9/8/2011 3:30:00 PMCleveland teacher Watching Obama at the Capitol tonight

September 8, 2011, 3:18 PM 
   
By Stephen Koff, The Plain Dealer

WASHINGTON -- When President Barack Obama addresses Congress tonight with his newest plan to create jobs, a number of business executives, local leaders and ordinary workers will be watching from the visitor gallery's VIP sections.

Among them is a Cleveland public school teacher who, come October, will be laid off, according to the American Federation of Teachers.

Nicole Gentile teaches third grade at Marion-Sterling Elementary School. A married mother of two, she'll be a guest in the First Lady's Box, the White House said.

Also present will be Kent businessman Albert Green, CEO of Kent Displays. He has helped drive development of the company's No Power LCDs for applications including eReaders, the White House said. The firm's Boogie Board electronic writing system was hailed as a transformational way to take notes -- a writing tablet like a dry erase board, but with no markers.

Other guests of the White House at tonight's speech in the Capitol will include Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory; General Electric chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who chairs the president's jobs council; AOL co-founder Steve Case; American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, and Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO.

The stakes are high for Obama's address, and the economy's bargain-basement performance has created plenty of skeptics about the president's ability to save his own job next year. House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from southwest Ohio, will have his own array of guests -- a group of people described by the speaker as "job creators" whose companies are hampered by excessive regulations.

Among them: Lisa Ingram, chief operating officer of Columbus-based White Castle. The new health care law, White Castle says, jeopardizes the company's ability to provide health care benefits and could destroy hundreds of jobs.

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