Edlen speaks to Vice President Biden about green jobs

Portland’s reputation as “green city” got another boost Friday when Gerding Edlen CEO Mark Edlen spoke to Vice President Joe Biden about green jobs.

Edlen spoke at the first meeting of Biden’s White House Middle Class Task Force. The group met at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Edlen spoke about the role of the business community in job creation, specifically how parts of the $787 billion federal stimulus can be used to create jobs by making commercial buildings more energy efficient.

“Within a matter of weeks we can have architects and engineers hired and on staff who can then survey buildings, prepare drawings and pull the required building permits all within 60 to 90 days,” Edlen said. “Then we can have tens of thousand of highly skilled laborers in the field executing the work and for the most part completing that work by the end of the summer of this year.”

Edlen said $1 billion of stimulus money could help retrofit 15.6 million square feet of space, creating 12,000 construction jobs and 6,000 factory jobs.

“Even though the current economic conditions are nothing short of brutal in the real estate industry, we believe that if you squint real hard that you can see a silver lining and that it has a definite green tint to it.

Most of President Barack Obama’s cabinet attended the meeting.

Other panelists included John Podesta, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress; Van Jones, president and founder of Green for All; Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund; Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change; Leo Gerard, international president of the Steelworkers of America; Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter; and Cecilia Estolano, CEO of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Authority.