Global Fastener News

Obama Creates Media Blitz During Cardinal Fastener Visit

Jason Sandefur

Cardinal Fastener’s public relations agency reported more than 15,000 news media articles and videos were circulating within 72 hours after U.S. President Barack Obama visited the Ohio plant on January 16.

All three networks ABC, NBC and CBS ran a news item about the visit during the evening news broadcast on Friday. CNN and other cable news channels covered the event as well.

Print media from around the world also provided coverage, putting a global spotlight on the 25-year-old company.

“On a final tour before his inauguration, Obama praised the maker of bolts for wind turbines as an example of a business that is both adding quality jobs and building the “green energy” industry, both of which are major aims of (his stimulus) plan,” the Plain Dealer reported.

Cardinal Fasteners, site of the Bedford Heights tour, is an oasis in the widening desert of the U.S. economy, the Washington Post reports. “Officials said it has about 65 full-time employees and plans to add as many as 40 more in the next year, when it projects its 2008 revenue of about $10 million will increase by 50%.”

“Campaigning for the top priority of his coming presidency, Barack Obama pitched his economic recovery plan on Friday by using an old-economy plant now finding new business in alternative energy,” reported the Chicago Tribune. “The nonunion shop that served as a backdrop has about 65 employees and makes screws and bolts used to make wind turbines.”

“Cardinal is the kind of company Obama wants to see boosted by his stimulus plan,” the Tribune noted. “On its own, it has added about 15 jobs since it started making parts for the wind industry two years ago.”

“Cardinal is projecting a 50% hike in reveneues in 2009 and expects to nearly double its workforce to 105, and was chosen to illustrate (Obama’s) argument that alternative energy investment can create jobs,” Agence France-Presse reported.

“Speaking to a small group of Cardinal Fastener workers and officials in an unheated factory on a bitterly cold day, Obama ticked off the job losses and other problems plaguing Ohio and the nation,” the Columbus Dispatch reported.

“Obama shook a few hands before turning to leave the warehouse,” the Akron Beacon Journal reported. “But he retraced his steps to retrieve an 18-inch bolt that he received as a gift from the company as the audience laughed.”

“This trip to a hard-hit city in what is so often referred to as America’s rustbelt is symbolic, meant to send a message to American workers that the new president understands and is going to work hard to turn things around,” reported National Public Radio’s All Things Considered broadcast. “But it’s also practical. This plant, called Cardinal Fasteners, is a parts supplier to the wind-turbine industry. It’s a 25-year-old business, but it got into the alternative-energy side of things two years back. At the time, it employed 50 workers. Today, it has 65. Mr. Obama said it represents the potential for job growth that exists if America invests in renewable energy.”

Founded in 1983, Bedford Heights, OH-based Cardinal Fastener is one of the largest manufacturers of wind turbine fasteners in North America, having supplied over 150,000 pieces. Tel: 216 831-3800 Fax 216 831-3651 E-mail: sales@cardinalfastener.com Web: cardinalfastener.com �2009 FastenerNews.com