two of them with the wind turbines in the background. 

It’s pretty amazing to see the pride on people’s faces when they see something that big that they contributed to. It’s one of the reasons why we’re doing this. American pride in American manufacturing was a dying breed only a few years ago, but today we’re bringing back and growing new jobs in the manufacturing sector. One of the drivers of that has been clean energy — like wind — and it’s vital that we fight to keep these jobs and the progress we’ve made. 

We’ll be back later today or tomorrow to wrap up our event in Kalamazoo calling on House Energy Chair Upton to save thousands of American jobs by pushing for the extension of the Production Tax Credit. Until then,  enjoy a photo of Lee and Ryan in front of the turbines!