Recession Slows Plans for Brandon Wind Tower Plant

The wind power news isn't all rosy: the recession is stalling wind tower production in Brandon.

Broadwind Energy subsidiary Tower Tech Systems doesn't build the turbines; they build the 200-foot towers that hold those whirling turbines up. Tower Tech has built a plant just north of I-90 by Brandon, the company's third such facility, to build these towers. The building is 1150 feet long—that's three football fields, plus endzones! Materials go in one end, long towers come out the other, just like Play-Doh! Tower Tech picked the location due to good road access and proximity to wind projects. (I can't wait to see them try snaking those towers up the ramp at Exit 406.)

So Tower Tech has the building and equipment, they have the location.... now they just need contracts. Jill Meier at that Sioux Falls paper reports that Tower Tech had a big contract with General Electric, but that GE backed out. Just two years ago, GE was saying we had a wind turbine shortage. But then the recession hit and slowed all sorts of construction down, including green projects. (So, it wasn't enviro-hippies who slowed down green power; it was the gambling bankers who crashed the economy.)

The Tower Tech folks are saying optimistic things to the locals, assuring them the economy will turn around and the plant will be ready to create 150 new jobs soon. Their optimism may be warranted. The green stimulus is kicking into gear. Vestas Wind just landed its fifth big contract of the year (after landing none in gloomy 2009). GE is expanding its investment in wind in Europe and Idaho. GE is also supplying turbines to some other big projects.

So keep your fingers crossed and hardhats ready, Brandon workers: 150 green jobs may be a-comin'!

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Related: Even amidst the recession, green power made up more than half of the new electrical generation capacity constructed in the U.S. in 2009.

Bob Bans Butts, Boosts Brandon Business

Oh yeah! Amidst all the candidate wrangling, it's easy to forget there's a smoking ban on the November ballot. I wonder if maybe we should vote against it... to protect the competitive advantage of the businesses that have already banned smoking:

"Picked up some new business, and some old business, I used to have, but quit coming in because of the smoking,” [Brandon Steakhouse owner Bob] Miller said.

Miller's spoken out against a state-wide smoking ban in the past. He still believes a business owner should have the right to allow smoking indoors... But, he says, he knew it had to be done, to accommodate families. He knows now, it was the right decision.

"We do have a lot of families, family reunions, banquets, Easter, we were full, Brandon's a young family town, so is Luverne, we tracked business from Luverne, that we didn't have before too, because we are smoke free,” Miller said [Cherlene Richards, "Business Booms at Smoke-Free Restaurant," KELOLand.com, 2010.04.25].

There is an argument that Bob Miller's telling you to take your butts outside is less of an infringement on your liberty than Pierre's issuing the same edict. If the economy improves to the point that waitresses suffering in smoky workplaces have more freedom to work elsewhere, maybe we won't need the ban at all. Let's hope more businesses can make the right decision for their customers, their employees, and their bottom line.

State One-Act Play Festival: Love from Stage and Seats

Our hosts, the Brandon Valley HS Theatre Company, look for love under the Northern lights in Almost, Maine by John Cariani.
Photo Credit: SDPB

I'm in Brandon this weekend, judging the State High School One-Act Play Festival. Aside from at home with my loves, there's no place I'd rather be this weekend.

I've judged twelve Class AA shows so far, four to go today. I've also managed to catch some Class B comedy, including a peppy performance from the Montrose cast and a quirky, crisp, absurdist show from Philip. I'd catch Anne Elisa Hanson Brown's first Madison one-act this noon, but we Class AA judges give critiques while Class A shows happen (alas!).

I've participated in ten State One-Act Festivals: three as an actor under James "Doc" Miller, one as his tech assistant, and five as director at Montrose. My first turn at the State One-Act judges' table is a thrill, a joy, and an honor.

I'm spending the weekend with hundreds of kids performing 45 shows in arguably South Dakota's finest performing arts facility. Some shows are the best theater you will ever see in South Dakota. Some shows are just a bunch of jittery kids doing the best they can with what they have and trying not to fall off the edge of the stage. Some are both. All are treasures.

The State One-Act Festival surrounds us with gifts and giving. The gifts are not just inside the students, the talents and the skills hard-won through practice, practice, practice. The gifts are the shows, the love the performers give to their audience. The gifts are the attention, the witness the kids give as an audience to their peers on the stage. The gift is their desire to come to Brandon this snowy weekend for no nobler purpose (and maybe there is no nobler purpose) than to create art.

Theater is love. Come see some today.