Green energy holds the key to the future for the Valley

Green energy holds the key to the future for the Valley

EDITOR:

As an entrepreneur and an experienced engineer with project management experience in the computer industry, I can say that good jobs associated with design and manufacturing have moved overseas. This has hurt me both as an employee, and then later, as a small business owner, as my customers have had less disposable income and diminished purchasing power.

Looking at this trend, I decided to switch careers, complementing my experience with a graduate degree in civil and environmental engineering, which I am pursuing at YSU. My focus after graduation is to help build wind farms.

As a technical person, but passionate about the well-being of my fellow Americans in the Valley, I believe that Ohio can leverage its strength in traditional manufacturing, which has declined in the last few decades. We can do this by planning for exponential growth and supporting the opportunity for being a key player in the supply chain that wind turbine manufacturers are looking for, both out of necessity and common sense. To do this, we will have to shed the traditional manufacturing management mindset geared toward just linear growth. This will re-energize our current manufacturing base and not only save existing jobs but create an additional 30,000 jobs in Ohio, many of them in the Valley.

Lastly, like our representatives in the House who have already supported the American Clean Energy and Security Act, we need the Senate to get behind this “green energy” initiative that wind power offers us, and in doing so help businesses grow in Ohio, including many in the Mahoning Valley area.

To this end, I am doing wind turbine siting research at YSU under a government grant. Its aim is to optimally site two wind turbines on campus, for future research that will help in the development of new high-paying “green” jobs that cannot be outsourced to other countries.

ADNAN BUXAMUSA

Boardman

It’s time to fix health care

EDITOR:

Thank you, Thomas Lamb, for your enlightening letter of Aug. 30 regarding the salaries of top health-care executives. These salaries answer so many questions: why we have not heard from the health-care sector, why our premiums keep escalating and why so many individuals and businesses can no longer afford health care in the United States.

The time is long overdue to assure each and every citizen access to quality health care at an affordable cost to all, not just the chosen few.

One suggestion, introduce all state and federal members into the general population of the insured. Adding our legislators, for example, will enlarge the pool of citizens into the base of customers for the insurance companies, and we all know larger pools of customers should result in more competitive rates, and more competition should bring the health-care industry costs down to realistic and affordable rates for all.

As a nation we introduce our beliefs and ideals to countries around the world, even if we are not wanted, yet our own health-care system is a disgrace. We needed to fix it years ago, and we did not. Now is our chance to repair health care for all.

PATRICIA TURK

Boardman