Well, we made it! We’re in Phoenix for Greenbuild 2009, and we’ve already seen some exciting new companies and products on the show floor. Plus we shot some great videos for our clients, CALMAC and IES. Here is a video of our first day at the show:

We’ve got two days packed full of meetings and additional video shoots with Serious Materials and YKK AP, and somewhere in there we will head over to see Al Gore deliver the Keynote and Opening Celebration tomorrow night with Sheryl Crow. (And just in case you aren’t here in AZ, you can check out live streams on Greenbuild’s website.)

We are looking forward to meeting green building professionals sharing their visions for the future of the industry, as well as the editors and bloggers who write about it along the way. Melissa Hincha-Ownby of Mother Nature Network has already blogged about the event. Lloyd Alter of Treehugger is here, too. Along with 24,000 registered attendees, according to the records when the show floor opened at 5:30 this evening.

Check back here daily for a round-up of news and views from the show. Next week, we will do a show wrap up. And we’ll be Tweeting live from #Greenbuild09 the rest of the week – follow @catrionaharris, @mariegoltara and @toryk for your green building fix this week.

There is no way around it.   This is more than likely the worst economic climate you have lived through.   But Monday, I was inspired by a small Pennsylvania town that gave me great hope for green jobs and what it can do for America.

I was with our client, Serious Materials, and Governor Edward Rendell in a suburb of Pittsburgh – Vandergrift, Pennsylvania.   We were there to re-open a windows plant that had been closed by its previous owners and where the workers have been hired back to begin producing energy-efficient windows.

I’m not here to plug my client.   What I am here to do is to share with you the way the economy has hit in American towns across the nation, and how their spirit and determination to make a change is a great lesson for us all.   I have been working on this event for weeks and have been taken aback by the stories I’ve heard.   But as I was driving in from Pittsburgh it really hit home.

The thing that really struck me was when one of the rehired employees, Robin Scott, took the podium and talked about the green movement.  He said, “This is more than just a job to me.  It’s also doing our small part in this tiny corner of America to move this country forward, I’m not a Treehugger by any means, but even I know we have to change.  We can’t leave the world the way it is now.  So if we can get this green movement going here in Vandergrift, then that is what I wanna see!”

It doesn’t matter how or why these people became a part of the green movement, the only thing that matters is that they now embrace it.  Being green is no longer a California thing or a hippie thing, it is just the right thing to do for ourselves and the many generations that will follow us.

There has been some debate over the effectiveness of green jobs. But I’ve seen first hand the difference and the positive influence green jobs can have on our country,  on our small towns and on our environment.  Ultimately, I was inspired by the people and their drive to make a positive change. The people in Vandergrift have given me a gift – the gift of perspective.   One I will take with me for the rest of my life.