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January 31, 2008
Presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., along with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who dropped out of the presidential race Wednesday, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited Solar Integrated Technologies on Thursday.
The politicians walked in down a long, slick gray floor covering -- a sort of industrial red carpet -- and checked out the production line, stopping with workers before moving onto the press conference, according to the Chicago Tribune's Jim Tankersley, the pool reporter covering the event.
As part of a press conference where he touted the benefits of green technology, Schwarzenegger praised solar-roofing company Solar Integrated's productivity as an example that it is possible to protect the environment and stimulate the economy at the same time.
"Here we have an economy that is now flattening out, that is leveling off, that is not really producing what we anticipated because of the housing crisis and because of the [subprime-lending] crisis," he said. "And here this company is increasing its productivity over this last year by 100 percent, so this is really extraordinary. You're protecting the environment and you're fighting global warming and that is music to my ears."
The Governator previously gave SunPower a similar boost when he began a trade mission to China by praising the company's solar chip -- two days before SunPower's IPO (see Governator to China: Go Green, SunPower IPO Jumps 55% and Q&A: Sunpower's Thomas Werner).
Los Angeles-based Solar Integrated already trades on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market, or AIM, under the ticker "SIT."
Schwarzenegger went on to say that solar energy is a great way to fight global warming and that greentech -- combined with policies that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions – "will create a great, great future for California and for the United States and the world."
To hear an audio clip of the press conference, click here.