by Robert Recker
Senior Editor
RPC PHOTOS / MICHAEL K. DAKOTA
Bedford Heights " Mayor Fletcher Berger called President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 16 visit just days before his inauguration an "historic" event for the city.
The visit was part of Obama's whistle-stop trip from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., en route to his Jan. 20 inauguration.
"You're talking about someone who could go anywhere in the world and he chose little old Bedford Heights," Berger said Jan. 14. "He certainly does not have the time to randomly select where he goes.
"And it makes your citizens feel good, especially in our community, which overwhelmingly supported him," added Berger, an avid supporter of Obama whose city Web site gives equal prominence to an "Obama Watch" section as it does his own "Welcome from the Mayor" portion.
Obama spent more than two hours visiting with employees from the industrial firm Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co. Inc. Company spokesperson Jeff Grabner said the firm has jumped full-force into the wind energy industry, expecting to double its current workforce of 65 annually each of the next few years, as Obama unveils an economic stimulus package aimed at creating hundreds of thousands of "green collar" jobs.
Grabner said the CEOs of several major wind turbine manufacturers who work with Cardinal "abruptly changed their schedules" to fly in and meet the 44th president.
"That makes a statement about the quality of business in your community that they are in a position to assist with the plans [Obama] has going forward," Berger said. "It brings us notoriety."
While Grabner said details of Obama's unexpected visit were sketchy just days before, word soon got around at the company's Richmond Road office that the soon-to-be most powerful man in the world was coming to town.
"I know it's been all over the TV, but we really don't know if it's happening yet," a woman answering the phone there said Jan. 14. "We're all kind of stuck in the middle."
Grabner said Obama's visit, at least for one day, put his company in the national spotlight.
"We want to show America that we can do this, that we can rebuild our economy for the future," he said.
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