It's tough being green--at a Presidential press event
When President Barack Obama’s Administration announced the President was coming to my recently adopted hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin, for a town hall meeting, I knew I should try to attend as press. After all, his energy policy positions and calls for a clean energy revolution will impact the development of green technologies and sustainability programs at manufacturing companies.
It turned out Obama focused almost completely on health care reform and health care policy in his Green Bay town hall held Thursday, June 11 (see pic below), but I still got a lesson in what it means to be green in today’s workplace by attending the event as press. 
To make a long story short, I decided to ride my bike to the event to avoid parking hassles and heavy traffic at the event site, a local high school. But when I pedaled up to the first line of security checks near the make-shift press entrance, the Secret Service person and local police there could not quite fathom the notion that a journalist would ride his bike to a presidential press event. It took some calm and repeated explaining on my part to convince them I really was press and that I did have an email from the White House media affairs office saying I was confirmed for press credentials and could collect my press pass at the press door by showing my photo ID.
OK, so I’m probably the only journalist they’ve ever seen roll up to a presidential town hall on a commuter bike, especially in a Midwestern town like Green Bay. In fact, I’m thankful our Presidential security is attentive enough to scrutinize anything that unusual. I’ll even admit to feeling like an oddball pedaling a bike while wearing business casual attire. I probably don’t look the part of your typical White House press corps (that’s me below, holding the hard-won press pass after riding back from the event), or even the local news guy, though at the time, I was wearing my sport coat. Really, I was just trying to be green, get a bit of exercise, avoid heavy traffic, and do my job in the process.
So no gripe with presidential security here. My poin
t is that being green in the workplace can be tough some times–you end up feeling like an oddball. But things are getting better. More companies are offering workers who cycle to work a place to change clothes, lock up their bikes, and at a few companies, even take a quick shower. Riding a bike to work may not be the norm, but it’s not the rarity it was years ago.
At the Green Bay town hall, President Obama was asked about how to encourage wellness. He noted that companies need to take a leading role. “We’re meeting with companies who are really doing some innovative things to encourage their employees to get well … and some of it involves financial incentives,” Obama said. “So these employers will say, you know what, we provide for your health care, but if you quit smoking, you will see money in your pockets in the form of lower premiums. If, you lose weight, you will see an incentive–money in your pockets. Or, then they set up gyms, or arrange for club memberships for their employees … so there are a whole range of steps that employers are taking to help encourage [wellness], and what we want to do is to work with those employers to give every company an incentive to do the right thing with their employees.”
Examples of companies that support green commuting and wellness are out there. Outside magazine annually tracks the best places to work, and the League of American Bicyclists annually generates its list of Bicycle Friendly Businesses. Such lists tend to be heavy on sports industry companies like Clif Bar, REI, and SRAM, but it’s good to see industrial and engineering companies such as Avtech Corp. in Seattle, Fluor in Greenville, S.C., and Sierra Nevada Brewing in Chico, Calif., on the league’s list.
Regionally, I’ve visited industrial companies such as Rockwell Automation that provide workout and locker room facilities for employees, at least at some of their sites. When it comes to bicycle commuting, almost any company can find a spare storage or utility room to allow for bike parking or creation of a private place to change clothes and freshen up. These programs are three-fors, because they help your company be green, aid employee wellness, and give your company an edge in getting better health insurance rates. It’s no wonder that a recent survey from Watson Wyatt saw a growth in corporate wellness programs, despite the economic downturn.
So the bottomline is that more companies have the good sense to encourage bike commuting and other forms of wellness. And, if I ever get the chance to attend another Presidential press event, I’ll have the good sense not to bike up to security for the press entrance.
