"Declaring that a city is going to replace yesterday's lost jobs with new green ones is a lot easier than actually doing so."Although the general tone is "this is hyped" the actual story shows some movement (and a well-named official):
Plenty of people in Joliet recall the anticipation for other new industries that took years to develop. Tom Proffitt, an electrician for 37 years, remembers the excitement in the 1980s about laying fiber-optic cables for the expected advancements in information technology. He said many local companies didn't want to invest in equipment, fearing the industry would never become such a major force. "It took a few years" before the work materialized, he said.
Now Mr. Proffitt, the training director for a local electrical union, takes a trailer around to career fairs to show off solar equipment to high school students. His union just ordered new solar panels, at $700 apiece, to give apprentices a new set of skills for work they expect to come. "Solar was hyped and hyped," he said. "Now it's creeping in there."
