Green, clean and energized in Pa.

The talk was of job opportunities, worker training programs, and a flourishing state economy.

One manager from a Kennett Square firm said her clean-energy company was hiring - and expanding - throughout the United States.

What recession?

Though another dose of dismal unemployment data came from the Labor Department yesterday, optimism was in great supply in a ballroom at West Chester University on Thursday night.

Why? The potential of Pennsylvania's green economy - assuming a major infusion through the latest stimulus measure now before Congress.

"Clean energy will . . . rev our economic engine to generate a bright future for Pennsylvania," said Adam Garber of PennEnvironment, a research and policy group that cohosted the event. The forum was intended to inspire growth in clean-technology businesses and consumer use of more eco-friendly energy.

The federal stimulus package calls for spending $148.3 billion to develop renewable energy, energy efficiency and public transportation. Investing $4 billion of that in Pennsylvania would create 80,000 jobs, Garber said.

No wonder Kathleen McGinty, former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, sounded like a locker-room coach at halftime as she concluded a spirited talk.

"Let's go get 'em," she urged the audience of more than 300, where the non-matriculating seemed to far outnumber West Chester students. "Let's win with green."

McGinty, who is now working at Element Partners L.L.C. in Radnor, a private-equity firm that invests in clean technology, said Pennsylvania was off to a "big boon" start with companies such as Gamesa, the Spanish wind-electricity equipment maker in Fairless Hills, and Iberdrola Renewables, a wind-energy provider with local offices in Radnor.

Important to the state's green momentum is passage of the stimulus package, said Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.)

Now estimated in the $800 billion to $900 billion range, the stimulus plan is meant to "salvage jobs," Sestak said. Without it, he added, "we'll have over 12 percent unemployment" by year's end.

As proof that an economic sector based on solar panels, wind farms and biofuels, among other things, is gaining momentum, state labor official Fred Dedrick noted Thursday that the program manager for the Smart Energy Initiative of Southeastern Pennsylvania was not in attendance - because she was at another green-jobs conference.

"I think there are six of them going on right now," said Dedrick, deputy secretary for workforce development in Pennsylvania's Department of Labor & Industry.

For workers' part, what organized labor wants from a green economy are opportunities for "a career, not just a job," said Michael Fedor, a regional director of the AFL-CIO in Harrisburg.

"Every green-collar job created should take us closer," to a middle class that makes enough to not only live but save, he said.

It was perhaps Stephanie Madsen, an account manager at Comverge Inc., the Kennett Square firm, who provided the biggest morale boost.

"We are an expanding company," she opened. "There's a lot of opportunity."

Comverge helps businesses conserve power through energy audits, use of smart meters, and energy-efficient building-retrofits.

Taking notes as she talked was Matt Adams, 27, a West Chester resident who had the misfortune of taking a job in commercial real estate about 21/2 years ago.

"We acquired $250 million of real estate in 2007 and zero in 2008," he said, declining to name the company.

While not currently job hunting, Adams said he found the forum "reassuring."