Now, they provide solar installation under the name Luma Sources -- a reinvention that Allen says helped save the jobs of 35 personnel.
"That's what Americans have carried out for over 200 years: reinvented ourselves. We could not maintain up with the demand."
WASHINGTON -- For Robert Allen, the president's shoutout in the 2011 State of the Union address was a game changer.
Their shingles, he mentioned, are currently in use about the country as effectively as in Canada and Jamaica, allowing homes and corporations to generate solar energy utilizing photovoltaics affixed to shingles. They got hundreds of calls -- from persons interested in investing, to people today who wanted their shingles, to reporters who wanted to inform their story.
President Barack Obama cited Robert and his brother, Gary, as models of American innovation, noting that the brothers had reinvented their Michigan-primarily based roofing small business amid the recession with the help of a Recovery Act loan, and have been now creating solar shingles.
3 years later, Allen looks back on that State of the Union night fondly.
Allen says those kinds of policies would assist his company continue to grow. And to spur on a lot more accomplishment stories like the Allen brothers, we've begun to reinvent our energy policy," mentioned Obama. It appears like the two parties have chosen alternative power as one particular of their battlegrounds. Luma was already giving the shingles for a pilot solar project in Yale Acres, an economical housing complicated in Meriden, Conn., and with Obama's directive spurring further installations, Allen expects to put solar on a lot more units in the complex this year. The brothers took it more than in 1986, and had been among the contractors who helped repair the Pentagon following the Sept. We're issuing a challenge. 11 attacks.
In a lot of methods, Allen says, the brothers weren't prepared for the kind of focus that Obama's speech would create. We could not seriously capitalize on that ... Robert and Gary's father began the Allen Constructing Enterprise in Rochester, Mich., in 1950. But the brothers are searching for new partnerships that will support them grow further.
These days, he says, the small business is prepared to not only meet demand, but to expand. "The president picked a superior firm to shout out about, so we're forever grateful for that and always will be."
"I do not envy the president in the position he's in. (Obama also named for a clean energy typical in his 2012 speech.) Congress has not taken up his call on fossil fuel subsidies or renewable energy legislation because then. And he says the firm, like other renewable power makers, will advantage from new carbon requirements for power plants from the Environmental Protection Agency.
"For an average guy to have a thing like that take place to him, you can be nothing but humbled by it. The company's six employees trainers have taught dozens of contractors around the country to install the shingles. We were just receiving on our feet. In his climate change policy rollout final summer season, Obama set a objective of putting 100 megawatts of renewable energy on federally subsidized housing by 2020. Obama called on Congress to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels, and to set a aim of creating 80 percent of electricity from "clean" sources by 2035. We're telling America's scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and concentrate on the hardest troubles in clean power, we'll fund the Apollo projects of our time."
"The interest that was generated was so enormous," Allen recalled. "We didn't know that he was going to speak about us, and he produced us the centerpiece of his speech that night."
Luma has, however, benefited from the executive action that the president has taken on climate alter. And Obama, also, has been criticized in some quarters for not performing extra to push Congress on passing legislation dealing with these problems, outdoors of the speeches.
. He has not had a friendly Congress to enact his energy strategy."
They utilized a grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to acquire new equipment and retool their factory to produce a new solar shingle that they had patented. "It was so overwhelming at the time.
"My brother and I looked like two deer in headlights," stated Robert Allen, who watched the speech from the very first lady's box, in an interview with The Huffington Post this week. "We're not just handing out income. But he does not blame Obama for their failure to materialize.
The key energy policies that the president outlined in that speech, even so, have not come to fruition. "Option energy is a very politically charged topic. "We're at the stage exactly where we can turn the notoriety that we got, and are nonetheless acquiring, into growing and seeking strategic partners to additional grow our markets," said Allen.
The Allen family members has been in the roofing enterprise a lot more than half a century now. He's had much more geopolitical events than I can name that he's had to deal with, all even though he's attempting to steer the nation in the right direction on so many of his policies, particularly energy," mentioned Allen. I was, and nevertheless am," he mentioned
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkU6EXkUCxc
