PHOTO BY SAMANTHA BALDENSPERGER. Brenda Robinson (right) explains the workings of the Sustainability Park to Congressman Randy Forbes.
Brenda Robinson founded the Sustainability Park two and a half years ago after buying the recently deserted Brown and Williamson tobacco company located on North Enon Church Road in Chester.
On Tuesday afternoon she welcomed tenants, prospective tenants and all levels of government including 4th Congressional District Representative Randy Forbes to the park for a tour and meet and greet.
Robinson addressed the crowd with a little bit about her Sustainability Park.
"This has been a project of passion," said Robinson who also started the company Environmental Solutions 18 years ago.
She said that they are not only creating jobs, 80 since opening, but they are addressing environmental issues and finding alternative energy solutions too.
"To us all waste is, is out of place raw materials," said Robinson.
She added that while they may pride themselves in recycling as any observer can see they are not a trash dump. There are no piles of garbage or heaps of scrap metal.
The biggest problem for the Sustainability Park and its tenants has been the funding.
"This is the best market for what we are doing right now. But it is the worst for getting the capital we need," Robinson said.
They are addressing ways of funding from possible stimulus money to grants and other programs. Though they are made up of individual small businesses they are proud of the roughly $20 million in annual revenue they make.
Robinson also addressed a few of their hopes for the future. They are looking to work with a solar energy company to hopefully do a demonstration project in using solar energy while also bringing the company into the park. The company would install their solar panels on the Park.
They are also looking to installing a small scale biodiesel makers for the park to use and possibly sell to some local small businesses as well.
Congressman Forbes spoke briefly to the crowd before he was shown around the 400,000 square foot Sustainability Park. He spoke of how he enjoys the reuse of things that many people in younger generations may just throw out and buy new. He said that while in the beginning of the television era when a family's television broke they called in the repair man but many people today will throw a broken television away and buy new with out a thought.
