This SolarWakeup article looks at Ohio AEE's recently released Ohio Advanced Energy Jobs Fact Sheet and comments made by Ray Fakhoury, legislative affairs director for OAEE, on the state of advanced energy jobs in Ohio. Link to the Ohio Jobs Fact Sheet here. Link to the full article here. Excerpts below:

According to Ohio AEE, my home state now has more than 112,000 workers in the clean energy economy – more than are in all vocational training programs combined, and more than are employed in all car dealerships in the state (you have to be an Ohioan, I think, to understand the importance of the latter, but still).

I wonder if Richard Cordray or Mike DeWine are listening to this news. These are a new breed of worker for Ohio, and they deserve to have attention paid – and I’m convinced that even in this red state, support for improving and expanding jobs would play well. And, well, clean energy jobs are where it is right now.

(I know my Senator, Sherrod Brown, is listening, because Brown has been on the side of workers since he was a wee Representative representing the industrial stronghold of Lorain, Ohio, where my parents hail from and from whence I covered Sherrod as a wee reporter for The Lorain Morning Journal. I’m sure he could recite these statistics off the top of his head if you asked him.)

So I’m making an appeal to my own Ohio politicians to take note of this new voting block and use your office to support the expansion of jobs in this area. Too many towns across this state have been left behind as the new economy has emerged, and clean energy jobs can be had anywhere. Make this a priority, and it will help power you to the statehouse.

Link to the full SW article here.